Turn Back, O Man

Clifford Bax, 1916

I can’t see the title of our Hymn of the Week, “Turn Back, O Man,” without seeing in my mind’s eye Mary Magdalen, or at least a woman I assumed was supposed to be she, on stage in a production of Godspell, belting out the first couple of lines in the melody and manner of a torch song. In fact, I can’t even get the melody of the first line out of my hea…