Singing to the Risen Son: A History of Christian Hymns
I have given various lectures on the history of Christian hymnody over the years, but I finally wrote up a short version.
Here is an synopsis: In the early second century, the Roman governor Pliny the Younger described a group of Christians singing “a hymn to Christ as to a god.” This impulse to sing to Christ as God only multiplied in the centuries that followed. Soon, Christians sang hymns to mark times of the day, to combat heresy, to distill the essence of Christian doctrine, and to drive Scripture deeper into the heart — always according to the spiritual needs of the day. In fact, the spiritual ideals of each generation in church history can be found in its hymns. The history of hymnody is the history of Christian spirituality in miniature.