The Christian tradition to which I’ve belonged most of my life—the Reformed tradition of Protestantism—is not famous for its contributions to the western musical canon. But it is famous for its hymns and hymn-singing. The Lutherans have Bach; the Catholics have Monteverdi and Mozart and many others; the Reformed have . . . Louis Bourgeois. He compiled and composed hundreds of fine hymn tunes in Geneva during the 1540s, including “Old 100th,” to which many Protestant congregations sing the “doxology.”
The great majority of the Anglophone world’s best hymns have emerged from the Reformed tradition—either from Presbyterianism or the evangelical side of Anglicanism. While the rest of 18th-century Europe was awash in ideas of the Enlightenment, the Reformed in Britain, Ireland and North America wrote hymns. The hymns of Isaac Watts and John Newton, John and Charles Wesley, and William Cowper are models...