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Glorious Things Of Thee Are Spoken

By purplehymnal

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS HYMN IS INCLUDED HERE FOR PURELY HISTORICAL REFERENCE PURPOSES.

The PurpleHymnal site administrator does NOT endorse any of the sentiments expressed in this hymn, and actively condemns the negative effects, the racism and the prejudice that this hymn fomented amongst and by members of the Worldwide Church of God, between 1974 and 1996.

Glorious Things Of Thee Are Spoken

Ah, yes, the good old Nazi party anthem. Presented here as proof that, yes, we really did sing an albeit ineptly-retitled, and ever-so-slightly reworked version of the Nazi party anthem. I never knew it was the Nazi party anthem until well after I exited the church, however. I ran across a reference to it on the Painful Truth website last year. That was the first time I had ever heard of it, or that I even began to comprehend, just how deeply the roots of Christian Identity and Aryan Brotherhood ran, in the precursor British-Israel movement espoused by the Worldwide Church of God.

Scuttlebutt around the assorted x-CoG watercoolers on the Internet has various tales to tell, about this particular marching song.

The general consensus seems to be that we sang it far too often in North American and British Commonwealth congregations.

Some congregations sang it because there were Germans in the group; others would not sing it, because there were Germans in the group.

Apparently it was a carefully neglected hymn, in most European congregations.

Needless to say, this is further proof that the Worldwide Church of God was the precursor organization, to the various violent and separatist Christian Identity movement churches that exist today.

And yet, you will never find any kind of “apology” for that, on the WCG’s “office of reconciliation ministries” website. They make a big deal about “reconciling” with those against whom racism was practiced by others, but they won’t go so far as to attempt to reconcile the very members they brainwashed into being racist bastards in the first place.

Does the ORM’s Ron Kelly have anything to say about this?

No, I didn’t think so.

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This entry was posted on July 4, 2008 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Glorious Things Of Thee Are Spoken”

  1. purplehymnal Says:
    July 17, 2008 at 11:17 pm |

    An anonymous source passed along the following comments, that I thought would be an interesting addition to the post.

    As a classical music aficionado, I thought I would drop you a line regarding your comments on the hymn “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.”

    I’m familiar with the purple hymnbook and find your site to be very interesting, although I think you are much too kind – I thought most of the hymns in that book were absolutely dreadful.

    The melody for “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken” was written by Franz Joseph Haydn as a birthday hymn for the Holy Roman Emperor Franz II. He also used the melody in his String Quartet in C major, Op 76 No3, subtitled “Emperor.” For the second movement, Haydn wrote a set of variations on the theme.

    The poem which begins “Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles” was written in 1841, and was intended to be sung to Haydn’s melody. The correct name is “Das Deutschlandlied,” or “The Song of Germany.” The melody predates the Nazis by about 130 years, and the lyrics by about 90. The subsequent uses to which the song was put by the Nazis has unfortunately stigmatized it. The song has been the German national anthem since 1922, and during the Nazi era was sung along with the Horst Wessel Song, which was the official Nazi party’s anthem. After the Second World War, the song was banned by the occupying powers because of its Nazi associations, but it was reinstated as the national anthem in 1952.

    John Newton, the composer of “Amazing Grace,” wrote the lyrics to “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.”

    Thanks to anonymous, for providing a little more background on the song. Whatever unfortunate uses the Nazis may have put the song to, it’s even more telling that Herbert W. Armstrong decided to put the song to much the same uses, many decades after the fall of Nazism itself.

  2. purplehymnal Says:
    August 13, 2008 at 4:17 pm |

    Another comment, shedding more light on this “hymn”.

    Why exactly was this hymn inserted into the Purple Joy Killer anyway? Those who deny that it was a conspiracy by Dwight and his brother to thought-reform the membership completely, have yet to provide a satisfactory answer to that one.

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