Titanic

Exactly 112 years ago tomorrow (April 15th), the famed luxury liner RMS Titanic, on its maiden voyage, struck an iceberg and sank with great loss of life.  With every possible scientific advancement of the day on board, it was thought to be unsinkable, but it wasn’t. The disaster has become a cautionary tale, reminding us all that human ingenuity will not bring heaven on earth. Technology may be the god of some, but it has feet of clay, and it can do nothing to cleanse and renew the human heart. Only God can do that, as we turn to Christ in faith (Jn. 3:16; Eph. 1:7).

Our hymnody comes into the tragic story of the Titanic. It was affirmed by a least one credible survivor (a Canadian) that the ship’s orchestra was on deck playing as the great ocean liner sank, and that they were playing the hymn, Nearer, My God, to Thee. In the lead-up to the centenary remembrance of the disaster in 2012, the hymn was heard, playing in the background, of many television news items. There’s a catch, however. The hymn tune North Americans are most familiar with (Bethany, by Lowell Mason) is almost certainly not the one used. To learn more, see the third item on the page here, where I have a clip from the one popular movie that got it right.