How Great Thou Art is as close as a hymn can come to a ‘controversial hymn’ these days. N.T. Wright targeted the final verse in his book on the resurrection, using it to highlight the problems of the contemporary escapist eschatology that dominates evangelical thought.
Though most people don’t realize it, the hymn is actually a translation of a swedish hymn by Carl Gustav Boberg, whom I (alas) couldn’t find much information about in my few minutes searching.
The first English translation was by E. Gustav Johnson, and it’s worth repeating here in full:
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