Sing Them Over Again to Me: Hymns and Hymnbooks in America

Religion and American Culture

by Mark A. Noll (Contributor), Edith L. Blumhofer (Editor), Mary Louise VanDyke (Contributor)

Hymns and hymnbooks as American historical and cultural icons. This work is a study of the importance of Protestant hymns in defining America and American religion. It explores the underappreciated influence of hymns in shaping many spheres of personal and corporate life as well as the value of hymns for studying religious life. Distinguishing features of this volume are studies of the most popular hymns (“Amazing Grace,” “O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”), with attention to the ability of such hymns to reveal, as they are altered and adapted, shifts in American popular religion. The book also focuses attention on the role hymns play in changing attitudes about race, class, gender, economic life, politics, and society.

280 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2006

About the author

Mark A. Noll (born 1946), Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, is a progressive evangelical Christian scholar. In 2005, Noll was named by Time Magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America. Noll is a prolific author and many of his books have earned considerable acclaim within the academic community. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind , a book about the anti-intellectual tendencies within the American evangelical movement, was featured in a cover story in the popular American literary and cultural magazine, Atlantic Monthly. He was awarded a National Humanities Medal in the Oval Office by President George W. Bush in 2006.