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The War on Pronouns, cont’d

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(one in an occasional series highlighting ridiculous inclusive-language overkill, without regard for the scansion, meaning, or music.)
 
This one doesn’t really involve pronouns, but it’s the same mindset of knee-jerk language correction. We’re doing a sappy turn-of-the-century piece by Charles Wood, a setting of part of Expectans Expectavi by Charles Hamilton Sorley:
This sanctuary of my soul
Unwitting I keep white and whole,
Unlatched and lit, if Thou should’st care
To enter or to tarry there.
 
With parted lips and outstretched hands
And listening ears Thy servant stands,
Call Thou early, call Thou late,
To Thy great service dedicate.

The director instructed us to change the word “white” to “pure” in the second line. My usual objection, wrecking the poetry, doesn’t apply here, since the sense is the same and the poem is pretty pedestrian. But it just seems so pointless. There’s no way that line was intended to suggest anything about skin color, but that’s the only possible rationale for changing it.
 
That’s a losing battle. What are we going to do with (Psalm 51)
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
         Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
or (Te Deum)
Your praises are sung by the renowned Apostles;
By all the prophets, who themselves deserve our praise;
By that mighty white-robed army who shed their blood for Christ.
or (Rev. 7:14)
These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
There’s just no way we can eliminate the symbolism of whiteness (there’s a whole chapter about it in Moby Dick). “White” is not a four-letter word. It’s just silly.
 
Pictured: Charles Hamilton Sorley

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  1. “What are we going to do with … (Te Deum)
       Your praises are sung by the renowned Apostles;
       By all the prophets, who themselves deserve our praise;
       By that mighty white-robed army who shed their blood for Christ.”
     
    Well, what we could do is what the Book of Common Prayer has done for centuries: “The noble army of Martyrs praise thee”.
     
    On the whole, the Common Prayer English is much closer to the original Latin
       Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
       Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
       Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus
    than the paraphrase that you quote above; but nevertheless, it translates “candidatus” as “noble” rather than the more literal “white-robed”. Perhaps, in the sixteenth century, that was a silly decision, or politically loaded; but I quite like the result.

  3. Ah…the dumbing down of media for those who would not take the time to understand context and meaning. Personally, had I knowledge of the original text, upon hearing it changed I would find my listening experience more distracted and sullied by the ridiculousness of the reasoning behind it.
     
    Joy

  4. When I was in seminary, a similar situation came up when a hymn was chosen that mentioned “black despair” and several students (some African-American) were angry, citing that black was often negatively charged while white was viewed as good. Responding, people said, “But that’s not what this means in this case.” Our very wise teacher, Roger Deschner told us, “That may be true, but if people are offended, no one has the right to tell them that they shoudn’t be, even if there was no intent. That doesn’t make the feeling offended just go away.” This is a difficult issue. If a choice is made innocently – or naively- without malicious intent, that should be taken into consideration. But knowing how words have the the amzing power to both hurt and heal, those of us in the business of choosing them simply have to be careful. Our job, at least in church-work, is not to drive people away. (Ok, I realize this is laughable considering the whole history of Christianity, but let’s overlook that just for this discussion… ; )   Who of us would program the whole of Wesley’s immortal “O for a Thousand Tongues” and include: 
    Awake from guilty nature’s sleep, And Christ shall give you light,
    Cast all your sins into the deep, And wash the Ethiop white.
    Yikes!
    The history of Christian hymnody has been one in which words of the texts were altered and omitted to fit the needs of the changing times. To suddenly draw a line in the sand and take the stance that we’re NOT going to do that anymore seems artificial and legalistic. We just have to be careful when changing thngs to do it carefully (or find someone who can), or simply choose to not do that hymn or anthem. Or, perhaps to include a note to inform the congregation about the time in which the work was written and why it’s being chosen now. People can be amazingly reasonable when we include them in the discussion. 
    To quote another hymn by James Lowell – New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth, They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

  5. When was the piece written?   Some of what choral musicians do is bring life back into music of history and each piece is written as part of its era.  Can you imagine going into an art museum and painting longer or shorter dresses on the ladies or putting the Blue Boy into a different set of clothes more fitting with a given time period?
     
    There are times where we purposely reinterpret music into a modern age but the type of text change you noted seems pointless.

  6. I’ve been fighting these wars for a long time.  My argument is simple.  I say:

    No doubt that these wordsmiths were thinking in their heads, “Let’s see how many people I can piss off today with this poem!”.  No matter how inane, I never would retouch the words of a modern hymn or song, and therefore would not retouch the words of a song from a further back generation, or even retouch a translation which was made somewhere back in time. 

     
    Fight the good fight with all of your might!

  7. Allen,
    That is only one word changed. How about this; Instead of Here I raise my Ebenezer … changed to  Here I find my greatest treasure. A true “worship leader” should sieze upon the opportunity to say something meaningful in explaining what Ebenezer means. But, Hey, it takes a little scriptural awareness to do that!
     
    The title of the same song, Come, Thou Fount of Ever Blessing remains because no one would recognize such as, Hey, You Source of All My Good Stuff.
     
    Ed P
     
     

  8. I think Sorley’s image of keeping the soul ‘white and whole’ is potentially more distracting than the other examples you give. Where the metaphor is clearly laundry-related, or even just cleanliness-related, then people are unlikely to make the leap to skin-colour. Of course, in the context of these other examples, referring to the soul’s ‘whiteness’ feels more like a washing metaphor, but just by itself it could evoke more of a sense of identity/personal essence which could be understood in racial terms. 
     
    Whether it needs bowdlerising…well, I’m not convinced it would be neccessary. But someone has to make a judgement as to which would be more of a distraction to the listeners – the changing of words, or the stray thoughts that question the original words’ appropriateness. And as you say, you don’t lose a lot in poetic terms in this example, except a spot of alliteration.
     
    So, not the most egregious example you have found by a long chalk!
     
    liz

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