How Great Thou Art - In the News

Last Friday night (April 22, 2011) on CBS, the Academy of Country Music presented Girls Night Out: the SuperStar Women of Country. One of the special treats of the night was when Carrie Underwood song the hymn "How Great Thou Art." Vince Gill accompanied her on his electric guitar. You see people singing along, people crying, and giving respect to something that they might not even believe in. One of the redeeming factors of country music is that it is so easy for many artists to express their faith safely. It is always something special when a song, one grows up singing like a hymn is sang in today's mainstream music. This can reassure us that God can use us sinners and the imperfections of life to bring about His glory.
      Every song has a story, and "How Great Thou Art" is no different. In 1885, Carl Boberg, a Swedish minister, wrote a poem called "O Store Gud" (O Mighty God). His poem was set to a Swedish melody, but was not widely known.

When I the world consider

Which Thou has made by Thine almighty Word

And how the webb of life Thou wisdom guideth

And all creaion feedeth at Thy board

Then doth my soul burst forth in song of praise

Oh, great God, Oh, great God

      Hearing this hymn in Russia, English missionary Stuart Hine was so moved he modified and expanded the words and made his own arrangement of the Swedish melody. He later said his first three verses were inspired, line upon line, by Russia's rugged Carpathian Mountains. The final verse was written after Dr. Hine returned to Great Britain.

      Some time later, Dr. J. Edwin Orr heard "How Great Thou Art" being sung by Naga people in Assam, India, and decided to bring it back to America. During the 1954 Billy Graham Crusade in Harringay Area, George Beverly Shea was given a leaflet containing this hymn. Then in the New York Crusade of 1957, it was sung by George Beverly Shea ninety-nine times, with the choir joining the majestic chorus:

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!