I came out as St. Melito, like you Trey, which is just great - as I didn’t know anything about him! But I definitely relate very much with the description, so the quiz must be pretty good.

Here’s a very interesting, and very good, article - actually, an interview with Anglican theologian NT Wright - in TIME magazine: “Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop.”
I especially appreciate this statement:
Our culture is ver…

I shall be blogging about this.

I don’t think Jordan is interested in forcing anything upon others. He isn’t saying the King should send troops in and make all congregations conform. He’s simply challenging people to think about improving and maturing worship.

Chanting is one of the only ways to sing the psalms without reverting to Yoda-speak. You know what I mean. If you want to sing the Psalms in a straight-forward manner where the text makes sense, you probably will not be able to fit it into a pre-arranged melody. One of the optional session at AAPC also went through other options.

The Chants done at AAPC were fairly easy too. Everyone picked up on them, and they were pretty Western-European through and through. What’s the difference between “singing” All people that on earth may dwell and “chanting” it. It was originally a chant, was it not?

Also, why give the chant to the Anglicans. Lutherans, Catholics, and Orthodox do it too. Are Presbyterians simply “protesting” all of these traditions? I’d hope not. And of course, the CREC isn’t exactly Presbyterian is it? It more closely models the Continental polity, and it allows for various Reformed confessions, one of which is the 39 Articles. Wilson told me that the Augsburg is also up for consideration, so it seems that chanting would be quite a natural fit in this sort of atmosphere. We’re headed in a decidedly Bucerian direction.

Two simple (and unoriginal) points to start with:

1. There is no universal agreement amongst subscribers to the RPW as to exactly what it means in practice. For example, some would say it mandates exclusive psalmody, others don’t.

2. The main use of the RPW is to justify and perpetuate the established style of worship found in a church or group of churches. As such, it is part of a control system that stifles dissent and enforces conformity to the status quo.

Could I possibly suggest that we’d be better off if the RPW was consigned to the scrapheap of history. It seems to be little more than a misuse of Scripture to suit man’s ends.

Now, regarding dance, which is my particular interest, I need to respond to some of Trey’s remarks.

David’s defense, though, as half-hearted as it was, of “Davidic dance” seems strange to me, though. It is one thing to have purely spontaneous expressions of praise through the course of one’s life, especially in times when God has done something wonderful and glorious in some particular circumstance. However, the overarching guard on what we do in worship, even over the circumstances that are not specifically dealt with in the RPW, is the rule of doing all things in worship “decently and in order.”

I found the use of the term “Davidic Dance” rather interesting. Although there is no dictionary definition of the phrase (it’s also a bit fluid), it is most commonly used in the Messianic Jewish movement to refer to their particular form of congregational worship dance (the term “Messianic Dance” is also used). Davidic or Messianic Dance uses the style of Israeli folk dance to enable lots of people to dance together in worship without needing to have done lots of dance training.

So, to most people with knowledge in this field, Davidic Dance is not spontaneous or unstructured, but a choreographed form of dancing that enables a group of people to dance in a “decent and orderly” way during corporate worship. In fact, order is one of the key points of Davidic Dance. I’ve seen groups of up to 100 people dance together like this, and I can assure everyone that it is decent and ordered.

It is impossible, by the way, to claim that all the Biblical examples of dance (including King David’s) were spontaneous, improvised, or unchoreographed.

I don’t know who would think that twenty people spontaneously dancing during corporate worship could be properly defined as decent and orderly. That seems to preclude Davidic dance in corporate worship, even if it is perfectly acceptable in personal worship (which is precisely where we see it to begin with!).

I would humbly beg to differ. As someone with plenty of dance experience, I can categorically say that it is perfectly possible for twenty people to spontaneously dance during corporate worship in a decent and orderly way. I wouldn’t call it Davidic Dance, though, and I assume that Trey is referring to what most dancers call improvised (ie non-choreographed or free) dance. (The term spontaneous dance is not a helpful one in my view).

Incidentally, a careful study of the passages documenting King David’s dance indicates that it was not a solo or private act, but it was done in a communal and public situation where many people were also dancing.

Of course, then again, I have a Tuesday night M.Th. class with a bunch of dispensationalists…

As you know, I am strictly a 24/6 guy, but that view (the view of your presbytery) is even too narrow for me. It’s not like he jettisoned his view completely in favor of an allegorical reading of Genesis 1-11 (imho, the historicity of Genesis 1-11, especially the opening chapters, is the real issue). Some folks who believe in literal days opt for a older universe (no, I’m not talking about the old gap theory here). I might question their exegesis (and ask that they provide an explanation before presbytery, for instance), but I wouldn’t automatically brand them unfit for the pulpit in the process.