Quintessential hymns

"So," I asked the choir tonight, "for what denomination is "Lift high the cross" (CRUCIFER) the quintessential hymn?" (It's one of our hymns for this coming Sunday.) Once they figured out what I was asking, they put it together and responded, "Lutherans."

Exactly.

I went on...the quintessential Presbyterian hymn is "Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty" (LOBE DEN HERREN).

For United Methodists, AZMON, "O for a thousand tongues to sing." By that point we were off.

I proposed that the Baptist equivalent would be "Praise Him! Praise Him!" (...Jesus our blessed Redeemer...). Our resident Baptist wasn't convinced, but also didn't think, as a third person suggested, that "Just as I am" really summed up Baptist hymnody quite right either.

The way I further explained it was, "what hymn gets a group of whomever we're speaking of singing with everything they've got?" What song would compel a member of said denomination to stand up and join in singing?

For Moravians we decided "Ten thousand times ten thousand." The lyrics rival "For all the saints" (SINE NOMINE) in their beauty to my thinking.

One of the other mainline denominations we've failed to mention to this point is the Episcopal Church in the US. What, the choir singers and I pondered together, would be the Episcopal "signature tune?" I'm still wondering. "O God our help in ages past?" (As I am putting the final edit on this, I now wonder if maybe it's "For all the saints.")

This got going in my head because a friend and colleague recently gave me a new hymnal, the new Celebrating Grace Hymnal, published by Celebrating Grace Ministries, which seems to be of the Baptist persuasion. It had a delightfully comprehensive and inclusive, if somewhat Baptist-weighted, corpus of hymnody and congregational song: KING'S WESTON to Chris Tomlin and DIVINUM MYSTERIUM to Fred Pratt Green.

Of course then one has to ask, "would other groups (Episcopalians, Unitarians, Congregationalists, etc.) be caught singing their hearts out on any song at all?!?" For some this abiding joy and fervor over congregational singing may be an alien thing.

So weigh in. Got a suggestions for AME Zionists? Or National Baptists? Members of the Christian Reformed Church? Care to argue any of the choices I named at the outset?