SPLIT: Song: Amazing Grace--theologically unsound.

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benedictgal said:
The song was intended for Protestant worship. While it was in use for the better part of 200 years within the various Protestant ecclesial communities, its use in some Catholic churches is a recent novelty, about 35 years old.

Whatever is used for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass needs to be consistent with Catholic sacramental, liturgical and dogmatic theology. The supporters of this song really have not proven anything nor offered anything that justifies its use.
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And you’ve not proven the opposite.

How about we agree to disagree on this one, BG?
 
UnityofTrinity said:
Why? There are no problems that I could see. The English language is beautiful.
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Personally I see Polish and Latin more beautiful for liturgy. But like any language, English has its own limitations. The second person is terribly ambiguous. Also homophones abound. More importantly meanings change. You can’t tell me amazing was used the same way 100 years ago as it is used today.
 
UnityofTrinity said:
You still own us a great explanation of how AG does not fit these criterias, given that what you did was twisting the English language badly.
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Don’t know what exactly you, UT, mean here. How did I twist the English language at all, badly no less? Just as I thought my feelings against AG couldn’t get any stronger, I get accused of that.

Let’s see if this makes sense. What would you, UT, say to a door-to-door saleman who told you unless you think of a good reason why you shouldn’t buy his product, your credit card will be charged? Wouldn’t you complain? Wouldn’t you want him to explain why this is beneficial and it’s better than anyone else’s before you bought it? See my point? Probably not.

But I see my arguments are going nowhere and I’m exhausted so I’ll give you and all your AG cohorts the last word. My feelings against AG are strong enough and I’ll just have to grin and bear it, thank you very much. I’m unsubscribing from the thread.
 
ProVobis said:
Let’s see if this makes sense. What would you, UT, say to a door-to-door saleman who told you unless you think of a good reason why you shouldn’t buy his product, your credit card will be charged? Wouldn’t you complain? Wouldn’t you want him to explain why this is beneficial and it’s better than anyone else’s before you bought it? See my point? Probably not.
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This thread did not begin because someone offered a product for sale, it began because someone called the product fraudulent, defective, and dangerous.
 
benedictgal said:
The song was intended for Protestant worship. While it was in use for the better part of 200 years within the various Protestant ecclesial communities, its use in some Catholic churches is a recent novelty, about 35 years old.

Whatever is used for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass needs to be consistent with Catholic sacramental, liturgical and dogmatic theology. The supporters of this song really have not proven anything nor offered anything that justifies its use.
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And why would “Ye holy watchers” be an exception? All you said is this: “It’s Protestant, it’s not good for mass”, then when asked about “Ye Holy watchers”, you claim that it has a Marian verse in there, so therefore it is legitimate enough. Well, then what happen to AG? Point to me anywhere that AG is not legitimate. All the supposedly evidence you gave me were all just bad English.
 
benedictgal said:
And, sadly, he’s dead. Fr. Sam Weber, from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, set the antiphons to music. His compositions are brilliant. There are also several Catholic musicians over at Musica Sacra who compose genuine sacred music. However, because they are not afiliated with a big publishing house, these composers do not get the exposure they need.
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I often wish there was one publishing house ran specifically by the Church, not for profit, no staff musicians. The profit motive has lead to a production of a poorer product. I like some of the works of Hagen, Haas and Shutte, but only a fraction of what they publish is really great. Too much of it is filler. John Newton was, like many others, a one hit wonder. In todays industrial style of cranking out hymns, such greatness is squelched in favor of those already on staff.
 
ProVobis said:
Don’t know what exactly you, UT, mean here. How did I twist the English language at all, badly no less? Just as I thought my feelings against AG couldn’t get any stronger, I get accused of that.

Let’s see if this makes sense. What would you, UT, say to a door-to-door saleman who told you unless you think of a good reason why you shouldn’t buy his product, your credit card will be charged? Wouldn’t you complain? Wouldn’t you want him to explain why this is beneficial and it’s better than anyone else’s before you bought it? See my point? Probably not.

But I see my arguments are going nowhere and I’m exhausted so I’ll give you and all your AG cohorts the last word. My feelings against AG are strong enough and I’ll just have to grin and bear it, thank you very much. I’m unsubscribing from the thread.
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You and benedictgal pretty much remind me of Fundamentalist Christians who keep saying the Catholic Church is fraud despite being explained for thousands of times.

“How precious did that grace appear”, how could anyone possibly interpret this as an argument for OSAS? I can’t possibly imagine, it’s like a Protestant try to use Paul’s teachings to advocate Sola Fide, in this case it has been done badly.

I think you don’t understand the problem here, it was you, Aramis, Benedictgal that trying to prove this song is theological unsound. We’re not the ones that trying to prove anything, but the burdens are on you to prove that why these are wrongs. And till this point the only you have done so far is screaming “heretical”, twisting English, and grumbling about Protestants being…Protestants.
 
UnityofTrinity said:
And why would “Ye holy watchers” be an exception? All you said is this: “It’s Protestant, it’s not good for mass”, then when asked about “Ye Holy watchers”, you claim that it has a Marian verse in there, so therefore it is legitimate enough. Well, then what happen to AG? Point to me anywhere that AG is not legitimate. All the supposedly evidence you gave me were all just bad English.
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I’m a bit curious about this myself.

Is “a Protestant Hymn”, “meant for Protestant worship” a disqualifying factor for a hymn being used in Catholic mass or not, BG? It seems so only if it fits they hymns that you like.

So…I’d like to know as well what criteria you’re using, BG. Seems that you’ve used both sides of the “Protestant hymn” coin to simulaneously support and diss different hymns, no? Could you elaborate, please?
 
Newbie2 said:
I’m a bit curious about this myself.

Is “a Protestant Hymn”, “meant for Protestant worship” a disqualifying factor for a hymn being used in Catholic mass or not, BG? It seems so only if it fits they hymns that you like.

So…I’d like to know as well what criteria you’re using, BG. Seems that you’ve used both sides of the “Protestant hymn” coin to simulaneously support and diss different hymns, no? Could you elaborate, please?
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I think it’s the “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes” theory. And wouldn’t you like to know how long it would take 10,000 monkeys banging on 10,000 typewriters to write a proper Catholic hymn? 😛

Betsy
 
benedictgal said:
He did not write it for Catholics. Despite the arguments that other posters have used, this song is inconsistent with the Catholic faith, espouses Calvinistic teaching and was composed for Protestants. The fact that this song only shows up in “Catholic” song books like Worship II as late as 1975 indicates that AG was never considered for use during the Mass. It did not even show up in the People’s Mass Book hymnal, which was published back in 1970.
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You didn’t even read my post, did you? I don’t think you read anyone’s posts except those who agree with you. This makes me wonder if you skip over all the parts of the various Church documents that you disagree with, and only quote those that you agree with.

This song Amazing Grace does NOT espouse Calvinism. For this statement to be true, your bizarre grammatical interpretation of the sentence, “How Precious did that Grace appear, the hour I first believed” would have to be true.

Your grammatical interpretation is absolutely incorrect. Many others on this thread besides me have pointed this out and you refuse to accept anyone’s analysis of the grammar other than your own. You happen to be wrong about this, and therefore, you are basing your interpretation of the song’s theology on an incorrect interpretation of the song’s grammar. Therefore, your comments are not worth reading because they are wrong.

I agree with someone else who posted who said that if you asked any Protestant, they would interpret it the way all of us interpret it–“the hour I first became aware of my faith in Jesus and Who He really is, the sheer immensity and wonder of the grace of God overwhelmed me.”

But for the sake of argument, let’s just say that your strange interpretation of the sentence IS what Newton intended–“Grace appeared as a result of my belief.” (which is NOT what the grammar is).

THAT IS NOT CALVINISM, benedictgal.

According to renowned Calvinist scholar and theologian, R.C. Sproul:

Calvinism: Regeneration precedes belief.
Lutheranism: Belief precedes regeneration.

In other words, YOUR interpretation of the sentence means that the song espouses LUTHERANISM, not Calvinism . There is a gigantic difference in the theology.

It is my opinion that Catholicism is closer to Calvinism (regeneration precedes belief) than Lutheranism (belief precedes regeneration). That makes sense, because John Calvin lifted many of his ideas about regeneration from St. Augustine of Hippo.

In fact, if you visit Cavlin College and go to the Prince Center, you will see a mural on the wall depicting the history of Calvinism. The FIRST person illustrated in the mural is St. Augustine of Hippo. 🙂
 
benedictgal said:
The song was intended for Protestant worship. While it was in use for the better part of 200 years within the various Protestant ecclesial communities, its use in some Catholic churches is a recent novelty, about 35 years old.

Whatever is used for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass needs to be consistent with Catholic sacramental, liturgical and dogmatic theology. The supporters of this song really have not proven anything nor offered anything that justifies its use.
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We have dealt with the issue of being written by a Protestant for Protestant worship… and you came out the worse. But instead of responding to our posts, you simply write “deflection”. I wonder if writing the word “deflection” is, itself, a deflection.

Furthermore, I have written TWO different posts going line by line through Amazing Grace, the first theologically and the second with citations. You have NOT responded to EITHER, nor have you told me why what I said in those posts were incorrect.
Either you don’t read them and/or you can’t.
 
bmadamsberry said:
We have dealt with the issue of being written by a Protestant for Protestant worship… and you came out the worse. But instead of responding to our posts, you simply write “deflection”. I wonder if writing the word “deflection” is, itself, a deflection.

Furthermore, I have written TWO different posts going line by line through Amazing Grace, the first theologically and the second with citations. You have NOT responded to EITHER, nor have you told me why what I said in those posts were incorrect.
Either you don’t read them and/or you can’t.
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I think there’s legitimate room for disagreement on this topic. However, some can’t seem to be able to agree to disagree, which I find more frustrating than trying to “sell” 😉 my own POV.

We’ve all got our opinions on this matter, but until there’s a list of “acceptable” and “unacceptable” songs that comes down to us from some ecclesial authority, our opinions are merely opinions.
 
UnityofTrinity said:
And why would “Ye holy watchers” be an exception? All you said is this: “It’s Protestant, it’s not good for mass”, then when asked about “Ye Holy watchers”, you claim that it has a Marian verse in there, so therefore it is legitimate enough. Well, then what happen to AG? Point to me anywhere that AG is not legitimate. All the supposedly evidence you gave me were all just bad English.
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Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, in case you missed my explanation, is not inconsistent with the Faith of the Church. In fact, it matches up with both the Te Deum and the Litany of the Saints.

AG is wholly Protestant. One can try to excuse bad grammer, but, it still speaks of the Protestant understanding of grace and salvation, no matter how hard people here have been trying to make that square peg fit into a round hole.
 
benedictgal said:
Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, in case you missed my explanation, is not inconsistent with the Faith of the Church. In fact, it matches up with both the Te Deum and the Litany of the Saints.

AG is wholly Protestant. One can try to excuse bad grammer, but, it still speaks of the Protestant understanding of grace and salvation, no matter how hard people here have been trying to make that square peg fit into a round hole.
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So, just to be clear, there are additional catagories of “partly” and “wholly” Protestant hymns, the “wholly” not being acceptable for mass and the “partly” possibly being acceptable for mass?

Are you then modifying/clarifying the criteria of “written by a Protestant for Protestant worship” as maybe acceptable for Catholic worship, because it seemed that previously you’d used this criteria to exclude AG.

And yes, I’m totally serious. I’m now very confused about your criteria for which “Protestant” songs are acceptable, which are not, and why. :confused:
 
benedictgal said:
AG is wholly Protestant. One can try to excuse bad grammer, but, it still speaks of the Protestant understanding of grace and salvation, no matter how hard people here have been trying to make that square peg fit into a round hole.
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Prove it! you haven’t proved it, and you have ignored those that have proved that it can be seen in a Catholic light. You are calling a round peg square, even when you have been shown the peg.
 
bmadamsberry said:
Prove it! you haven’t proved it, and you have ignored those that have proved that it can be seen in a Catholic light. You are calling a round peg square, even when you have been shown the peg.
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And, you have not proven any of your points. You are merely relying on deflection in your arguments and nothing else.
 
benedictgal said:
And, you have not proven any of your points. You are merely relying on deflection in your arguments and nothing else.
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Actually, as she wrote:
“Furthermore, I have written TWO different posts going line by line through Amazing Grace, the first theologically and the second with citations. You have NOT responded to EITHER, nor have you told me why what I said in those posts were incorrect.
Either you don’t read them and/or you can’t.”
Why don’t you try engaging with that before resorting to disparaging remarks?
 
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