Our Father God, your name we praise

Many versified paraphrases of ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ fail because they destroy the simplicity, rhythm and meaning of the original. If this magnificent hymn from the Anabaptist tradition is a glorious exception, it is partly because its author and translator are not attempting simply to repeat ‘Our Father …’ but to use some of its key phrases as the structure for a new text— for the children of God meeting, listening and praying. The German original appeared in the Ausbund of 1590, dubbed by its English baptist translator as ‘The First Free Church Hymnal’. Its nucleus comprised some 50 hymns, many written in prison. This hymn was probably by Leonard Clock (or Klock) and known as ‘Das Lobegesang’ or Song of Praise. The Baptist Hymn Book Companion of 1962/67 (from which this information comes) says that the Pennsylvanian Old Amish Mennonites include it every Sunday as their second hymn. Ernest Payne’s translation appeared first with 3 stzs in The Baptist Hymn Book of 1962; Rejoice and Sing (1991) is a rare nonbaptist collection to include it. The updated text appeared in Praise! Preview in 1998 with stz 3 supplied, and is featured here in a full hymnal for the first time. The 1962 version had in stz 2 ‘… for thee/ set words of truth before us,/ that we may grow in constancy,/ the light of wisdom o’er us/ … restore us’; and concludes, ‘The power is thine, O Lord divine,/ the kingdom and the rule are thine …’.

The German words were set originally to AUS TIEFER NOTH, a tune sometimes now transferred to one of Luther’s hymns. The English version was introduced with, and is normally now set to, another 16th-c tune, the MIT FREUDEN ZART from the 1566 Berlin Kirchengesange … of the Bohemian Brethren. The name is from the 1st line of the words there, meaning ‘With tender joy.’ It may well have been in use earlier as a popular secular tune and adapted by the churches; it has certainly been adapted since, notably on its introduction to Britain in EH. Rejoice and Sing prints it 3 times, one of which corresponds to 261 here.

(also given as Glock or Klock). 16th c. He is the likely author of a notable Anabaptist hymn now revived in translation; see notes in EP vol 1. No.559.

b Hackney, NE London 1902, d Camden, N London 1980. King’s Coll, London; Regents Park Coll, London; Mansfield Coll Oxford. Ordained to the Baptist ministry, he served at Bugbrooke Baptist Ch nr Northampton from 1928–32. He worked with the Baptist Missionary Soc for the next 8 years, leading its youth work and then as Editorial Secretary. He became Senior Tutor at Regent’s Park College (by then at Oxford) in 1940, and a university lecturer in comparative religion. From 1951 to 1967 he was General Sec of the Baptist Union, serving during that time as Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council (1958–59). In 1968 he became President of the World Council of Churches. He was a leading Baptist administrator and historian, among his many books being The Fellowship of Believers, The Free Church Tradition in the Life of England, and The First Generation (1936), which was a biographical sketch of 20 early leaders of the BMS. With others, he also assisted in the compilation of The Baptist Hymn Book Companion (1962, revised 1967). No.559.