Re-visiting Julie Fowlis, et al

Julie Fowlis with Jenna Reid & Donal Lunny - Biodh An Deoch Seo 'N Làimh Mo Rùin
And:
Hector The Hero - Jenna Reid with Aly Bain

Don't ask irrelevant questions

This, from Kevin DeYoung:

Is there a command of Scripture we disobey more frequently, and with so little shame, as the injunction to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16)? I mean, seriously, it’s right there in black and white. We are supposed to sing psalms. As far as I can tell, the exegetical debate is not about whether these three terms refer to something other than biblical psalms, but whether they might all refer to different kinds of biblical psalms. Either way, God wants us to sing psalms does he not?

Jesus sang the Psalms (Matt. 26:30). The early church sang the Psalms. The Reformers, especially in the tradition of Calvin, loved to sing the Psalms and labored mightily to restore them to the church. The Bay Psalm Book was the first book printed in America. The Psalms—150 God-breathed songs—have been the staple of Protestant (and especially Reformed) worship for 500 years. And yet how many of our churches sing a Psalm even once a month? I know there are exceptions, but by and large the evangelical church is bereft of Psalm singing. We might unknowingly stumble into one every now and again through Isaac Watts, but for the most part we don’t think about singing Psalms; we don’t plan to sing Psalms; and we don’t sing Psalms.

Assuming we haven’t started an irreversible trend, I imagine future generations will be puzzled by our avoidance of the Psalms. “Why did they give up on the Psalms?” they may ask. “Didn’t they know God wrote them? I suppose they were worried that no one would like singing Psalms. I guess they assumed young people wouldn’t stomach it. But why didn’t they try? Why didn’t they come up with new music for the Psalms? Why didn’t they teach their people about the emotional depth and Christological richness and the gritty honesty of the Psalms? And if they couldn’t think of any other reasons to sing the Psalms, why didn’t they just do it because the Bible told them to?”

You know, they ask pretty good questions in the future, if I do say so myself.

John Calvin was an advocate of singing.

Are you a church-man? Or, perhaps I should ask, are you a church-person? If you are, there should be no doubt in your mind what the role of singing is. By that, I mean congregational singing.

I was just thumbing-through a small collection, aptly named, Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. It is published by Founder’s Press, and is edited by Joe B. Nesom. It's interesting to note that the first song in the sixty-three song collection is And Can It Be, which was written by Charles Wesley – he, along with his brother John, of the decidedly non-calvinistic ‘persuasion’. This song, however, has to be his most glorious contribution to the extollation (is that a word?) of the honor and glory of God, from among his hundreds of compositions. It would appear that he may have been almost unaware of what he was doing, in that the song appropriately serves to dispense with otherwise flawed perceptions of God, and resoundingly ascribes a glaringly Calvinistic perspective. That’s fine and dandy – no doubt, if, in heaven, one is able to recall his finest earthly achievements, Charles Wesley is lustily singing And Can It Be, albeit with appropriate revisions to reflect his own transition from the mortality of this present earth to the eternal realities of heaven. 

Oh, yes, that is absolutely one of my favorite hymns.

Anyway, my primary purpose for this post is to cite a short footnote from the book. The citation is from John Calvin’s Preface to the Genevan Psalter (1543):

The use of singing may be extended further: it is even in the houses and fields an incentive for us, like an organ, to praise God and to lift our hearts to Him, for consoling us in meditating upon His virtue, goodness, wisdom and justice, which is more necessary than can be expressed… Among all other things which are proper for recreation of man and for giving him pleasure, music is one of the first or one of the principal and we must esteem it as a gift of God given to us for that purpose.

FOR THE PRE-PUBLICATION PRICE OF $299.95, YOU CAN OBTAIN LOGOS SOFTWARE'S Calvin 500 Collection (97 Vols.).

It looks like it will be an absolutely awesome resource.  Oh, scroll down a ways, at the Logos website, to read some of the Praise for John Calvin.

Brogue-ing at its best!

Assuming the strong accent is Scottish, or Irish - my favorite foreign accents, and a quite good recommendation, to boot.

Need Calvinized? from Puritan Reformed on Vimeo.
Calvinists don't evangelize, do they?
Why are so many pastors also keen fishermen? from Puritan Reformed on Vimeo.

Voddie rocks

Calling Calvin to Account

On this, the 500 year anniversary of John Calvin's birth, I note that Southern Baptist pastor Steve Lawson made this statement when asked this three word question, what about Servetus? Lawson was expecting this question, and was "loaded for bear." He fired this off like a 50cal:

"In 1553, the city fathers burned Servetus - Calvin did not. Calvin did not prosecute him, and had no powers of execution. Calvin wasn't even a citizen of Geneva at the time. Calvin was only an expert witness, and argued for a more humane death. The RCC had already condemned Servetus to death, and Servetus begged not to be sent back to their hands. Servetus was given the option to leave Geneva, and refused. Servetus was executed by civil authorities, not elders or pastors or teachers. The civil authorities were Calvin's enemies, not his supporters. They consulted other cities' leaders, and they agreed to put him to death. Servetus would have been executed, regardless. Servetus defiantly ignored a warning not to come to Geneva. He was the only heretic to be executed for blasphemy, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands martyred by Rome during the Inquisition."

It's interesting how the facts of history are made to bow to the insinuations and imaginations of a man's enemies - 500 years later, even. Servetus was an unwelcome, and uninvited, refugee from the Roman Catholic 'authorities', who were pursuing him. He was considered to be a heretic, by the reformers, and by the Roman church. Those were tremendously turbulent times. Servetus was a heretic. The times virtually mandated the results of his heresies. Doctrine mattered then, as it does now. The difference between then and now is that there was no space for a genuine 'safe haven'. He was a victim of his times, and of his heretical beliefs. It was a matter of, into whose hands he would fall, or commit himself. John Calvin advocated for what would have been the more merciful 'conclusion', in or out of Geneva. 

Smokin'

I don't advocate the smoking of cigarettes, but what I have here is a wreath made of cigarette packages. I haven't counted the packs, but this does represent a considerable amount of puffing.

You recognized it right away, didn't you?

The wreath was made by my long-since deceased ('78 or '79)
brother-in-law. Melvin was, I think, 51 years of age when he died. Anyhow, I played around with the photo - Above is the clunky result.

'Tis the season - I think

In praise of Matzah

With meatsauce, or meatballs, please!

I don't know if we have domestic growers, or if our entire spaghetti supply is imported. Check out this recent broadcast by the BBC - well, it was on April 1; the year was 1957: here, if you have the player capabilities.
I had to click on the play/pause button a couple of times to activate the video, after which it played without any problems.

Needs serious up-date! Nonetheless, compellingly relevant!!

Evangelicals on the Durham Trail
D.G.Hart

Why is it that, when evangelicals retreat from the public square into their houses of worship they manifest the same hostility to tradition, intellectual standards, and good taste they find so deplorable in their opponents in the culture wars? Anyone familiar with the so-called "Praise & Worship" phenomenon (so named, supposedly, to remind participants of what they are doing) would be hard pressed to identify these believers as the party of memory or the defenders of cultural conservatism. P&W has become the dominant mode of expression within evangelical churches, from conservative Presbyterian denominations to low church independent congregations. What characterizes this "style" of worship is the praise song ("four words, three notes and two hours") with its mantra-like repetition of phrases from Scripture, displayed on an overhead projector or video monitors (for those churches with bigger budgets), and accompanied by the standard pieces in a rock band.

Gone are the hymnals which keep the faithful in touch with previous generations of saints. They have been abandoned, in many cases, because they are filled with music and texts considered too boring, too doctrinal, and too restrained. What boomers and busters need instead, according to the liturgy of P&W, are a steady diet of religious ballads most of which date from the 1970s, the decade of disco, leisure suits, and long hair. Gone too are the traditional elements of Protestant worship, the invocation, confession of sins, the creed, the Lord's Prayer, the doxology, and the Gloria Patri. Again, these elements are not sufficiently celebrative or "dynamic," the favorite word used to describe the new worship. And while P&W has retained the talking head in the sermon, probably the most boring element of Protestant worship, the substance of much preaching turns out to be more therapeutic than theological.

Read the entire article here.

Also, from de regnis duobus: Preaching to the QIRE: Lewis on Liturgy