Are hymns poetry?

I read an essay by Andy Judd last night titled Can Hymns Be Great Poetry? It's a little technical in spots, but overall a good read. To summarise, Andy argues against Samuel Johnson's view

According to Samuel Johnson, hymns cannot be poetry of any calibre. For him there is an irreconcilable conflict between the “essence” of poetry which is invention (“something unexpected [which] surprises and delights”) and the “paucity” of religious devotional topics which “enforces perpetual repetition” and “rejects ornaments of figurative diction”. He allows the best hymnists only that they have “done better than others what no man has done well”.

holding that hymns can fulfil all the requirements of 'poetry' and that whether or not a text is poetry ultimately comes down to the value that culture places on it.

If I had to sign on the line, I'd probably agree with Judd - hymns can be poetry. But I don't think that they often are. Mostly they are just verse. I love hymns but I think that on the whole it's formula writing - a bit like mills and boon romances or crime novels. Occasionally a hymn writer will write something that steps over the line and is poetry - but this is rare. Perhaps as rare as a paperback novel being literature.

What do you think? What hymns do you think have stepped over the line and are poetry?