DISCOURSE  ISSUES AND STRATEGIES  IN  LUTHER'S "A MIGHTY FORTRESS" AND MONSELL'S "FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT"

• Kehinde Omowumi Lanre-Atoyebi Ph.D.

  Adeyemi Federal University of Education, Ondo

  Author

This study investigates discourse issues and strategies in Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and John Monsell’s “Fight the Good Fight”, examining how language constructs ideological meaning within Christian hymnody. Although hymns are central to religious and cultural practice, scholarly attention within discourse studies has largely overlooked them, particularly from a linguistic perspective that foregrounds ideology and strategy. This study addresses this gap by treating the hymns as purposeful discourses that encode belief through patterned language use. Adopting a qualitative Critical Discourse Analysis informed by van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach, the study explores how shared belief systems are reproduced through lexical choice, metaphor, pronoun usage, and evaluative structures. The analysis reveals two dominant discourse issues: Christian warfare and spiritual pilgrimage. In Luther’s hymn, Christian warfare is linguistically realized through militaristic lexical items such as “fortress,” “bulwark,” “foe,” “arms,” and “fight,” which frame faith as collective resistance against evil. Monsell’s hymn, by contrast, foregrounds pilgrimage and moral endurance through journey-oriented lexis such as “fight,” “race,” “run,” “crown,” and “life,” constructing faith as an individual ethical journey. These discourse issues are sustained through discursive strategies including assertion (e.g., declaratives such as “A mighty fortress is our God”), invigoration (imperatives such as “Fight,” “Run,” “Lift up”), polarization (believers versus sin or evil), and positive self-presentation (lexicalization of believers as strong, faithful, and victorious). The study concludes that these hymns function as ideologically loaded linguistic texts and demonstrates the relevance of Critical Discourse Analysis to literary and religious discourse within English studies.

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