“…the church has always been beset by heretics and false teachings, and church history is full of the evidence of this.
“Obviously, then, we who love the Truth cannot automatically shy away from every fight over doctrine, especially in an era like ours when virtually every doctrine is deemed ‘up for grabs’. Christians need to be willing and prepared to contend earnestly for the faith.
“Clearly, there are two extremes to be avoided. One is the danger of being so narrow and intolerant that you create unnecessary divisions in the body of Christ. The other is the problem of being too broad-minded that you settle for a shallow false unity with people whom we are commanded to avoid or whose error we are morally obligated to refute.”
(Phil Johnson, Executive director Grace to You)
Throughout church history, there have always been open doors to false teachings and practices in the Church. One of those doors has been the pragmatic approach to evangelism.
But another common breach is in worship music. Music has a powerful effect; it tends to lull people of different faiths, doctrines, and practices into a false unity.
Christians are often too quick to accept or are easily influenced by religious ideas without first examining the doctrines and origins of the music we use in our worship services. Such was the case with a Roman Catholic song that has been accepted and sung by millions of Protestants unaware of its history and true meaning.
Frederick William Faber was raised in a reformed protestant family. His father was an English minister of Huguenot ancestry (The Huguenots were reformed French Christians who were persecuted by the Church of England.). Faber was opposed to the doctrinal tenets of the Roman Church but, as a young man, he came under the teachings of John Henry Newman, the most prominent English Roman Catholic scholar of the 19th century.
Faber was lured toward Roman Catholic beliefs and practices and was influenced by a “works righteousness” movement that stressed that the only way to a true religious experience was through liturgical and ceremonial church practices. Eventually, he rejected the reformed doctrines of grace. He resigned his parish, converted to the Roman Catholic Church, and became known as Father Wilfrid.
Having experienced the way religious hymns influenced the life and outreach of the Protestant churches, Faber was determined to compose hymns that supported the Roman Catholic doctrines and practices. He wrote about 150 of them.
With his hymn, FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, Faber’s original intent was to remind Catholic parishioners of the suffering and martyrdom their forefathers endured during the reign of King Henry VIII and the Protestant Queen Elizabeth. And in one verse (printed below), the hymn expressed the hope that someday, by the effectual prayers of Mary, the Church of England would be won back to the Roman Catholic faith.
(original text of the problem stanza)
Faith of our Fathers! Mary's prayers
Shall win our country back to thee:
And through the truth that comes from God
England shall then indeed be free.
The origin of this hymn obviously had to do with Christian martyrs — and we are always inspired by those kinds of stories. In his epistle, Jude exhorts us to “Contend (or fight) for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.” (Jude 3)
So, after many years and several attempts to correct and revise it, the hymn we sing today stands as an appropriate reminder of those who, in every age, have remained faithful to God and His Gospel even in the face of great persecution and death.
