Fanny Crosby: Mennonite Theologian By Default?

Fanny Crosby, 3/24/1820--2/12/1915

Many of us grew up enjoying hymns and gospel songs written by Fannie Crosby. Blind from soon after her birth, she nevertheless authored some 8000 texts and composed several of her own tunes as well.

Crosby was an amazing woman, widely acclaimed for her warm spirit and her rescue mission work. She was a product of the revival movements of her day and her songs made a profound contribution to that movement in America and elsewhere.

Mennonites, like many other Protestant related groups, chose many of her works for their hymnals. Life Songs 2, published in 1938, included 14 of hers. The 1969 Mennonite Hymnal used 12, and the 1993 Hymnal, A Worship Book, eight.

I grew up on a steady diet of these and other gospel songs, never questioning whether they were entirely congruent with our church's Anabaptist teaching, or whether they were about only one half of the gospel, the part having to do with one's individual experience of salvation.

Most of Crosby's songs are full of personal pronouns and depict the Christian life as being primarily about one's personal relationship with Jesus rather than about our being a part of nurturing communities of disciples of Jesus. These testimony songs certainly have their place, as in "Safe in the arms of Jesus," and "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine," but fail to recognize the shared life of faith and discipleship that is integral to the story of God's people.

Several of her hymns that are included in our current Hymnal, a Worship Book, however, do use "we" language, and are primarily about God, rather than on our subjective experience of God:

36   God of our strength
100 Praise him, praise him
102 To God be the glory
115 Jesus, thou mighty Lord

Meanwhile, a little known fact about Crosby is that she also wrote many militant, patriotic songs in support of such conflicts as the Mexican-American War and the Civil War.
Here's a sample of some of her lyrics on that theme:

On! ye Patriots, to the battle 
Hear Fort Moultrie's cannon rattle: 
Then away, then away, then away to the fight! 
Go, meet those Southern traitors, with iron will, 
And should your courage falter, Boys, Remember Bunker Hill.

So how did this prolific song writer come to exert such influence on peace-promoting Anabaptist-Mennonites?

Certainly her songs and hymns were highly singable and memorable, and they may have subtly influenced and shaped our theology in far more ways that we may ever fully realize.