It Was on a Friday Morning
Citing lines like "To hell with Jehovah," critics branded the song blasphemous; controversies arose on several occasions, most notably when it was included in the 1974 government-published Book of Worship for United States Forces.
The military chaplains responsible for the hymnal resisted these calls, which they viewed as demands for censorship that threatened the separation of church and state and their independence from political pressure.
[5][7] For the English hymnologist Erik Routley, "Friday Morning" – a "theological exploration that opens up a terrifying vision of the real source of human grievance" – was "without question" Carter's greatest song.
[14][15] In 1972, a parent aggrieved by the Kidbrooke School's use of a hymnbook containing the song wrote to Enoch Powell, who vowed to pursue the matter with the Inner London Education Authority.
[16] Later that year, the Church of Scotland's General Assembly narrowly voted against giving its endorsement to a songbook containing "Friday Morning"; an opponent said it "would cause confusion and distress...no matter how exquisite the irony may be to enlightened spirits", while a supporter said the line "to hell with Jehovah" had been taken out of context.
J. Edward Moyer, a Methodist professor of church music, contended that the song could have "no salutary effect on any human soul", asking: "Can any congregation worship with such blasphemous words as 'To hell with Jehovah'?"
In a 1975 bulletin published by the United States Air Force's Chaplain Board, James W. Chapman sought to defend what he labeled "the most controversial hymn in the book".
[19] In a June 4, 1976, speech in the House of Representatives, John T. Myers, a Republican congressman from Indiana, denounced the "so-called hymn" and urged listeners to write to the President about it, saying that "we should be on our knees praying for our country" if the Chaplains Board "has reached this low.
The wife of Melvin Price, an Illinois Democrat who chaired the House Armed Services Committee, said the song "could very well be used for a black mass"; her husband initiated an inquiry.
[22][23] Some opponents called for the song to be cut out of the hymnal with razor blades,[19] and congressmen said it was "blasphemous and offensive" (William Hughes)[24] and "composed in a spirit of hate" (Jim Collins).
[30] In a July 20 memorandum, Meade wrote that it would damage the "delicate two-institution foundation" of the military chaplaincy if the Department of Defense overrode the "church side" on a purely theological matter, although he indicated a willingness to make revisions in later editions.
[31] That November, Meade announced that in deference to "the great number of sincere individuals offended by its presence, this hymn will not be included in subsequent editions of the Book of Worship".
[19] An October 1976 article in The Saturday Evening Post quipped that the song was "almost as explicit as Matthew, Mark and Luke" and suggested that "if Congress is concerned with morality, Congressmen should start with themselves".
[35] The scholar Jacqueline E. Whitt wrote in a 2014 book that the controversy illustrated how rising conservative influence on the military could clash with an institutional chaplaincy committed to pluralism and ecumenism.
