Opus 2026-420: Hold that Note

I was thinking about the song “A Mighty Fortress” and about how we tend to sing it the way we’re used to singing it, not the way it is actually written.  We sing “A mighty Fortress is our Goooooood; a bulwark never failing.”  That’s not the way it’s written.  It’s written “A mighty Fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.”  There is no long hold on the word “God”.

So we have tradition as opposed to the original text.  Now you’ll notice that it does not change the meaning of the song when you pause there.  It throws in no theological monkeywrench.  It’s just a different rhythm.  Singing it as written may confuse some people.  It will certainly embarrass some people.  It might even make some angry.  But it doesn’t change anything.

Some tradition is like that.  It doesn’t matter whether you immerse or pour.  It doesn’t matter whether you stand or sit.  There are all kinds of traditions we have that do not matter.

The discernment comes when you have a tradition that actually changes the meaning of this song or the scripture.  I can’t think of any musical examples where a different rhythm changes things.  There are probably places where if you change the punctuation and put periods at different places or leave certain phrases out that it could change the theological implication what you’re singing, but that would be very unusual.

So enjoy your traditions. Understand that they are traditions, and that people with different traditions are not necessarily heretics.

homo unius libri