GS 1986 art 189

GS 1986 ARTICLE 189

New Melody, Apostles’ Creed

Committee 4 presents:

A.    MATERIAL

  • –  Agenda, VIII, B, 4 Letter from the Church at Coaldale re alternate melody for Hymn 1.
  • B, 5 Letter from sr. D. Jansen re melody of Hymn 1.

B.    OBSERVATIONS

  • 1.     Both the Church at Coaldale and sr. D. Jansen propose an alternate melody, composed by D. Zwart, Jr., for Hymn 1.
  • 2.     The Church at Coaldale states that “both the Standing Committee  for the  Book of Praise and General Synod of Cloverdale of 1983 failed to reckon with a previous Synodical decision of the General Synod of Smithville of 1980, Acts, Art . 122.”
  • 3.     The wording given along with the submitted  melody is the  ” previous  text”  of the Apostles’ Creed.
  • 4.     Synod has decided (Acts, Art. 101) to “instruct the Standing Committee for the Book of Praise to insert the word ‘Christian’ in Hymn 1A if this is possible.”
  • 5.     The present Hymn 1A is the “previous text” of the Apostles’ Creed.

C.    CONSIDERATIONS

  • 1.     Hymn 1B is evidence that the General Synod of 1983 took the consideration of the General Synod of 1980 into account. namely, that “an alternate melody for Hymn 1 is desirable, since there still are complaints about the existing one as being too ‘gregorian’ ” (Art. 122, C, I, 4, a, p. 85). However, Hymn 1B is un­ suitable as a replacement of the previous Hymn 1.
  • 2.     The 1980 General Synod adopted a revised text for the Apostles’  Creed (Acts, Art . 107) which was amended by the 1983 General  Synod (Acts, Art. 70) and this “new text” should be used.
  • 3.     The “new text” of the Apostles’ Creed does not appear to fit the melody com­posed by D. Zwart, Jr.

D.   RECOMMENDATION

Synod decides.

  • 1.     to pass on this melody (cl. Observation 1) to the Standing Committee for the Book of Praise so that they may consider if it can be adapted to the ” new text” or whether a new melody can be found for this “new text;”
  • 2.     to instruct the committee to report back to the next general synod.

The recommendations are ADOPTED.