Well, this is the question that confronted the PCUSA hymnal committee recently:
Even more sustained theological debate occurred after the conclusion of the committee’s three-and-a-half years of quarterly meetings in January 2012. We had voted for a song from the contemporary Christian canon, Keith Getty and Stuart Townend’s “In Christ Alone.” The text agreed upon was one we had found by studying materials in other recently published hymnals. Its second stanza contained the lines, “Till on that cross as Jesus died / the love of God was magnified.” In the process of clearing copyrights for the hymnal we discovered that this version of the text would not be approved by the authors, as it was considered too great a departure from their original words: “as Jesus died / the wrath of God was satisfied.” We were faced, then, with a choice: to include the hymn with the authors’ original language or to remove it from our list.
Because we were no longer meeting as a committee, our discussions had to occur through e-mail; this may explain why the “In Christ Alone” example stands out in my mind—the final arguments for and against its inclusion are preserved in writing. People making a case to retain the text with the authors’ original lines spoke of the fact that the words expressed one view of God’s saving work in Christ that has been prevalent in Christian history: the view of Anselm and Calvin, among others, that God’s honor was violated by human sin and that God’s justice could only be satisfied by the atoning death of a sinless victim. While this might not be our personal view, it was argued, it is nonetheless a view held by some members of our family of faith; the hymnal is not a vehicle for one group’s perspective but rather a collection for use by a diverse body.
Arguments on the other side pointed out that a hymnal does not simply collect diverse views, but also selects to emphasize some over others as part of its mission to form the faith of coming generations; it would do a disservice to this educational mission, the argument ran, to perpetuate by way of a new (second) text the view that the cross is primarily about God’s need to assuage God’s anger. The final vote was six in favor of inclusion and nine against, giving the requisite two-thirds majority (which we required of all our decisions) to the no votes. The song has been removed from our contents list, with deep regret over losing its otherwise poignant and powerful witness.
What is striking about this debate is that apparently no one on the committee could actually argue for the legitimacy and truthfulness of a penal substitution view of the atonement, or that the PCUSA’s own Book of Confessions teaches it and not merely for the sake of diversity:
SATISFACTIONS. We also disapprove of those who think that by their own satisfactions they make amends for sins committed. For we teach that Christ alone by his death or passion is the satisfaction, propitiation or expiation of all sins (Isa., ch. 53; I Cor. 1:30). Yet as we have already said, we do not cease to urge the mortification of the flesh. We add, however, that this mortification is not to be proudly obtruded upon God as a satisfaction for sins, but is to be performed humbly, in keeping with the nature of the children of God, as a new obedience out of gratitude for the deliverance and full satisfaction obtained by the death and satisfaction of the Son of God. (Second Helvetic Confession XV)
Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to his Father’s justice in their behalf. Yet inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for anything in them, their justification is only of free grace; that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners. (Westminster Confession XIII.3)
Even the Confession of 1967 allows it:
God’s reconciling act in Jesus Christ is a mystery which the Scriptures describe in various ways. It is called the sacrifice of a lamb, a shepherd’s life given for his sheep, atonement by a priest; again it is ransom of a slave, payment of debt, vicarious satisfaction of a legal penalty, and victory over the powers of evil. These are expressions of a truth which remains beyond the reach of all theory in the depths of God’s love for man. They reveal the gravity, cost, and sure achievement of God’s reconciling work. (I.A.1)
Maybe it is true that people learn more theology from hymns than from creeds.
Old Life 
I’m guessing there will be no adaptations of Psalm 137 in their new hymnal either. And any settings of Psalm 1 would proceed “Blessed is the person who does not walk (unless differently abled)…”
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Trueman on “Calvinism – A History”:
A Few Good Books
A handful of book recommendations
Written by Carl Trueman | Friday, July 12, 2013
D.G. Hart’s long-awaited Calvinism: A History is finally here and it has proved worth the wait. The stalwart opponent of Schwaermerei everywhere does not disappoint. Again, I have thus far read only the first few chapters but the work is obviously well-written with the usual learning, wit and stimulating analysis one expects. Along with Benedict’s history of Reformed churches, this looks set to be a standard text. And though it comes up to the present, no Beautiful People merit a mention. Instead, DGH tells the story as one of ordinary people and ordinary churches making a difference through their very biblical ordinariness.
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“While this might not be our personal view.”
Who knew that people could have “personal views” that trumped the clear teaching of Scripture in the PCUSA? Next thing you know the Christian Reformed Church will be ordaining women or something crazy like that.
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I’m just thankful that God has saved me from his mild peevishness against sin…
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I’m sure history will show, and Darryl will have to begrudgingly take note, that praise bands are what finally rescued the gospel and calvinism from irrelevance and made all the elders kids want to come to church again and save them from the atheists on one side and pentecostals on the other.
Seriously, I’ve heard at least six stories in the past few years of pastor’s and elder’s kids who wouldn’t come to church because it was too dull. When did parents start giving kids a choice? And where the h-e-double hockey sticks were my parents when this seminar was going on! Dreary and depressing! Try junior seminary dodging the dysfunctional, effeminate and mal-adjusted.
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Erik, ah, but without the beautiful people, Tom won’t read it.
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I guess it’s a good thing that there’s no threat of anyone reading those confessions, lest there be yet another committee formed to exchange anguished e-mails.
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Sean, yes the greatest generation made us go to church. But we didn’t want to be like the greatest generation. We wanted live in the Lockean and Arminian world of consent. But I’m glad we have air tight walls between history and church history.
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Wishing for a web-based resource demonstrating doctrinal heterodoxies of specific songs.
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How come JJS hasn’t shown up on this one yet?
You cited PCUSA’s own “Book of Confessions”, but I don’t see anything in there about ‘wrath’ or ‘anger’. (Or perhaps it is hidden behind the word ‘propitiation’?). Perhaps the PCUSArs would try to make similar moves to JJS recently, squirming around to affirm atonement in the cross while trying to avoid the notion of the Father punishing the Son?
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Vermonster: “Wishing for a web-based resource demonstrating doctrinal heterodoxies of specific songs”
Dude! How about Table Talk Radio’s Praise Song Cruncher? Check out the PSC Marathon, and here’s a list of all praise songs crunched (here’s Show #38, where In Christ Alone passes the cruncher, apparently Townend is just about the only contemporary church musician that can survive the cruncher!)
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Also, this link to T.David Gordon-based resources should get you far:
http://confessionalouthouse.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/t-david-gordon-hymnal-revised/
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Ruberad, I like Pr. Wolfmeuller’s interviews with various praise band leaders or song writers, too. Their responses are often revealing (I know I heard an interview with Townend about how he writes a song, but not sure if it was on TTR)
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Great example of Neuhaus’s law.
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D. G. Hart
Posted July 12, 2013 at 10:07 am | Permalink
Erik, ah, but without the beautiful people, Tom won’t read it.
Well, you have Theodore Beza in it, which is good, although not John Ponet, D.D. or the “Vindiciae contra tyrannos.” [And of course the only passing mention of Michael Servetus.]
Looking at your claim on p. 32 that Reformed theology and worship attracted those “overwhelmingly urban and literate,” I think a footnote would have been in order, esp the way you got in Mark David Hall’s grill* for a similar claim that he didn’t footnote in an internet essay [although it turned out he did footnote it in his book].
*http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2013/06/mark-david-hall-responds-to-dghart.html?showComment=1370986111097#c1826165478766157594
But whatever. I’m sure there’s a good reason why you should not be held to the same standards. Good luck on your sales. I’m sure it’s of interest to certain of your co-religionists and perhaps some outside it.
As for the topic, your church songs, I think you have an excellent point, nay superlative, that people get their theology more from hymns than the other talky stuff–especially for the great majority who are neither urban[e] nor literate. Theological accuracy, then, is paramount. Props.
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Tom, please don’t tell my mohmee. Pretty please.
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If Tom bought D.G.’s book that’s the toughest $2 royalty he ever earned…
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Erik, I’m not holding my breath.
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Wow. If God isn’t undescribably wrathful towards my sin, God thought less of Jesus’ death on the cross than I thought.
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“Stories like these reveal an array of serious issues involved in compiling a denominational song resource. I frequently say to groups, ‘We will inevitably have made some wrong decisions as a hymnal committee; but to the best of my knowledge we made no careless or cavalier ones.'”
Followed by:
The one hymn about which we received the greatest number of textual objections was—perhaps surprisingly—not “Faith of Our Fathers” or “Onward, Christian Soldiers” (though we have been criticized, along with our earlier colleagues, for electing not to include either of these hymns) but “Be Thou My Vision.” While an alteration of the original translation’s “man’s empty praise” to “vain, empty praise” has slipped relatively easily into the singing vocabularies of Presbyterians in the pews, the shift from “High King of Heaven” to “Great God of Heaven” seems to have stuck in people’s craws. Coupled with the old Irish folk tune “Slane,” the Celtic appellation of “High King” has resonated somewhere deep in the hearts and imaginations of a great majority of our correspondents about this hymn.
Given that our collection already included such well-loved traditional hymns as “Come, Thou Almighty King” (or Christmas angels singing “glory to the newborn king”), we decided that to insist on gender neutrality in this one hotly disputed text seemed less important than to offer a concession to those who felt their heart song had been violated by changes in wording. We returned the hymn to language more closely akin to that of the Presbyterian Hymnbook of 1955.
Even gender neutrality, the chiefest concern of our Holy Amorphous Blob in Heaven or Wherever, can be conceded if someone’s heart song feels violated. At least they weren’t cavalier about it.
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I assume most, if not all know this, but just in case, the Getty’s song is more hymn than praise song. And it is meant for congreagational not praise team to sing. I do not much care for the Getty tunes, nor for sure the same-sounding, twangy RUF tunes, but the Gettys don’t fit into the P&W genre.
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