I don't think there's anything "recent" or "modern" about "Love is Lord". Look at Charles Wesley's original text "Come, O thou Traveller unknown" (1990 United Methodist Hymnal #387) or at the first catholic epistle of St. John. This has always been in tension with other notions (e.g. "Jesus is Lord") in Christian theologizing, but it's been there since the inception. Some moments in hymnody (and some movements in ecclesiality) have been more prone to it than others, but it's never been foreign or even heretical to the beliefs of Christianity, orthodox or heterodox. It's certainly not something Lowry could not have written. Look at his "Chorus of Fire" for an idea of how unstaid his imagery could get, good Baptist that he was.

Liland
Baptist

PS Dr. Watts, the first great English hymn-writer, said of Wesley's "Come, O thou Traveller unknown" that it was worth as much as all the hymns he, Watts, had ever written. It contains phrasings like

Wilt thou not yet to me reveal
Thy new, unutterable name?
Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell:
To know it now resolv'd I am
...
Speak now, or never hence shalt move,
And tell me if thy name is Love.
...
'Tis Love, 'tis Love, thou diedst for me
...
Thy nature and thy name is Love...