Worthy of neon lights . . .

A Wesleyan Psalter

Although the singing of the Psalms is nowadays associated with those churches standing in the Reformed tradition, the current revival of the liturgical use of the biblical Psalter is affecting even those standing in the Wesleyan and Holiness traditions. Evidence can be found for this in the Seedbed Psalter. From the front page of the website:

All of Scripture is given to us for “teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness” which, of course, includes the Book of Psalms. We can certainly study the psalms, learn from them, be corrected by them, and be trained by them for righteousness, just like the rest of the Scriptures. But the Psalms are unique – they are the hymnbook of the people of God, and they are meant to be sung. Join us on this exciting journey as we learn to sing the Word!

Not surprisingly perhaps, the Seedbed Psalter borrows from the 1650 Scottish Psalter and Reformed Presbyterian (Crown and Covenant) resources. Among the fine items to be found on this website is the following quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “whenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure vanishes from the Christian church. With its recovery will come unsuspected power.” Amen!

Psalm 104

Our friend Ernst Stolz has now passed the one-hundred mark in his journey through the Psalms. Here is his lovely rendition of Psalm 104, posted just today:

Brother Down sings the psalms

In recent years there have been a number of efforts to reinterpret the Genevan Psalms, including that of the Dutch group, The Psalm Project. Just over two years ago, I wrote of a group called Brother Down, which has finally released its new album to coincide with yesterday's observance of Reformation Day. The album, titled Old Paths, New Feet, is available from the usual sources, including amazon, which permits listeners to sample the individual tracks.

I plan to review the album here and on my Genevan Psalter discography page, but I will give a few initial impressions now based on what I've seen and heard thus far. To begin with, one observer has characterized these renditions as "pub music style." Perhaps. Second, although most of the tunes are Genevan, two of them, namely, those for Psalms 63 and 103 are not. Psalm 63 is set to Thomas Tallis' haunting THIRD MODE MELODY, which formed the basis of Ralph Vaughan Williams' classic 1910 composition, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. Third, I find it somewhat curious that the performers opted for texts in Jacobean English, which does not exactly fit their style of music.

But, as I said, these are preliminary thoughts that I hope to flesh out after I've heard the album in its entirety.

The Next Psalter: a sample

Last week I wrote of my intention to author a book on the Psalms, complete with fresh, non-Genevan versifications and melodies. Although for the most part I will not be posting these new ones here, I have decided to include a sample of what I am provisionally calling The Next Psalter. This is the universally beloved Psalm 23, for which I wrote a common-metre versification four years ago. I had originally set it to the tune, DUNFERMLINE from the 1650 Scottish Psalter. Now I have come up with a new tune, GATEVIEW, with a quite different feel. A pdf copy of the score can be found here.

Wright on the Psalms

Few authors can boast the prolific output of N. T. "Tom" Wright, and, among those who can, fewer yet are capable of bridging the gap between the scholarly and the popular. But Wright moves easily between the two genres, and The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential is definitely aimed at a lay readership. Although Wright is a New Testament scholar, he wrote this book out of his lifelong experience of praying through the Psalms on a regular basis. The immediate occasion for this writing was his participation at a conference at Calvin College a year ago this past January.

Among Reformed theologians, the Dutch figures, such as Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck and (on this side of the pond) Geerhardus Vos are especially well-known for their redemptive-historical approach to the Bible, which reads the Bible not simply as a disparate collection of ancient religious texts but as a unified story of God's creation, followed by man's fall into sin, redemption in Jesus Christ and ultimate consummation at his second advent. Nevertheless, this way of reading the Bible is by no means limited to those with Netherlandic roots, and Wright is a worthy example of a similar approach among British scholars. Those familiar with Wright's Surprised by Hope, will recognize here as well his typical eschatological emphasis on the new creation to be inaugurated by Christ on his return. Salvation is not simply a matter of saving disembodied Platonic souls, but extends to the entire created order, which will eventually be suffused with God's glory, as it was intended to be from the beginning. Wright has done his readers a service by tracing this central biblical story through the Psalms.

Because so many of the Psalms were intended for Temple worship in Jerusalem, they see the Temple as the unique setting for God's presence in this world. Nevertheless, once the Temple was gone, God's glory did not go with it. This is where Wright's eschatological vision enters the picture, because the New Testament writers applied the Old Testament passages dealing with the Temple to the person of Jesus Christ, the new Temple and the unique vessel of God's glory. Moreover, the early Christian writers foresaw a time when the promises associated with Jerusalem and its Temple would extend to the whole creation. This is how God's people of the new covenant can sing Psalms 42-43 and 84, recognizing that the longing for God's house of worship is fulfilled completely in Jesus Christ.

Wright is, of course, a former bishop in the Church of England, and this colours his treatment here. As such he has experienced the chanting of the Psalms at Holy Communion and at Morning and Evening Prayer. Miles Coverdale's somewhat unpolished 16th-century translation of the Psalms has shaped generations of Anglican worshippers, including Wright. Yet Wright seems unaware that his tradition once made more use of the Psalms than contemporary Anglicans remember. He writes: "The Scottish church developed a well-known set of metrical psalms, translating the whole book into poems that could then be sung to regular hymn tunes" (168). But it didn't begin in Scotland. It actually started in England with the publication of the Sternhold & Hopkins Psalter in 1562, the same year that saw the completion of the Genevan Psalter. Generations of Anglicans grew up singing first Sternhold & Hopkins and later Tate & Brady's Psalter before metrical psalmody faded from the scene by the end of the 18th century. This tradition of sung metrical psalmody was as much an Anglican tradition as it was Scottish. Yet given that most Anglicans these days are unaware of this heritage, Wright can hardly be faulted for neglecting it here.

What I most appreciated in this book is Wright's emphasis that immersing oneself in the Psalms will transform one's worldview. This has been my experience as well. Some 35 years ago I discovered the Daily Office, with its pattern of praying through the Psalms on a regular basis. It didn't take me long to get "hooked" on the Psalms, drinking in their praises, lamentations, angry imprecations, complaints and, of course, thanksgivings.

Read Wright's book, and then read the Psalms. Not once, but regularly for the rest of the journey. And prepare to be changed.

Singing the Psalms: my next project

Dear readers:

Now is the time to share with you what I've been up to these past few weeks. I've not posted anything on my Genevan Psalter site recently, because I've now turned my efforts towards writing fresh English-language versifications of the Psalms set to original tunes. My 2009 CM versification of Psalm 23 now has music which I have expressly composed for it. Last sunday I wrote a metrical versification (11.11.11.11) of Psalm 1 and on wednesday I came up with a tune, which I arranged the following day. These are coming fairly quickly now, and I want to take advantage of the momentum for as long as I am able. Eventually I may post some of these new sung psalms, but not for now.

I am still waiting to hear from my editor on the final draft of the book manuscript I submitted in June on another topic, so I am using the time until then to work on other projects, including this one. Increasingly I am thinking that my next book will be on the liturgical use of the Psalms, and I plan to incorporate some of my own work with metrical psalmody in this. I've got a lot of material to work with, so I need to get as sharp a focus as I can on this.

This takes me outside my formally credentialled field of political science, of course, yet all of this is considerably more than a mere avocation for me, and it's a real labour of love. Your prayers for this project would be most appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Yours in Christ,

David Koyzis

The Wright Stuff: on the Psalms

Many of us have been looking forward to the publication of Tom Wright's latest, The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential. The book is now out, and Christianity Today carries an interview with the prolific former Bishop of Durham: N.T. Wright Wants to Save the Best Worship Songs. An excerpt:

What do you mean by the phrase "nonpsalmic worship"?

When people give up using the Psalms, they often invent poor substitutes—songs, prayers, or poems that have a bit of Christian emotion and a bit of doctrine, but nonetheless lack the Psalter's depth, passion, and rich variety of expression. If one tries to do without the Psalms, there is an identifiable blank at the heart of things.

How can the Psalms transform us?

Within the Jewish and Christian traditions, you get your worldview sorted out by worship. The Psalms are provided to guide that worship. When we continually pray and sing the Psalms, our worldview will actually reconfigure according to their values, theology, and modes of expression.

Once I have read this book, I will review it here. Stay tuned.

Rising at Midnight: Changing Sleep Patterns and Daily Prayer

Most western adults try to sleep between seven and eight hours a night, with some needing less and others more for proper functioning during the day. However, many of us suffer from insomnia, unwillingly lying awake for hours in the middle of the night. As it turns out, however, fretting about wakefulness seems to be a modern preoccupation. Our ancestors appear to have taken this as a normal state of affairs, as reported here: Your Ancestors Didn’t Sleep Like You.

Your ancestors slept in a way that modern sleepers would find bizarre – they slept twice. . . . The existence of our sleeping twice per night was first uncovered by Roger Ekirch, professor of History at Virginia Tech.

His research found that we didn’t always sleep in one eight hour chunk. We used to sleep in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night. This range was about 12 hours long, and began with a sleep of three to four hours, wakefulness of two to three hours, then sleep again until morning.

References are scattered throughout literature, court documents, personal papers, and the ephemera of the past. What is surprising is not that people slept in two sessions, but that the concept was so incredibly common. Two-piece sleeping was the standard, accepted way to sleep.

Although unfamiliar to us today, a perusal of the Bible appears to support Ekirch's discovery. Here are a few telling references:

But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron (Judges 16:3).

At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! (Ruth 3:8)

At midnight I rise to praise you, because of your righteous rules (Psalm 119:62).

Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning (Mark 13:35).

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them (Acts 16:25).

What did people do with these wakeful hours in the middle of the night? According to Stephanie Hegarty, writing for the BBC,

During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.

This answers a question that has puzzled many of us who have studied the ancient patterns of daily prayer practised by God's people of the old and new covenants. Nowadays we have difficulty imagining why anyone would willingly consent to be roused from a supposedly deep slumber by the summons to prayer at such an (if you'll pardon the expression) ungodly hour. Yet they may already have been awake. Both Roman and Orthodox monasteries prescribed a midnight office, with certain psalms assigned to be prayed at that hour. According to chapter VIII of the Rule of St. Benedict:

Making due allowance for circumstances, the brethren will rise during the winter season, that is, from the calends of November till Easter, at the eighth hour of the night [between 12 and 1 am]; so that, having rested till a little after midnight, they may rise refreshed.

Some of us who have suffered from insomnia in the past have already discovered the benefits of prayer during these periods of wakefulness. Perhaps it is time to change our attitude towards these times. Rather than see them as occasions for suffering, at least where obvious illness is not a factor, perhaps we might view them as opportunities to bring our praises, petitions and thanksgivings before a gracious and loving God, who, as the psalmist assures us, neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121:4) and for whom night is as bright as day (Psalm 139:12).

Le psautier de Genève à Taizé

The Genevan Psalter finds a place even at Taizé. Here is Psalm 92:

Bert Polman (1945-2013)

My former colleague, Bert Polman, died last month after suffering a number of health setbacks in recent years. He taught music at Redeemer University College between 1985 and 2004, when he went to Calvin College to teach. Polman was on the committee that produced the 1987 edition of the Christian Reformed Church's Psalter Hymnal and was highly respected in the field of hymnology. A collection of Polman's liturgical material has now been compiled and posted here: God, We Sing Your Glorious Praises: Hymns and Prayers for Devotional Use. This is from John Witvliet's introduction:

Bert had a particular concern for the faithful use of the biblical Psalms in public worship, and frequently took up the challenge of versifying many lesser-known Psalms for inclusion in volumes of congregational song. These texts reveal Bert’s passionate commitment to the Psalms and a large-scale view of God’s peaceable kingdom which comes through Jesus Christ.

Those of us who knew him personally will miss Bert, yet, as St. Paul the Apostle puts it, we grieve but not as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). May Bert rest in peace until the resurrection, and may God grant comfort to those he has left behind.

Why sing the psalms?

Rob Slane puts forth an argument for what he calls "inclusive psalmody": Why the church needs to sing the Psalms. Here's Slane:

The Psalms, which form the biggest book in the Bible, were clearly meant to be sung, and the Bible gives many exhortations for us to sing them. This is most clearly seen in the Psalms themselves: “Sing to him, sing psalms to him; talk you of all His wondrous works” (Psalm 105:2); “Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms.” (Psalm 95:2); “Sing unto the Lord with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm” (Psalm 98:5). . . .

One of the most striking things about the Psalms is that perhaps more than any other book of the Bible, they establish the antithesis, with wickedness on one side and righteousness on the other. This is seen clearly in very first Psalm which divides between on the one hand, the blessed man who “walks not in the counsel of the ungodly” and on the other hand the ungodly man who is “like the chaff which the wind drives away.” The righteous man, it goes on to say, is like “a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season,” in contrast to “the way of the ungodly (which) shall perish.”

Eu Pertenço

This year marks the 450th anniversary of the publication of the widely loved Heidelberg Catechism, commissioned by Elector Frederick III the Pious and written by Caspar Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus. Back in 1986 I set the text of the first question and answer to verse under the title, I Belong, and composed a tune, HEIDELBERG, in 2001. In 2011 my good friend and collaborator Lucas Grassi Freire wrote an original versification in the Portuguese language in two stanzas to be sung to my tune. The title is Eu Pertenço, and I have just posted it at my website.

We were privileged to have Freire as a guest in our home during his recent visit to North America. We wish him and his new wife Emma God's richest blessings as they begin married life together.

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

From church to stage: nurturing a culture of congregational song

While the Bible speaks of praising God with musical instruments (e.g., Psalms 147, 149 and 150), there is an ancient tradition of unaccompanied singing in the church. The Orthodox Churches, Reformed Presbyterians and the Churches of Christ sing a cappella in their worship services. Such groupings out of principle exclude musical instruments from their liturgies. Although many of us would not go quite that far, there is nevertheless much to be said for the argument Justin Taylor, drawing on John Piper and James K. A. Smith, makes in noting “The Difference between Congregational Worship and a Concert.” Taylor quotes Smith:

Christian worship is not a concert. In a concert (a particular “form of performance”), we often expect to be overwhelmed by sound, particularly in certain styles of music. In a concert, we come to expect that weird sort of sensory deprivation that happens from sensory overload, when the pounding of the bass on our chest and the wash of music over the crowd leaves us with the rush of a certain aural vertigo. And there’s nothing wrong with concerts! It’s just that Christian worship is not a concert. Christian worship is a collective, communal, congregational practice–and the gathered sound and harmony of a congregation singing as one is integral to the practice of worship. It is a way of “performing” the reality that, in Christ, we are one body. But that requires that we actually be able to hear ourselves, and hear our sisters and brothers singing alongside us. When the amped sound of the praise band overwhelms congregational voices, we can’t hear ourselves sing–so we lose that communal aspect of the congregation and are encouraged to effectively become “private,” passive worshipers.

It might seem odd to jump from liturgy to the theatre section of the New York Times, but this report is a marvellous witness to the power of a culture of congregational song in one segment of the American church: Something Happened on the Way to Bountiful: Everyone Sang Along. Cicely Tyson currently appears in a Broadway revival of the Horton Foote play, The Trip to Bountiful, playing Mrs. Carrie Watts, a character played so wonderfully by the late Geraldine Page in the screen version nearly three decades ago. At one point Tyson sings Fanny Crosby and Phoebe Knapp’s familiar gospel hymn, “Blessed Assurance.”

From the first note, there’s a palpable stirring among many of the black patrons in the audience, which the play, with its mostly black cast, draws in large numbers. When Ms. Tyson jumps to her feet, spreads her arms and picks up the volume, they start singing along. On some nights it’s a muted accompaniment. On other nights, and especially at Sunday matinees, it’s a full-throated chorus that rocks the theater.

“I didn’t realize they were doing it until someone remarked to me how incredible it was that the audience was joining in,” Ms. Tyson said in a recent interview, referring to her preview performances. “I said, ‘Where?’ I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn’t hear it.”

After the play opened, on April 23, she began tuning in. “At that point, I was relaxed enough to let other things seep in,” she said. “It was absolutely thrilling.”

Thrilling but unexpected. Under normal circumstances the Broadway experience does not include audience participation, even when catchy songs from classic musicals are being performed.

Some decades ago, at a worship conference at Calvin College, I heard someone remark that Christians are among the few people who regularly sing together in a culture which has so thoroughly professionalized the music “industry.” A vibrant culture of congregational song is something we should continue to nurture in our churches lest it be suppressed by the ubiquitous choirs and praise bands that have reshaped the liturgy in so many settings. And if we do so, it may just manage to spill over into the rest of our lives, even into such unlikely venues as Broadway!

Stolz: Psalm 83

Our friend Ernst Stolz continues his recording pilgrimage through the Psalms, with Psalm 83 his latest contribution. I love the organ and recorder combination. However, to be quite honest, I find it difficult to warm up to the crumhorn, whose sound too closely resembles that of a kazoo for my comfort. But let the listener judge for herself.

Fantasia on Psalm 47

The actual title is Fantasy and Fugue on a theme by Goudimel for Organ Duet, by Rachel Laurin, performed last September by Marnie Giesbrecht and Joachim Segger. This was commissioned by the Edmonton RCCO Special Enhancement Fund in Edmonton, Alberta. The title should perhaps reference Louis Bourgeois rather than Claude Goudimel, who merely arranged the melody for the Psalm. An impressive performance all round.