Country Music Theology

Ray Noble Price, "The Cherokee Cowboy," died of pancreatic cancer in 2013.  His baritone voice and his songs spanned sixty-plus years of country music and thus a good portion of my life.  When I was 17 years old, Price recorded an album entitled "Faith" which nurtured my young life then, and has continued to do so through the years.  The LP album is still boxed away somewhere, the cassette version was chewed up in the tape player some years back, and I now listen to the music on a CD.  There was one song that spoke to me in those early years and speaks to me still, even after years of theological study and reflection.  The song was written by Stuart Hamblin and sung by both Hank Snow and Ray Price.

"How Big is God"

Though man may strive to go beyond the wreath of space

To crawl beyond the distant shining stars

This world's a room so small within my Master's house

The open sky but a portion of His yard

How big is God?  How big and wide His vast domain?

To try to tell these lips can only start

He's big enough to rule His mighty universe

Yet small enough to live within my heart

As winter chill may cause the tiny seed to fall

To lie asleep till waked by summer's rain

The heart grown cold will warm and throb with life anew

The Master's touch will bring the glow again

How big is God?  How big and wide His vast domain?

To try to tell these lips can only start

He's big enough to rule His mighty universe

Yet small enough to live within my heart

A few years ago I  attended a Ray Price concert.  He was 82 years of age at the time.  After the concert I spoke with him.  I told him how much his album "Faith" and his rendition of "How Big is God" had meant to me through the years.  His humble response was "Thanks so much, but it's the words and the music that makes the difference, not the voice that shares them," and with a warm smile he autographed his photo for me.  I wish I had been quick enough to respond and say, "Perhaps so, but it was your voice that brought those words and music to me through all these years."

After all the theological books read, and after all the lectures and seminars attended, this one simple country music song still remains my theological stance.  I know it is simplistic.  I know there are serious intellectual flaws in it.  But it is for me the core of my theological thinking and experience.  "How big is God?  How big and wide His vast domain?  To try to tell these lips can only start.  He's big enough to rule His mighty universe, yet small enough to live within my heart."