Space Force hymn writer inspired by ‘awe and wonder of God’ • Bibical Recorder

FORT MEADE, S.D. — It was the fourth day of a hot, dry July, nearly 150 years after the fact, at Camp Sturgis, a frontier military post in the 1870s that was decommissioned in 1944. Today, it is known as Fort Meade and is used as an Army training ground.

Officer candidates from across the country could have used their vacation to visit nearby Mount Rushmore, a patriotic monument, or the larger-than-life Crazy Horse Monument nearby. Instead, they stayed on base to participate in war games, Civil War-era war games.

It was a reenactment, with fellow soldiers randomly assigned to Union and Confederate sides of an 1860s battlefield.

“It was sobering,” Jim Linzey told Baptist Press. He was then a chaplain in the National Guard, with whom he prayed, led a ceremony and watched second lieutenants fix their bayonets and mark the approach of enemy soldiers.

“Today we kill people we never see who could be miles away, get in our vehicles and drive away or fly away,” Linzey said. These officer candidates learned that in the past, because rifles were not accurate, soldiers were told not to shoot until they saw the whites of their enemy’s eyes.

If they didn’t wait, they might waste a bullet, and even though it might take a minute to reload, they might be shot.

“They saw who they were shooting and sometimes it was a brother, a friend or a neighbor,” the chaplain said. “At the end of every battle (in the 1860s), hundreds or thousands of people would be walking through the fields, wounded, moaning for days, until they died.”

“The reenactment was a spiritual experience,” Linzey continued. “I saw the price of freedom.”

He saw the future when in 2020 he wrote “Creator of the Universe,” a song of praise and prayer to God, which he calls “the anthem of the Space Force.”

The anthems are not commissioned by the military, in order to avoid establishing a religion, Linzey explained. Military anthems are recognized in civilian churches before becoming “military anthems.” After that, they begin to be played in military chapels and by military bands.

“But they are never officially approved by the military to avoid establishing a religion,” Linzey said. “They just use them and call them their anthems.”

The Military Bible Association is running a campaign to broadcast the “Space Force Hymn” on radio and television, according to a report from christiannewswire.com. The campaign will begin on July 4, 2024, and end on November 11, 2024.

“We are asking all radio and television stations to join us, and churches to sing this song and show the video during church services,” the post said. “The goal is to encourage spirituality, religious freedom and patriotism within the Space Force and across America.”

The majestic anthem in 2-2 time is a prayer for the safety and courage of Space Force crews. It opens with, “Watch over those who fly, through the great space beyond Earth…”

Creator of the Universe joins the often recognized anthems for other branches of the U.S. military:

• Army Anthem: “Eternal Father, Hear Our Prayer”
• Air Force: “Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
• Marine: “Eternal Father, strong to save. Marines: at your service”
• Coast Guard: “Master of Land and Sea”

Most people are probably most familiar with military songs, which are not hymns because they are not songs of praise to God.

• Air Force: “Wild Blue Yonder”
• Army: “The army is advancing rapidly”
• Coast Guard: “Semper Paratus”
• Marine: “Raise the anchor”
• Marines: “The Halls of Montezuma”
• Space Force: “Semper Supra”

During Linzey’s 12 years as an Air Force chaplain, he was assigned to Air Force Space Command, the precursor to the U.S. military’s Space Force branch created by then-President Donald Trump.

Colonel Linzey is now the Chief of Chaplains for the United States National Defense Corps, after serving 24 years in the Air Force, Army, and Army Reserves.

The Space Force anthem came to him while he was studying Greek, Linzey said.

“I was thinking about the wonder and amazement of God,” the chief chaplain said. “The words just flowed out of my fingertips.”

Linzey now lives in Coffeyville, Kansas, where he plants the Coffeyville Worship Center, a Southern Baptist church.

His Southern Baptist roots go back generations. His father, Stanford E. Linzey, Jr., who later became a Navy chaplain, survived the USS Yorktownan aircraft carrier sunk by a Japanese submarine during the Battle of Midway.

James F. Linzey’s mother, Verna Linzey, was a biblical language scholar who led an updated translation of the original Tyndale Bible in 2001, called the New Tyndale Version (NTV). She died in 2016, and her son is completing a reworking of the project with 47 scholars using the most accurate texts available.

The Tyndale Bible is considered the first mass-produced Bible translation into English from the original languages. The new translation of the original Tyndale Bible is scheduled to be published in December 2025, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the original in 2026.

“The chaplaincy and spiritual aspect of the Air Force Space Force, involving space travel, is at the heart of the Space Force anthem, asking the Creator of the universe for the safety of every flight,” Linzey said. “Its futuristic vision and mission parallels the New Tyndale Version, a futuristic translation of the Bible, as both emanate from past accomplishments and are designed for the future.”

“Without the freedom to pray for and with military personnel and to provide them with the Bible in a vernacular that will endure for a long time, there is no freedom,” the chief chaplain continued.

“These freedoms are the foundation of all others, and they are the freedoms for which we live and die.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Karen L. Willoughby is a national correspondent for Baptist Press.)