In Christ Alone

Stuart Townend

The song was composed in 2001 and gained increased popularity first in Ireland and the UK and then in the United States and internationally. In 2002, Stuart Townend, the lyricist of the song, recorded it on his own album Lord of Every Heart[5] By 2005, it had been named by a BBC Songs of Praise survey as the ninth best-loved hymn of all time in the UK;[6] By 2006, it rose to the No. 1 position on the United Kingdom CCLI (Christian Copyright Licensing International) charts.[7] "In Christ Alone" appeared on CCLI's "Top 25 CCLI Songs" American songs list for the first time in the February 2008 report although it had appeared in the CCLI chart for Canada, Australia and New Zealand prior to that.

In 2008, the song was included in the release of Christian Worship: Supplement for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS).[8] In 2015, the song was listed among the "Fifty Favorite Hymns" in a WELS survey.[9][10]

In 2010, Owl City's Adam Young recorded a version and offered it through his blog. About the song, he wrote: "I'm twenty-four years old, yet something about this song makes me bawl like a baby. The way the melodies and lyrics swirl together is so poignant and beautiful. If I were to count on one hand, the number of songs that have ever deeply moved me, this one would take the cake. Last night I probably spent more time actually crying at the piano than I did recording it. Such are the secret confessions of a shy boy from Minnesota".[11]

In 2013, the song was sung at the enthronement of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury.[12] Also in this year, a new bridge section was added to the song by Kristian Stanfill and included in the live Passion: Let the Future Begin recording.

In 2015, Julien Baker played a portion of the piano melody from In Christ Alone at the end of "Go Home" on her album Sprained Ankle. Baker later said about the song: "It holds a lot of memories for me—being young in church, and the lyrics hold a lot of meaning when you analyze them."[13]

The second verse of the hymn contains the line, "Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied," which adheres to the satisfaction theory of atonement. This line has hence made the song a subject of criticism by opponents of satisfaction theory. In 2013, a 15-member committee of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to exclude the song from a new church hymnal after Townend and Getty refused permission to alter the controversial line to "the love of God was magnified."[14][15][16] Members of the committee to compile the hymnal had discovered the alternate lyrics in a Baptist hymnal from 2010, causing them to assume that the change had been authorized by the copyright holders.[14] Critics of the committee's decision pointed out that the hymnal included other hymns endorsing satisfaction theory and the penal substitution model of atonement, including "O Sacred Head Now Wounded."[14] According to committee chair Mary Louise Bringle, the decision to exclude "In Christ Alone" centered not on the word "wrath" but rather on "satisfied."[14]

The committee's decision to exclude the song triggered a larger debate across denominations and within the Presbyterian Church USA itself. PCUSA minister Chris Joiner of First said that while many in his congregation liked the hymn, he agreed with the decision because "that lyric comes close to saying that God killed Jesus. The cross is not an instrument of God's wrath."[14] Timothy George, the dean of Beeson Divinity School, criticized the decision in an online column titled "No Squishy Love" and claimed that it "fits into a wider pattern of downplaying parts of Christian doctrine that are offensive."[17] Boyce College professor Denny Burk took a view similar to George, stating that "When wrath goes, so does the central meaning of the atonement of God: penal substitution. At the end of the day, the cross itself is the stumbling block, and that is why the PCUSA cannot abide by this hymn."[18] Meanwhile, Bob Terry of The Alabama Baptist wrote that he agreed with satisfaction theory, but "if the meaning of 'wrath' is that God is vindictive and took joy in punishing His Son then that is not how I find God described in the Bible. As I understand the Bible, it was because 'God so loved the world' that He was willing 'to crush Him and cause Him to suffer.'"[19]