We Utter Our Cry: Meaning, History, and Theology
"We utter our cry: that peace may prevail"
- Written
- 1983
- Category
- Hymn
- Tune
- Standard Tune
- Status
- Verified
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Story
We Utter Our Cry is a 1983 hymn by Fred Kaan written for the Christian World Conference on Life and Peace in Uppsala, Sweden. Its prayer for peace also confronts ecological responsibility, public leadership, Christian action, and allegiance to Christ.
Overview
We Utter Our Cry is a Christian prayer for peace that refuses to separate worship from the conditions in which people actually live. Fred Kaan wrote the hymn in 1983 for an international conference on life and peace, and its concern reaches beyond the ending of armed conflict to the survival of the earth, responsible stewardship, public leadership, and the church's willingness to act on what it prays.
The hymn moves from lament and intercession toward moral commitment. Peace is presented not as passive calm but as work that requires courage, wisdom, truthfulness, and sustained action. That emphasis is characteristic of Kaan's hymnody: Christian prayer must shape public responsibility as well as private devotion.
In worship, the hymn is especially suitable for services concerned with peace, reconciliation, justice, creation care, public responsibility, and the church's witness in times of conflict. Its language invites a congregation to bring fear and hope before God while also accepting a share of responsibility for the world for which it prays.
Historical Background
Fred Kaan wrote "We Utter Our Cry" in 1983 at the request of Olle Dahlen, Sweden's ambassador to the United Nations, for the opening service of the Christian World Conference on Life and Peace in Uppsala, Sweden. Kaan attended the conference as a delegate. The hymn was sung by several thousand people in Uppsala Cathedral on April 20, 1983, and Kaan later recalled that delegates from sixty-two countries were represented. For that first large public use, the text was sung to the familiar tune HANOVER so that an international congregation could participate readily.
The conference setting is important to the hymn's meaning. Kaan did not treat peace only as the absence of war. The text connects peacemaking with the survival and care of the planet, the moral choices of political leaders, the rejection of destructive forces, responsibility toward future generations, and the church's willingness to move from statements to action. The conference later incorporated the hymn into its official message, giving the text an unusual direct connection with an international Christian gathering concerned with public peace and human survival.
The complete text consists of six stanzas in 10.10.11.11 meter and appeared in Kaan's The Hymn Texts of Fred Kaan in 1985. The words are copyrighted © 1984 by Hope Publishing Company. Kaan resisted attempts to shorten the hymn when doing so would remove the stanzas that press the church toward public protest and active peacemaking. When The United Methodist Hymnal was being prepared, its committee considered omitting two of the more explicitly activist stanzas. Kaan objected, and the 1989 hymnal ultimately included all six stanzas, though with minor editorial changes.
The hymn has been paired with several tunes. The United Methodist Hymnal uses PADERBORN, an eighteenth-century German melody from the Paderborn Gesangbuch of 1765, in a harmonization by Sydney Hugo Nicholson. The Baptist Hymnal 1991 uses LYONS, a tune known through William Gardiner's Sacred Melodies and subject to differing composer attributions. Singing the Living Tradition uses UPPSALA by Peter Warwick Cutts. Kaan's text with Cutts's tune was among the winning entries in a BBC hymn-writing competition and appeared in the 1985 Songs of Praise Festival broadcast.
Although the hymn is not found in a large number of hymnals, its documented appearances show how differently editors have presented it: some have printed the complete six-stanza text, while others have selected fewer stanzas. That editorial history itself reflects one of the hymn's central tensions—the relationship between prayer for peace and the demanding public responsibilities that Kaan believed such prayer should entail.
Biblical Foundations
The hymn's central concern with peacemaking stands close to Jesus' blessing of peacemakers in Matthew 5:9. Kaan's prayer is not limited to wishing for tranquility; it assumes that God's people are called to participate in the work of reconciliation and peace.
Isaiah 2:4 provides a strong biblical image for the hymn's rejection of destructive uses of human resources. The prophetic vision of weapons being turned into tools of cultivation imagines peace as a transformed social order in which nations no longer prepare for war. Psalm 122:6–8 adds the language of explicit prayer for peace, while John 14:27 distinguishes the peace Christ gives from the security the world attempts to create by other means.
The closing movement of Kaan's complete text also engages Jesus' teaching about Caesar and God in Matthew 22:21. In that context, Christian allegiance is not reduced to political loyalty. The hymn presses worshipers to examine whether public choices, civic responsibilities, and church action are consistent with the claims of Christ.
Verse Explanation
The complete hymn unfolds across six stanzas. It begins with an urgent communal prayer for peace and for the survival of a world threatened by fear and destructive human choices. The next movement confronts the moral seriousness of violence and the misuse of human energy, asking for courage to reject what degrades life.
The middle stanzas widen the prayer toward future generations, the care of the earth, and the responsibilities of public leaders engaged in the difficult work of peace. The hymn then turns directly toward the church, insisting that Christian convictions about peace must become active practice rather than remain only in declarations or worship language.
The final movement gathers the hymn's concerns into a prayer for courage, healing, wisdom, and faithful allegiance. Its conclusion places loyalty to Christ and the preservation of life above political power and the culture of death, giving the hymn a deliberately demanding ending rather than a merely comforting one.
Theological Reflection
The hymn presents peace as part of Christian discipleship rather than as a detached social ideal. Prayer addresses God, but it also exposes the responsibilities of those who pray. Kaan's theology therefore holds intercession and action together: believers ask for peace while also being called to resist forces that destroy life, truth, community, and the future entrusted to coming generations.
A second theme is creation care. Human conflict and environmental destruction are not treated as unrelated problems. The hymn's concern for the earth places peacemaking within a wider doctrine of creation in which the world is received as a gift to be tended rather than consumed or sacrificed.
The hymn also raises questions of Christian public witness. Leaders need wisdom and freedom from self-interest, but the church itself is not allowed to remain merely observant. Christian speech about peace must be embodied in practices of reconciliation, responsible citizenship, nonviolence, and concern for those who bear the cost of war and injustice.
Finally, the text places allegiance to Christ above every political power. This does not erase civic responsibility; it gives that responsibility a theological measure. The peace Christians seek is judged by the character of Christ's kingdom—truthful, life-giving, reconciliatory, and directed toward the good of neighbor and creation.
Church Impact
The hymn's circulation is documented in several late-twentieth-century hymnals rather than in a broad cross-section of the entire English-speaking hymnal tradition. The United Methodist Hymnal included all six stanzas in 1989, while the Baptist Hymnal 1991 and Singing the Living Tradition 1993 used shorter selections. Those contrasting editorial choices show both the hymn's usefulness for worship and the difficulty some committees found in its explicitly public and activist language.
Its first major setting was itself an ecumenical event: thousands of participants at the 1983 Christian World Conference on Life and Peace in Uppsala sang it in a gathering representing dozens of countries. The later BBC recognition of the Kaan-Cutts setting also brought the hymn into a wider broadcast context.
The hymn is particularly suited to worship focused on peace, justice, creation care, civic responsibility, and reconciliation. Its distinctive contribution is to resist a separation between devotional prayer and public discipleship: the congregation prays for peace while also being summoned to participate in the work that peace requires.
Musical Notes
The text is in 10.10.11.11 meter and has been sung to several tunes. At the Christian World Conference on Life and Peace in Uppsala in 1983, it was sung to HANOVER for accessibility to the international gathering. HANOVER was printed anonymously in 1708 and is generally credited to the English composer William Croft.
The United Methodist Hymnal pairs the hymn with PADERBORN, a German melody from the Paderborn Gesangbuch of 1765. Sydney Hugo Nicholson did not compose that melody; he provided the 1916 harmonization used in the hymnal. The Baptist Hymnal 1991 uses LYONS, a tune transmitted through William Gardiner's Sacred Melodies. Modern hymnals and tune authorities give differing attributions for LYONS, so its authorship is best treated cautiously rather than assigned to one composer without qualification.
Singing the Living Tradition pairs the text with UPPSALA, composed by Peter Warwick Cutts. Cutts's setting is separately copyrighted, while the Kaan text is also protected. These tune histories are distinct from the copyright status of the words themselves, and reproducing a modern score or arrangement requires the appropriate rights even when an older melody is public domain.
Application
- Pray for peace in specific places of conflict while also asking what responsible action should accompany that prayer.
- Examine personal, congregational, and civic choices for ways they either protect or diminish human life and the created world.
- Support forms of reconciliation that combine truth, justice, mercy, and patient relationship-building rather than merely avoiding disagreement.
- Encourage public leaders to pursue peace with integrity, while remembering that Christian responsibility is not delegated entirely to governments.
- Use the hymn in worship where prayer for peace is joined to concrete commitments in peacemaking, creation care, and service.
Discussion Questions
- Why does the hymn connect peace with the survival and care of the earth?
- What is the difference between praying for peace and actively practicing peacemaking?
- How do Isaiah 2:4 and Matthew 5:9 deepen the hymn's understanding of peace?
- Why might some hymnal editors have found the hymn's more activist stanzas difficult to include?
- How should Christian allegiance to Christ shape civic and political responsibility without reducing the hymn to party politics?
Teaching Tips
- Begin with the hymn's 1983 Uppsala context so participants understand that it was written for an international Christian conference on life and peace.
- Read Matthew 5:9 and Isaiah 2:4 before discussing the hymn, then compare biblical peacemaking with the idea of peace as simply the absence of conflict.
- Explain that the complete text has six stanzas and that different hymnals have printed different selections; this helps readers understand why versions may not match.
- Use the history of PADERBORN, HANOVER, LYONS, and UPPSALA to show how one modern text can travel through several musical settings.
- Invite participants to identify one concrete way prayer for peace can become faithful action in congregational or community life.
Sources
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Discipleship Ministries — History of Hymns: 'We Utter Our Cry'; 1983 Uppsala origin, six-stanza history, editorial history, and tune pairings
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Hymnary.org — We Utter Our Cry text authority; Fred Kaan, 1983, 10.10.11.11 meter, copyright © 1984 Hope Publishing, and documented tune instances
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Hymnary.org — The United Methodist Hymnal #439; PADERBORN from the Paderborn Gesangbuch (1765) and 1916 harmonization by Sydney H. Nicholson
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Hymnary.org — Singing the Living Tradition #137; UPPSALA by Peter Cutts and separate 1989 tune copyright
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Hymnary.org — Baptist Hymnal 1991 #631; LYONS and its attribution to Johann Michael Haydn in that hymnal
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Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology — Peter Warwick Cutts biography
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Clare College — Peter Warwick Cutts obituary; education and teaching career
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Westminster Abbey — William Croft biography and Westminster Abbey career
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Hymnary.org — HANOVER tune authority; 1708 source and general attribution to William Croft
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Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines — Copyright term for literary and artistic works is generally life of the author plus fifty years
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World English Bible Classic — Scripture wording used in this record
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