Keep calm and . . .

In recent years "Keep Calm" images have become ubiquitous on the internet, originating in an unused British propaganda poster created just ahead of the Second World War.


Now the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America has come up with a wonderful variation on this theme: KEEP CALM AND Sing the Psalms. Good advice at any time.

Scottish acapella psalmody: Psalm 95

Although my principal interest is in the Genevan Psalms as sung by the continental European Reformed churches, our family are currently members of a church that is closer to the Scottish tradition. When we sing the Psalms, they are usually adapted from the venerable Scottish Psalter of 1650. A choral group associated with the Presbyterian Reformed Church of Charlotte, North Carolina, has posted a number of videos of acapella singing of the Scottish Psalms. Here are Psalms 36 and 95:

Singing the Psalms: Psalm 104 (103 LXX)

Although Reformed Christians are well known for emphasizing psalm-singing, they would do well to remind themselves that other Christians sing the Psalms as well. Here is a lovely Orthodox Christian version of Psalm 104, which is numbered 103 in the Greek-language Septuagint. It is not a metrical version, but it might perhaps be sung by an ordinary congregation, with some training and leadership by a choir.

Singing the Psalms: the 'majority position' in the church

"It's clear, isn't it, from all that we've seen, that the singing of the Psalms was part of the inheritance of all the people of God down through the centuries of the Christian church. It is an indisputable historical fact that the Psalms have dominated the praise of the Christian church for 3,000 years [sic]. . . And so when you take all of the history of the Christian church into account, when you don't just look at the small tiny little sliver of time that we live in today, we discover that the singing of the psalms in praise to God is not an unusual thing. it's not a peculiar thing. It's not an odd thing. . . . This has been the majority position of the Christian church throughout her history."

– Rev. Warren Peel