This dissertation examines theological authority in the hymns and spirituals of
American Protestantism within the period 1830-1930. It investigates the
deuterocanonical status of hymns in hymnic-theological commentary, and
demonstrates the functional canonicity of hymns in three case studies (children's
hymnody, African American spirituals, and hymns of marginalized groups), and two
representative areas of praxis (conversion and missions).
This dissertation consults a variety of primary source materials, both elite and
popular, including journals, biographies, conference minutes, academic addresses,
theological works, hymn prefaces, domestic novels, newspapers, and poetry. These
sources are used to situate the hymnal in the cultural context of American
Protestantism and determine the status and role of hymnody.
As the Bible is acclaimed the exclusive canonical text of Protestantism, consideration
of the hymnal's theological authority in canonical terms is at odds with Protestant
biblicism. As such, this dissertation's claim that the hymnal shared, to a significant
degree, the Bible's place as a textual source of theological authority, is intellectually
innovative. In identifying didactic and doctrinal themes in hymnals, primarily through
systematic theology, this dissertation shows the role of hymns and spirituals in
regulative theology and audible faith. Thus defended in this dissertation, is the
hymnal's capacity to adjudicate on matters of faith and praxis.
Of additional importance to this dissertation is its contribution toward hymnic theology, as well as demonstrating the hymnal's influence upon historical theology,
liturgical theology, cultural theology, and evangelistic theology. This dissertation
yields various insights for theology, especially the soteriological efficacy· of
hymnody, the role of hymns in regulative theology, and the discussion of antiSemitism
and black-liberation theology in African American spirituals. In applied
theology and congregational studies the ramifications are critical, with the analysis of
hymnic authority, the intersection of singing and doctrine (lex cantandi lex credendi),
and the Bible and hymnal as mutually constitutive, all of paramount importance.