When their application to make this change in their new hymn book was refused, they withdrew the entire hymn. The Presbyterian Church in the USA found a version in a 2010 Baptist hymnbook in which this change had been made unauthorised. Some have proposed changing ‘wrath’ to ‘love’, and the whole line to ‘the love of God was magnified’, but the copyright holders have refused to allow it in published versions.
Critics of the hymns are usually opposed to this theory and say it is biblically unwarranted. In this essay I will examine the theological issues involved in the ‘wrath … satisfied’ debate and also critically analyse the Christology, theology, poetry and tone of the hymn as a whole, arguing that it is not fit for use in public worship.ĭefenders claim that the controversial lines in ‘In Christ Alone’ refer to the classical Satisfaction Theory of the atonement, which is orthodox, biblical and fundamental to evangelical Christianity. In my view this is only one of the many defects of this hymn. The focus of objection is on the words in verse 2: Its inclusion in the most recent British Methodist hymnbook, Singing the Faith (2011), led to an extended correspondence in The Methodist Recorder at the time, which has flared up on occasions since. Yet, immensely popular as it undoubtedly is, it has also been controversial. It was even chosen for the Inauguration of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013. It has remained high in the list, being in third place in 2019. It came in as number 9 in the 2005 list, four years after its publication, and reached second place in 2013. ‘In Christ Alone’, the words written by the Northern Irish songwriter Keith Getty and the tune by English musician Stuart Townend, is one of very few contemporary hymns to have won a place in the BBC Songs of Praise list of the ten most popular hymns.
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