Hymns Alive! One Foundation

By Dr. Craig Westendorf, Director of Music

The Church’s One Foundation is yet another text that is such an established part of English language hymnody that it seems there has never been a time we have been without it.  Its origin, however, shows how controversy gives rise to great theological and artistic results.

The text was written to combat what the Church of England considered to be the overly liberal theology of Bishop Colenso of South Africa.  John Colenso was something of a polymath, giving him an openness to not only sensitivity in ministering to the native population, but also to an approach to biblical study which we would now consider mainstream historical criticism.  Such thinking was not to the liking of the High Church party back in England, and many attempts were made to unseat him as bishop.  This is why the text by Samuel Stone has combative words like schism and heresy.  

Although this antagonism was not fully justified, it resulted in this magnificent magnification of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed (I believe in the holy catholic church . . .).  Although an 1885 version of the text has ten stanzas, our hymnal gives the five stanzas as printed in 1868.  The language is both poetically successful and full of scriptural and theological paraphrases.  Here are just a few examples:

The Church’s one foundation is Ephesians 2:20

Jesus Christ, her Lord

One Lord, one faith, one birth Ephesians 4:5

And mystic sweet communion with those The church is nothing else than the assembly

whose rest is won of all believers and saints.  Augsburg Confession

The melody, named Aurelia, is by Samuel Wesley, cathedral organist and grandson of Charles Wesley.  The tune name means “golden,” because it was first intended for the text “Jerusalem, the golden.”  It became wedded to today’s text in as printed in 1868, and has remained as the standard for over 150 years.