Heaven and Nature Sing

: Creating Hymns with an Eschatological Ethic

Abstract

This dissertation includes a creative body of work containing 120 original hymns that relate to the eschatological ethic of ‘new heaven and earth’. The collection includes texts that fall into hymn categories from hymnals, including seasons and festivals throughout the church year as well as psalms and other thematic topics. During the course of research, many of these hymns have been performed or published.
Hymnody is an art form that engages Christian communities on a weekly basis, and all hymnists grapple with the challenge of writing new hymn texts that connect enduring themes of Christianity to current global concerns, such as care for the environment and for other people.
Eschatological ethic can be seen to underly much of hymn creation and curation and the dissertation argues that it is an overlooked factor in how hymn writers urge Christians to consider their relationship to global concerns.
The accompanying critical investigation usefully defines three broad approaches to eschatological ethic for hymnists and hymn scholars: ‘heaven on earth’, ‘heaven is my home’, and ‘new heaven and earth’. An analysis of well-known and contemporary hymns follows, demonstrating how each eschatological ethic can be read in hymn texts.
Because hymns are necessarily collaborative in nature and often foster religious dialogue, the dissertation argues that a successful hymn must possess insight, intertextuality, and motivation. Further examples and textual analysis demonstrates how hymnists employ singability, familiarity, and originality in order to create memorable texts.
The critical investigation concludes by addressing the challenges of writing successful hymns and the creative tensions encountered when attempting to create singable, familiar-sounding, original new work that also teaches complex elements of Christian doctrine and thought (such as eschatology). The concluding paragraphs reflect on how the project has both increased the writer’s awareness of eschatological ethic in hymnody and understanding of her own creative
processes.

Date of Award	18 Mar 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Mimi Thebo (Supervisor), Gavin G D'Costa (Supervisor) & Carrie Etter (Supervisor)