On Singing the Psalms: Old and New Patterns of Worship

The Rev Eric Routley, BD, MA, D Phil, lately McKennall Lecturer in Church History, and Chaplain, Mansfield College, Oxford; now Minister of Augustine-Bristo Congregational Church, Edinburgh

‘A Christian who is denied the Psalms in his public worship is like a man condemned to a diet in which there are no fresh vegetables’, writes Routley. ‘He will be dyspeptic and uncomely before he is forty-five.’ He argues that in the presentation and performance of Psalms in public worship, there are several difficulties to be faced, and he goes on to a comparative discussion about the use of Psalms in worship in the Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions.