Why Don't We Sing Amens Anymore?

It is such a simple thing, singing those two syllables at the end of our hymns. There was something so comforting and satisfying about singing this little musical "let it be" or "so be it" after every hymn. We had come to expect it, to look forward to it, to welcome it, perhaps to need it. Perhaps we even felt incomplete or unfulfilled when singing those two syllables was denied. Sometimes the choir would take over with a festive extended musical setting of the amen after a congregational hymn; the message might have been that the voice of the people was somehow inadequate to offering this time-honored hymn ending to "our" music.

And then it happened — the unthinkable! They removed all the amens from all the hymns in the 1989 United Methodist Hymnal. The only exception was the Doxology, number 95, "Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow," which was the sole possessor of the people's traditional amen. How, in the words of the final stanza of 139 ("Praise to the Lord, the Almighty"), could we possibly "Let the amen sound from his people again; gladly forever adore him"? And even this great verse was now to be sung without a concluding amen.

Dr. Carlton Young, editor of the 1966 and 1989 hymnals, had recommended the following for consideration by the hymnal revision committee: "With the exception of the end of prayers and doxological stanzas or where the composer has written the music for an amen, the amen is recommended for deletion." (Companion to The United Methodist Hymnalby Carlton Young. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993, p.139) Dr. Young and the committee were heavily influenced by the writings of Erik Routley in Church Music and the Christian Faith (Carol Stream, IL: Hope Publishing Co., 1978), whose essay on the liturgical use of "Amen" is included in its entirety in The Hymns of The United Methodist Hymnal(Diana Sanchez, Volume Editor; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989, pp. 269-271).

Here is Routley's argument summarized:

1. It was in medieval Ambrosian chant that amens were first added to the final stanzas of hymns in praise of the Trinity. These final stanzas are known as doxologies, many of which may be found in our United Methodist Hymnal (nos. 61, 62, 64, 102, 160, 184, 559, 651, and others).
2. The custom of adding amens to hymns did not exist in Lutheran, Reformed, seventeenth- or eighteenth-century Anglican (including the Wesleys and early Methodism) or evangelical congregational song.
3. By the middle of the nineteenth century, hymnbook compilers were including translations of some of the ancient hymns that included amens. The problem arose with the musical style of the hymns of the nineteenth century; that is, they were composed for the meters of the poetry of the texts, and the amens were usually two short syllables added to the final stanza, so the music of the hymn tune did not accommodate them. As a result, the doxological amen was added to the final stanza following the completion of its singing, usually set to the familiar IV-I plagal or amen cadence.
4. Eventually, additional concluding doxologies with amens were added to hymns that originally did not contain them — to the point where the most influential hymnal of the nineteenth century, Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861), added an amen to every hymn.
5. Some American hymnals picked up the practice, including the Presbyterian hymnal of 1895. The Methodist hymnals of 1905 and 1935 did the same. The 1966 Methodist Hymnal began to reverse the process by deleting the amen from selected hymns, including "How Great Thou Art" and "The First Noel."
6. By the middle of the twentieth century, British Anglicans dropped the amens, while American Episcopalians continued it until their 1982 hymnal, which also dropped the amens. Most hymnals toward the end of the century dropped the amens, and the Southern Baptists never included them.

The 1989 United Methodist Hymnal thus continued the trend by dropping the amens in favor of a return to the more historic Methodist (and Christian) practice of hymn singing. Realizing that singers, musicians, and organists might be slow to accept the loss, the keyboard edition of The United Methodist Hymnal includes the plagal cadence in all major and minor keys and positions.

By the turn of the millennium, the practice of adding amens to hymns in United Methodist congregations has almost totally disappeared, and the controversy has ceased.

For Additional Reading

Routley, Erik. Church Music and the Christian Faith. Carol Stream, IL: Hope Publishing Co., 1978.

Sanchez, Diana, ed. Hymns of The United Methodist Hymnal: Introduction to the Hymns, Canticles, and Acts of Worship. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989.

Young, Carlton R.Companion to The United Methodist Hymnal. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993.

This article was prepared by Dean McIntyre, director of music resources for the Discipleship Ministries.