“The Church’s One Foundation”: the hymn born from a South African church dispute

The hymn was a reply to a quarrel in Africa. In the 1860s, the Anglican Church was shaken by a dispute over John William Colenso, the Bishop of Natal in South Africa, whose writings questioned traditional views of the Bible. An English curate, Samuel John Stone, responded with a hymn affirming the church’s foundation in Christ. “The Church’s One Foundation” has outlasted the controversy by more than a century and a half.

Colenso and controversy

John William Colenso became the first Anglican Bishop of Natal in 1853. He learned isiZulu, translated parts of the Bible and wrote a Zulu grammar and dictionary. His study of the Old Testament, influenced partly by questions from Zulu converts, led him to doubt the historical accuracy of parts of the first books of the Bible.

Colenso’s views alarmed many church leaders. Robert Gray, Bishop of Cape Town, deposed him in 1863, but Colenso challenged the decision in court and kept his position. The dispute divided the church in South Africa and in England.

Samuel John Stone

Stone, a young curate in England, was troubled by the controversy. In 1866, he published Lyra Fidelium, a set of hymns based on the articles of the Apostles’ Creed. “The Church’s One Foundation” was written for the article on the holy catholic church and the communion of saints.

Unity and Aurelia

The hymn begins: “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord; she is his new creation by water and the word.” Later verses speak of the church “by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed”, a direct reference to the conflicts of the time. The hymn insists on the unity of the church across nations: “elect from every nation, yet one o’er all the earth”.

It is sung to Aurelia, a tune by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, grandson of Charles Wesley. The tune was originally written for another text but became permanently linked with Stone’s hymn.

Legacy in Africa

The hymn was sung at major Anglican gatherings, including services connected with the Lambeth Conferences of bishops. Colenso is remembered today in South Africa less for theology than for his defence of the Zulu people against colonial injustice, especially after the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian churches across Africa sing the hymn at ordinations, church anniversaries and consecrations.

A dispute in Natal produced a hymn sung around the world. Its call for unity still sounds pointed in churches that keep finding new reasons to divide.