“In the Garden”

I have always wondered why the song "In the Garden" is not accepted by WELS. Different pastors have told me that it was not acceptable. Can you enlighten me why "In the Garden" is not accepted?

I cannot speak for hymnal committees, but I can pass along what Christian Worship: Manual, the companion book to Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal, states about hymns in general. It describes a good hymn as (among other things): being “doxological” (praising God for his great deeds), having “doctrinal content,” “making use of the word of God,” being “influenced by the ‘year of our Lord’” (recounting Jesus’ holy life, innocent death and glorious resurrection) and having “melodies that support the scriptural message and touch the heart of the worshiper.” “In the Garden” falls short of those criteria.

The greatest concern about that song is the way in which the author, C. Austin Miles, speaks of God communicating with people. Miles used the backdrop of Jesus’ Easter Sunday morning conversation with Mary Magdalene as the basis of his song. While Jesus spoke to Mary face-to-face “in the garden” that day, our Lord speaks to us through his word. While a walk in a garden can tell me that there is a God (Psalm 19:1-4; Hebrews 3:4), only in the Bible does God tell me that “I am his own” (Isaiah 43:1; 1 John 3:1). We want hymns in our hymnal to reinforce that truth.