Great God, your love has called us here

Great God, your love has called us here. Brian Arthur Wren* (1936- ). Written in April 1973; published in New Church Praise (1975) and in Wren’s Mainly Hymns (Leeds, 1980); then in Faith Looking Forward (1983). It was headed ‘And can it be…’ and dedicated ‘to Erik Routley, in love and appreciation’. The heading refers to Charles Wesley*’s hymn, ‘And can it be that I should gain’*, and Wren has described his own text as ‘A revisioning (not a replacement) of the central themes’ of Wesley’s hymn: ‘widening the perspective to include not only personal salvation, but redemption from sin and conditioned responses and socio-economic structures’ (Faith Renewed, 1995, note to hymn 8-A, B). The hymn...