Skip to main content

Philipp Nicolai, Johann Heermann and Paul Gerhardt, Hymn Writers

Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608) was a pastor in Germany during the Great Plague, which took the lives of 1,300 of his parishioners during a sixth-month period. In addition to his heroic pastoral ministry during that time of stress and sorrow, he wrote the texts for "Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying" and "O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright," known, respectively, as the king and queen of the Lutheran chorales. Johann Heermann (1585-1647), also a German pastor, suffered from poor health as well as from the ravages of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). His hymn texts are noted for their tenderness and depth of feeling. Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) was another Lutheran pastor who endured the horrors of the Thirty Years' War. By 1668 he lost his pastoral position in Berlin (for refusing to compromise his Lutheran convictions) and endured the death of four of his five children and his wife. He nevertheless managed to write 133 hymns, all of which reflect his firm faith. Along with Martin Luther he is regarded as one of Lutheranism's finest hymn writers. [From "Commemorations Biographies," Lutheran Service Book, LCMS Commission on Worship]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NBC anti-life?

I would boycott NBC, if I ever watched it that is. I actually never watch anything on the old line networks, NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX. Everything I watch is on the cable only stations... do they still broadcast over the air? Ah well, this story is about the fact that it seems NBC refused to air an ad put together by some Catholic outfit that features an embryo and all of the hardships it faced in early life ending up with the revelation that they were talking about Obama. Here is the ad , check it out and see how unoffensive it is. Like I said, if I watched them I'd quit now. :-/
Post a Comment
Read more

Wikileaks and police state censorship

I saw an article today on SF Gate about some nit wit Bush appointed Federal Judge ordering a website I'd never heard of called Wikileaks shut down because they were publishing some bank documents from some corrupt Swiss bank. The amusing thing is that they can't actually do it! Even more amusing is that this just draws attention to the site and makes it that much more visible, yay idiot goons! :-) There are mirror sites all over the world and it's almost impossible for thuggish police state goons to figure out how to close off all of the leaks :-) One mirror site is here: http://wikileaks.be/wiki/Wikileaks The US site they tried to close down is still here: http://88.80.13.160 "Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe,...
1 comment
Read more

Child Driven Education

Here is a Ted Talk with Sugata Mitra on Child Driven Education... very unschooling-like I think.  :-)  I've seen videos of him before, this is an update on his research on letting groups of kids learn on the internet, mostly without any supervision at all.  Posted via email from The Angry Gnome
Post a Comment
Read more