Battle Song for the Church

We refer to a schism primarily as a split in what was previously a united religious denomination. The Catholic Church, it came under fire in the 1860s. The Catholic Church in South Africa was rocked by the first Bishop of Natal, John William Colenso who called the Bible untrue. Colenso was advocating for Bible criticism for dating and establishing authorship of Scripture, while Bishop of Cape Town Robert Gray defended the traditional Pentateuch. Colenso was excommunicated so he took his campaign to England’s high priests. And that’s how Samuel John Stone, an Anglican priest (a canon at St.Paul’s Cathedral), got included into the discourse. He set out to write 12 hymns he published in “Lyra Fidelium: Twelve Hymns on the Twelve Articles of the Apostles’ Creed” (1866), including “The Church’s One Foundation”. In it, Stone wrote that the Christian fellowship is united by its savior, the Son of God. The characteristic of the hymns is that they’re all based on the Apostle’s Creed, a concrete answer to the division Colenso sparked. It is a guide for the catechism of the Christian fellowship worldwide, agreeing that beyond cultural, practice, and methodological differences, each is part of the body of Christ.

It’s also for devotional purposes, written in vivid style and faithful to Scripture by annotating phrases from it. It spoke directly to Christians and that sealed its popularity. Throughout, a repetitive melody is applied to the stanzas reinforcing the Apostle’s Creed. The tune is composer Samuel Wesley’s “Aurelia” (meaning “golden”), which he originally created for the song “Jerusalem the Golden” in Selection of Psalms and Hymns (1864). It’s been recommended to sing stanzas in unison, supported with crisp piano articulation.

The hymn ends in a hopeful tone and looks forward to a time when the church will be at peace. It’s frequently sung, particularly to begin Church service and has been translated into European and other languages.