He would be pleased if you called him ‘brother’ when meeting him for the first time. That much could easily be speculated about James George Deck, since he was of the Plymouth Brethren in the 19th Century. This composer-evangelist-missionary and Jesus-lover, because of his beliefs, would also have been happy if you joined him in the song “Jesus, Thy Name I Love”, because that would mean you shared this life’s theme with him, no matter what Christian church name you associated with. Knowing where and when he wrote this song, you get a picture of how Deck might have introduced himself, and his God, to those he was just getting to know.
Deck’s life began in England, wound its way through different parts of Europe and Asia, back to England, and then to New Zealand (see its flag here). He was trained to be an army officer in Paris, took a commission (bought by his father, in fact) in the East India Company and served in India for two separate tours in the 1820s and 1830s. It wasn’t long before he heard a message of brotherhood in Jesus and began to ponder this alternative to the military career in which he was progressing. By 1835 while still in India, he made the commitment to full-time ministry, quit the military and returned to England with his wife and two sons. He eventually joined the Brethren, and began his life’s work. A split in the Brethren fellowship wounded Deck spiritually and emotionally, and no doubt contributed to a stroke he suffered by 1852, when he was just 45. It was then that Deck and his family departed for New Zealand. While needing to put distance between himself and the church division controversy in England, Deck still needed God, and still believed in the basic principles of the Brethren. So, he started a new life in New Zealand, in a hard-scrabble area of the Waiwero district, not far from Mouteka. His wife died that first year in December 1853, a sign perhaps of the strain of a hard life on unforgiving land and a different climate. Eventually, Deck started a Brethren movement in this area, but that first year, he and his family were still settling into a new life. Jesus…He was the focus of Deck’s thoughts. Not controversy, not theological debates, just God, and a new beginning. This was the background for “Jesus Thy Name I Love” that Deck wrote in 1853.
Deck obviously wanted to put some things behind him in New Zealand, and re-center on what had drawn him toward God in the first place. In the isolated area of Waiwero, though the land was tough for farming, it’s said that the Decks found Christian friends. Even the death of Deck’s wife did not leave James George bereft and downcast for long. He remarried and added several more children to his family through his second wife, although she too died some 10 short years into their marriage, in 1865. Still, Deck’s life included many fellow Christians and his 13 children. He indeed experienced brotherhood, while enduring loss. How’d he manage? The words he penned that first year in New Zealand must have been an unshakeable foundation for him. Something that would keep one standing though you might be on the opposite side of the globe from one’s birthplace…what would that be? Read James George Deck’s poem-song words, and see what you think of his solution.
A great in-depth look at Deck’s life is here:
Other biographical information on the composer:
http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/j/t/jthyname.htm (all four verses of his song are here)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Brethren (infomation on church Deck was in)
No comments:
Post a Comment