" The Metrical Psalm was the perfect vehicle for turning the Protestant message into a mass movement capable of embracing the illiterate alongside the literate. What better than the very words of the Bible as sung by the hero-King David? The Psalms were easily memorized, so that an incriminating printed text could rapidly be dispensed with. They were customarily sung in unison to a large range of dedicated tunes...The words of a particular Psalm could be associated with a particular melody; even to hum the tune spoke of the words behind it, and was an act of Protestant subversion. A mood could be summoned up in an instant: Psalm 68 led a crowd into battle, Psalm 124 led to victory, Psalm 115 scorned dumb and blind idols and made the perfect accompaniment for smashing up church interiors. The psalms could be sung in worship or in the market place; instantly they marked out the singer as a Protestant, and equally instantly united a Protestant crowd in ecstatic companionship just as the football chant does today on the stadium terraces. They were the common property of all, both men and women: women could not preach or rarely even lead in prayer, but they could sing alongside their menfolk. To sing a psalm was liberation- to break away from the mediation of priest or minister and to become a king alongside King David, talking directly to his God. It was perhaps significant that one of the distinctive features of French Catholic persecution in the 1540's had been that those who were about to be burned had their tongues cut out first"
Diarmaid MacCulloch "Reformation" 308
While I can think of some church tunes that make ME want to cut out people's tongues, I wonder what Psalms would be considered subversive today? I wonder where you could find church that knew their Psalms well enough to be roused by them?
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9 comments:
I loved coming across this quote when I first read 'House Divided'.
Maybe all of the Psalms are too subversive and unsettling - which is we've stopped saying them in church?
I think that we've lost something... So rarely do I think of the Psalms as this, nor does the revolutionary zeal instantly spring to mind when I read them. I think I'll read them in a new light now...
yeah, I guess we think they have very little to say to our current leadership.
Good observation.
"Is it a coincidence that “Reformed scholasticism” began to develop at the same time that the fiery dance-like chorales and psalms of the Reformation began to die down into slow, plodding, even-note mush? It is a coincidence that the “Puritans” had problems with assurance of salvation, given their destruction of enthusiastic singing? I don’t think so. People who sing the psalms as real war chants, as war dances that precede battle, don’t have problems with assurance and don’t have time for scholasticism. Neither do people with strong, fully-sung liturgies."
James Jordan
Yeah, I would disagree with Jordan's assessment of the Reformation. Puritans sang Psalms - that's all they sang - and Reformation scholarship began almost as soon as the Reformation did.
Matt
He's not talking about scholarship but scholasticism, and not about Psalm-singing per se, but about singing them like war songs, which many of them are.
Hey Mike, I meant scholasticism but I was too lazy to write it.
And the Puritans used the Psalms like war songs...I think it says that it the book Michael is quoting from. How else did they win the English Civil War? (Well, several reasons, but that is one).
But it wasn't because the Puritans went all warm and fuzzy that they had issues about their assurance.
"But it wasn't because the Puritans went all warm and fuzzy that they had issues about their assurance. "
Do tell...
In brief: They were very big on making sure that they lived out their faith in every aspect of their life. They went too far in some respects (and came up with some whacky ideas about politics for example, or revelation (not the book)). But it was motivated by a desire to be integrated and faithful to God.
They started keeping diaries because they thought it was the best way for them to watch their life and doctrine. So they kept diaries, which is a very private thing to do, and started stressing out about assurance and so on, because all their grounding for assurance became emotionally and experientially based.
It was a problem that wasn't really solved until Jonathan Edwards started reflecting on the Great Awakening in the 18th century.
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