Golden HYMNS Of The FAITH : Blessed Assurance

The world may be divided between those who take it or leave it and those who split the difference.

- Fr. Ronald Knox 1888-1957.

While I was posting this item, Vera Lynn (the WWII 'forces sweetheart') was singing such old World War II favourites (remember 'Hits Of The Blitz'?) in the background as 'When The Lights Go On Again All Over The World', 'We'll Meet Again' and There'll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Of Dover' ... a strange coincidence, as our lights in the apartment had been out for the past two days and only went on at about 5 pm. this afternoon to coincide 'magically' with the inserting of this post and the playing of the DVD.

I am one of those incurable nostalgics who often try to revisit my old 'records' (read 'DVD's') and sit there listening while bawling my eyes out over the world of the forties, fifties, sixties etc. we had left so far behind.

I can still, as a toddler, vividly remember my parents and their friends dancing, in the late 1940's on New Year's Eve, to the tunes of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, while I lay tucked in in bed and only now and then stealing a glimpse of the gyrating couples on the dance floor from the small aperture in the doorway. Strange, the same wartime memories from the music of the forties that make my mother shudder and cringe today is the same music that blesses me with that incomparable charm of the music from one's unforgettable childhood.

The forties and fifties introduced many favourites, such as Laurence Welk, the Norman Luboff Choir, Peggy Lee, Perry Como, Patti Page, Jimmy Rodgers and many, many others. In South Africa in those days no respectable family went without a radio, and we just loved music ... Frankie Carle, George Feyer, Mitch Miller & The Gang, Ray Conniff and in South Africa: Eve Boswell etc.

In those days Gospel music (especially Southern Gospel) was very rare, except maybe for congregational singing in Church on Sundays, and also in certain pentecostal and some other denominations only. It was only with the introduction of Gospel music on a mass scale via radio by such pioneers as Rex Allen, Jimmy Davis, Stuart Hamblen, Jimmy Dean, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Gordon McCrae, George Beverly Shea, The Blackwood Brothers, The Jordanaires and later, Jim Reeves, Pat Boone, Elvis Presley, Jimmy Swaggart and the Bill Gaither Trio that it really began to take off countrywide, even crossing over denominational boundaries in the process. Contemporary 'Praise & Worship', especially the 'gentle alternative', came as a fresh wind of change to the Church in South Africa.
The recent introduction of so-called 'Gospel Rock' and 'Contemporary Urban Gospel' etc. introduced a new genre of music into the Gospel music scene with its peculiar challenges, idiosyncrasies and problems which are not necessarily wrong or theologically objectionable, but is 'enjoyed' with considerable difficulty by my generation with ears trained to appreciate the more refined sounds and gentle alternatives of (what I affectionately refer to as) at the one extreme, 'The Viennese School Of Music' tradition or, in a more recent vein (and at the other extreme) the 'Nashville Sound' tradition.

The question is: Will God bless us for our love for the music of the Gospel? Does He value and appreciate our inputs, time spent on listening and appreciating good music (whatever the choice of genre)? Does He know of our periodic heartbreak, trauma, loneliness, melancholy and the debilitating nostalgia attached to waiting on the return of Christ and the establishing of His Eternal Kingdom? Does He remember and cherish people like the blind Fanny Crosby who devoted her life to writing songs that honoured her Heavenly Father and Saviour Jesus Christ? Does He enjoy our praise and worship, regardless of the choice of style? I have a hunch that He does and that we have that blessed assurance from His promises in the Bible.

YouTube 1
YouTube 2

Blessed Assurance

(Fanny J. Crosby, 1820-1915/Phoebe P. Knapp, 1839-1908)

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

O what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Perfect submission, perfect delight!

Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;

Angels descending bring from above

Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest,

I in my Savior am happy and blest;