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Hymns by Abusers, Cancel Culture, and Pastoral Responsibility

This blog contains language about sexual assault and abuse. It contains the names of a few accused abusers for the benefit of those who are unaware of those allegations and for clarity surrounding the topic of this blog. 

 

As the Director of The Center for Congregational Song, I have been closely following the dialogue and updates surrounding various liturgical composers accused of abuse. I have spent time listening to various perspectives, reading survivor accounts, and responding to requests from trusted colleagues on what might be helpful (see this webinar we hosted last year led by GIA Publications’ editor Kate Williams). However, I have not written anything on the topic for this blog. There are many things at play in this broader conversation within the worship leading community (pastors & priests, musicians, composers, liturgists, and publishers). Let me name a few:

  • Where is the place for forgiveness? Is this just “cancel culture” at play?
  • When dealing with anything surrounding abuse, emotions quickly go to the extremes. For those abused and who care for the abused, these conversations can be hurtful and exhausting, which is certainly unfair to those who have already borne more pain and suffering than they ever should have.
  • For those who love liturgy and congregational song, we form deep attachments to music which carry with them our own memories and understanding of who God is, so being told to not sing something that has previously been meaningful can feel like the loss of a friend and a disconnect from God.
  • There is a more conceptual/theological argument at play on whether a song (or piece of art) should be connected to the actions of its creator. This applies to situations of abuse as well as theological disagreements such as whether a Reformed congregation should sing songs by the Pentecostal/Neo-Charismatic megachurches Bethel or Hillsong (see this article by the conservative Reformed group G3 for an articulation of what’s at play there).
  • Finally, there is the philosophical/theological question about what we, as worship leaders, are doing when we plan worship and worship songs. Are we responsible for helping people praise God? Are we responsible for teaching people about God? Are we responsible for how a song or piece of the liturgy is perceived by every individual in the pews? What responsibility do we (or the liturgy) have for pastorally caring for those in the pews?

I’ll deal with these topics in reverse order.

 

What is the liturgy for and what is our responsibility as worship planners/leaders?

This question deserves a series of books, not a blog. For a series of essays that delve deeply into these topics specifically surrounding congregational song, see the new book by the North American Academy of Liturgy’s Liturgical Music Seminar: Living the Church’s Song. But since this is a blog, here I go. Of course, our primary goal when planning a liturgy is to praise God. Much like the question to Jesus about what is the “most important commandment,” our response must be that each liturgy should be planned to express our love of God. But, like Jesus in his reply to the Sadducees when they asked him what was the greatest commandment, our next breath must be “and to love our neighbor as ourselves.” The historic liturgy, while focused on our love and praise of God, has always acknowledged the fact that our care for each other is core to our love of God. That is, in fact, why we have the “passing of the peace.” You can see a brief summary of the history of the passing of the peace here.

If caring for our people is an integral part of expressing our love of God in the liturgy, then our pastoral concerns about what, how, and when people sing together is right and good. As my mentor Dr. C. Michael Hawn taught me, when asking people to sing in a worship service we are quite literally placing theology into their bodies, so we should never take that responsibility lightly. Choosing songs carefully, leading them well, and placing them thoughtfully in the liturgy are all pastoral works that are aimed at helping our communities love God and each other.

This idea also tracks with the recent emphasis on creating “safe sanctuary” environments. We work hard to have staff and volunteers background checked, include checks-and-balances during programming to avoid abuse situations, and more. Why should our liturgical choices not also continue the good work of creating “safe sanctuaries”? Otherwise we risk perpetuating systems that allow for abuse.

This leads us to the next point:

 

Is a song connected to its composer/author?

This is the point where we hear arguments such as this: “If we can’t sing music by [insert living composer here] because they did something bad, then we also shouldn’t sing Amazing Grace because John Newton was a slave trader.” In a society where most things are reduced to 10-second soundbites and nuance seems to be a lost art, these types of statements can often be perceived as obvious conversation-stoppers or simple solutions to the question at hand. However, the statements I’ve encountered like the example above seem to be false equivalencies. While they are related in some ways, they are different in two key ways:

  1. The abuse victims are living and asking for action from our community
  2. The artist or their estate still benefit financially and socially from the use of their music

When a work has entered public domain, it means a few things. First, the work is likely too old for anyone living to have known the artist personally. Second, the artist and their estate do not benefit financially from the work anymore because they can’t collect royalties for use of the work. And finally, it is unlikely that the composer’s social status will significantly increase in the public eye in a way that influences people’s social stances or ethics. So, to compare a hymn like Amazing Grace, or something else even more ancient, to a hymn written in the 1980s is not a fair comparison. There are forces at play for the 1980s hymn that are not present for an 1880s hymn.

So yes, recently written congregational song is tied in some significant ways to its creator.

…our pastoral concerns about what, how, and when people sing together is right and good.

The Broader Problem

Let’s pause for a moment to recognize the broader problem in our society to help contextualize our blog’s hyper-focus on congregational song.

The following graphics were copied from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website (click here for their full website)

1 in 5 women 24.8 percent
One in five women in the United States experienced completed or attempted rape during their lifetime. SOURCE Nearly a quarter (24.8%) of men in the U.S. experienced some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime. SOURCE
81% of women, 43% of men 1 in 3 women
Nationwide, 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. SOURCE One in three female victims of completed or attempted rape experienced it for the first time between the ages of 11 and 17. SOURCE
1 in 4 men 734,630
About one in four male victims of completed or attempted rape first experienced it between the ages of 11 and 17. SOURCE It is estimated that 734,630 people were raped (including threatened, attempted, or completed rape) in the U.S. in 2018. SOURCE

 

This topic is a larger societal problem. That means that when you look out on a Sunday morning, one out of every five women you see will have been the victim of completed or attempted rape. One out of every five men you see will have experienced some form of sexual violence. The fact that sexual assault and/or violence is also a problem in our churches and from artists who write liturgical music, is repugnant. The question for us as worship leaders is: will we actively participate in creating healing spaces for those who have been so deeply hurt, or will we be complicit through silence and inaction in the face of evil?

Our love for certain songs and their importance to parishioners

When I think about these statistics and my calling as someone who is tasked with planning liturgies that help people praise God and love their neighbor, how can I knowingly program music that simultaneously risks hurting a parishioner while also helping (financially and/or socially) a known perpetrator? There are over 250,000 text entries in hymnary.org. There are over 230,000 songs in the CCLI SongSelect database. Of the few hymns and songs by known sexual abuse perpetrators, you’ve got other options.

This homily from 2020 at Old St. Mary’s Church in Chicago, Illinois is a wonderful example of how this conversation can play out at a local parish or at a larger diocesan (synodal, presbytery, conference…whatever your church structure has set up) level.

 

Ok, but where is the place for forgiveness?

I’m not a theologian and I’m not an expert on many things, but one thing I do know is that I do not get to forgive someone on behalf of someone else (let’s not delve into the “role of a priest” for this article). Forgiveness between two parties must be done by those two parties in their own time and in their own way. In that middle time, when forgiveness has not been sought or has not been given, how we interact with those parties matters deeply. Will we be agents of change, so that further hurt is prevented? Will we be agents of healing, so that the hurt has space to heal? This is not “cancel culture.” This is healing culture…social responsibility culture…pastoral culture.

My sadness over not singing or choosing those songs pales in comparison to the pain and suffering of those I pray for every time the decision not to choose those songs needs to be made.

The two most prevalent persons in the field of congregational song that pertain to this topic and blog are Cesáreo Gabaráin (Spanish Roman Catholic priest who died in 1991, article here) and David Haas (American Roman Catholic Liturgical Composer, abuse accounts here). In these two cases, neither of the perpetrators have sought forgiveness (at least not publicly or in any public forum) and the survivors continue to seek public awareness of the abuse and repentance from their abusers.

Gabaráin cannot repent because he died before the allegations became public. His US Publisher, Oregon Catholic Press, has removed his music from their catalog (see their statement here).

Haas is living and still attending his local parish, the Church of St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul Park, Minnesota. His victims (44 separate reports) have asked that churches stop using his music. As of August 14th, Into Account reports that they have “received new first-person reports about Mr. Haas’s current behavior at STA, ranging from suggestive comments to surprising women with unwanted touching. Some of this behavior falls squarely into Mr. Haas’s known patterns of predatory grooming. Multiple women have reported to us that they no longer feel safe attending services there due to Mr. Haas’s presence and behavior.” Clearly he has not begun the process of changing his actions or seeking forgiveness.

So, where is the place for forgiveness? Unless you are one of the survivors or you are an abuser reading this blog, it’s not for you to decide whether there is forgivenness. And if a survivor does forgive their abuser, that in no way releases us from our responsibility to prevent further or recurring harm in the future. What we can control is who we advocate for and what we stand for in our liturgies. Do we make it clear that sexual violence and abuse of any kind is contrary to the Gospel? Do we make it clear that when someone is hurt we will be a place of sanctuary? Do we exclude songs that have been used as mechanisms of abuse to prevent further harm?

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, not singing Gabaráin’s best-known hymn “Pescador de hombres (Fisher of Men)” is something I lament because it was the first non-English hymn I fell in love with. I’ve used it for decades, both for my own devotional times and in my public ministry. I also lament not singing “You Are Mine” or “Come! Live In The Light” anymore. But, my sadness over not singing or choosing those songs pales in comparison to the pain and suffering of those I pray for every time the decision not to choose those songs needs to be made. The sacrifice of my congregation by not singing those songs pales in comparison to the joy-full work our music & worship committee did to discuss this topic and unanimously affirm that our concerns should be survivor-centered.

Stop singing songs by known abusers whose survivors continue to call for justice and repentance. Make it clear to all those in your congregation who have suffered sexual violence in any way that your congregation and their worship of God rejects evil and seeks to offer healing and peace to those who suffer. Our worship must love God and neighbor.

 

If you or anyone you know wants to know how to help in situations of abuse, please seek resources such as this helpful guide from RAINN: How to Support a Loved One | RAINN

 

Brian Hehn is the Director of The Center for Congregational Song. He also serves as the Director of Adult Discipleship and Liturgical Worship for St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Phoenix, MD.