Donald Macleod: Striking the wrong note on psalm singing

Published Date: 06 May 2010

THIS has nothing to do with attracting dissidents from the Church of Scotland, and even less with any financial problems facing the Church. I've been arguing for this change for 20 years.

If there is any element of pragmatism to the discussion it is that many talented people in the Free Church feel unable to accept office under the current rules. The problem is that the vows Free Church ministers take on ordination can be interpreted to mean that exclusive, unaccompanied psalmody is the only "pure" way of worshipping God. Many of us don't believe that; and we don't even believe that that is what our ordination vows bind us to.

What worries us even more is the claim that exclusive psalmody is so much part of the church that it cannot be discussed. Those of us in favour of change argue, first of all, that it is no small thing to be out of step with the rest of Christendom. Is it we alone who have the Holy Spirit? We argue, secondly, that the New Testament requires us to sing, not only psalms, but "psalms, hymns and spiritual songs". And we argue, above all, that, magnificent though the psalms are, they belong to the Old Testament, and we are now living in the age of the New.

The big fear is discord and fragmentation. Let there be no threats to secede nor to expel.

• Professor Donald Macleod is Principal of the Free Church of Scotland College, Edinburgh