The Unfractured Faith of Erik Routley: From Brighton to Princeton (original) (raw)

Abstract

Biography of Erik Reginald Routley Preface Erik Routley made important contributions in so many areas that writing this book has required a constant refocusing to keep this his biography and not a summation of his legacy. The story here is about the life of Erik Routley. It is not about Oxford, Westminster Choir College, the United Reformed Church, music and theology, or even detective novels. He, like most of us, was a product of his upbringing and education. Erik was happily married and fathered three children. He had a dog and a cat. He put up with car problems, housing repairs, financial worries, and was concerned about the well-being of his wife, Margaret, and the futures of Nicholas, Patrick, and Priscilla. Erik wasn’t raised a Calvinist, but he learned the Shorter Catechism and understood that his duty and delight was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The intensely private Dr. Routley was enigmatic and beyond labels. He could not even be defined by nationality; though he happily lived in Great Britain for nearly 58 years and never gave up his citizenship, he led a rich life in Princeton for the last seven. His colleagues in the UK, saw a Reformed churchman, preacher, and writer with a deep understanding of hymns. Though he was a member of the RSCM, an organist, and composer, those pursuits always took place outside of his ministerial and tutorial obligations. In the US, his grateful audiences saw him as a superb and remarkable musician and hymnologist who happened to be an ordained minister. At Princeton Theological Seminary and Westminster Choir College, Routley found the chance to work in an academic environment, supporting students who wanted to learn what he wanted to teach: hymnody and liturgy, as well as his theological assertion that musicians and preachers are collaborative artists in service to the Gospel. In both countries it was his self-deprecating ebullient optimism, ready wit, distain of lazy mediocrity, subtle compassion, and profound faith that made people listen. But it was his straightforward and pragmatic approach to life, his biting criticism, and casual editing that prompted many in Britain to begrudge his move to the US, and the Americans to resent what they saw as an arrogant judgement of their culture. This book will attempt to reconcile these perceptions into one unique figure, flawed, yes, but extraordinarily important. Erik largely tells his own story here. Prolific in every aspect of literary output, it was widely known, in that letter-writing age, that Routley easily shared his thoughts in correspondence and that he famously typed an immediate response to every letter. In the Foreword to the revised Panorama of Christian Hymnody, Alan Luff ponders the existence of these letters and in the case of those with John Wilson, their relevance to 20th century hymnody. Finding those letters was where I started, and, fortunately, they were not difficult to uncover. Routley saved few personal documents but, thankfully, his close friends, John Wilson, Geoffrey Beck, and Caryl Micklem did. Palace Green Library at Durham University holds over 400 letters to John W. Wilson in the Fred Pratt Green Collection. Micklem and Beck letters are with the Routley Papers at Talbott Library as well as private collections. The voices of many colleagues provide anecdotal details in interviews collected in the Unites States and England by Nancy Wicklund Gray from 1997 to 2004. Throughout the book I use ‘Erik’ when he's involved with a personal or informal situation, and ‘Routley’ when the narrative deals with his professional capacities. Material quoted from letters retains the same grammatical usage and spelling as the original. The Bibliography lists the sources read or consulted, but in the case of journals, the entire citation is in the appropriate footnote. Routley’s Mansfield has disappeared and so has his Westminster Choir College; Congregationalism is barely recognizable, and the URC is a struggling denomination. Yet, Routley’s assessment of the music of theology and the theology of music was developed through whatever these institutions had to offer, and his conclusions are prophetic and timeless. I don’t think that Routley would be dispirited or discouraged by these changes but energized to see what great thing comes next. Nancy L. Graham Mobile, Alabama January 2023