The classical schooling movement has become a source of retrieval, revival even, of so many sources of knowledge and human flourishing abandoned by modernity. The classical Christian school can also renew the rich Christian heritage and vitality of hymn singing. To that end, Preston Atwood’s just published hymnal, Cantate Domino: A Liturgical Songbook for Classical Christian Schools, shows how hymnody is of great educational benefit.
In church history, two simple actions constantly emerge: systematic teaching of theology, and imaginative engagement through singing hymns.
Consider the depths of theology involved in processing the dual nature of Christ: fully God, and fully man, united in his sacrificial death. A course in systematic theology might spend three months and several thousand pages explicating the notions of a “sacred head” “weighed down” by thorns, abuse, and scorn, drawing the contrast with a “visage” that was “bright as morn.”
Bernard of Clairvaux took these concepts, arranging them poetically and musically, and his hymn “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” has taught deep Christology to millions of Christians, of all ages, since the 11th century.
O sacred head now wounded
With grief and shame weighed down
Now scornfully surrounded
With thorns thine only crown
How pale Thou art with anguish
With sore abuse and scorn
How does that visage languish
Which once was bright as morn
Through his hymn, Bernard draws the mind of the worshiper to the heights of Christian theology: Christ as fully God and fully man, with his two natures united in suffering to bring about the redemption of mankind. In this manner,
