Allow me to echo Darryl and Bill’s sentiments that we had hoped to hear from FV folks that their movement was intended, as DG put it, “to be a substantial critique of modernity in favor of ecclesiology and real (though spiritual) church power.†Instead, it has apparently succumbed to the very forces of modernity and become yet another version of self-fashioning protestant identity formation—“an affinity group,†as DG says.
I want to explore how this happens, and see what the various conversants might have to add. And in doing so, I hope it will be clear that I see the same sickness as polluting both sides of this particular coin, the “movement†and the “status quo.†So, just to be clear, I hope it will become apparent that I am sympathetic to many of the critiques made by the FV folks against their interlocutors in the denominational power base. At the same time, I find Darryl’s charges of Biblicism against the FV and my own earlier charges of anti-traditionalism to be amply borne out in this discussion.
I hope I can be forgiven for essentially repeating some things that have been written elsewhere, in slightly different form. (the discussion of the exchange between Mark Noll and Darryl Hart re: tradition later on in this link may likewise be instructive)
There are two minds: one which loves wisdom (philosopher) and one which loves opinion (philodoxer). Philodoxie is not bad, per se. It serves a useful function. Aristotle classified the various philodoxies as topoi, or categories of thought that are not real things, but exist only on the level of existential rhetoric. The topoi are “values systems†which create a consensus of belief within a group of people bounded by ethnicity or geography or religious myth or statehood or what have you. But they do not penetrate to reality, or to the true experiences that engender the various values systematized. During periods of relative historical stability, the topoi tend to rigidify and the group enters what Aristotle called stasis, or dogmatomachy—the “rule of opinions.â€
Dogmatomachy fosters a degraded human spirit that is closed to the real problems of human existence because those problems have been concealed by wide agreement (or disagreement) over the topoi. According to Eric Voegelin, those who enter the foray are limited to a discussion of existing institutions and an apology for their principles, which quickly devolves into a mere defense of the powers that be. This should ring a bell for anyone following the various FV debates and debacles.
This is because the rulers of a dogmatomachy know that if ever a subject should be opened up for discussion under their rule, it will be, in the words of Walter Baghot, “a clear admission that that subject is in no degree settled by established rule, and that men are free to choose it. It is an admission too that there is no sacred authority—no one transcendent and divinely appointed man whom in that matter the community is bound to obey. … Once effectually submit a subject to that ordeal and you can never withdraw it again; you can never again clothe it with mystery, or fence it by consecration; it remains for ever open to free choice, and exposed to profane deliberation.â€
Voegelin also classified Weltanschauungen (or “worldviewâ€) as one of Aristotle’s topoi. I tend to agree with him. “Worldview,†or any movement that coheres around a protected set of ideas, exists on the level of existential rhetoric rather than penetrating to reality. And that is the problem. Having a “Christian worldview†or a “Federal Vision†gives parochial-and-anxious-about-it Evangelicals and various attenuated Protestants an ersatz catholicity and depth which they need for a variety of reasons—both to meet their honest and well-placed desires for membership and proper beginnings; and to keep the Times from lumping them in with Pat Robertson or Jim Dobson. Christians of all sorts are urged by their intellectual bettors to “articulat[e] a Christian worldview [of] … ‘comprehensive and far-reaching power.’†(That is Nancy Pearcey quoting Abraham Kuyper.)
Worldview-esque movements, like all the topoi, are an identity tool. Their talk is all about the group and its characteristics and principles—a classic dogmatomachy. It is a game of self-fashioning. Here stands F. Vision Prufrock before the mirror. Do I dare approve the worldview that challenges the PCA? Do I dare admit the worldview that challenges the Confession? Do I dare, do I dare?
I am being mean now, but it need not be taken so. Every group does this in one way or another. But it is necessary to health and good order to be able to recognize the pathetic Prufrock.
These kinds of studies and movements suffer from being both a child of, and a reaction against, the Enlightenment and especially its dominant epistemology of positivism. Worldview and movement underpinnings are thoroughly corrupted with subject-object language. Worldview is both something “out there†which can be “possessed†by exposure to the right sources (witness the proliferation of Worldview studies programs at CCCU institutions or FV conferences, literature, etc.) as well as something “in here†that can only be had by a personalist and subjective experience of conversion which brings a new “capacity†with it (witness chapter nine of David Naugle’s book which details the necessity of this kind of conversion for a proper worldview). Naugle exemplifies how a worldview theorist, especially a Christian worldview theorist, becomes quickly boxed in, when he writes, “Therefore, what a person understands a worldview to be is, interestingly enough, dependent upon that person’s worldview! For this reason, I … unpack the implications of biblical faith on the concept of worldview.†Here one can detect the quick downward spiral as the opposite magnetic poles of a need for an overarching story/authority on the one hand and a need for an individualist hermeneutic on the other hand alternatively attract and repel, attract and repel.
This modernist tale of conversion which entails the adoption of a certain opinion and requires none of the rigor and hard-to-swallow classical marks such as submission to an institutional order and denial of self is an inherently schismatic and liberalizing force which devolves into mere choice (of dogma), as noted by Baghot above. (It can also result in a strange form on collonization whereby the upstart identity group largely propelled by various intellectual elites seeks to glom onto or takeover existing institutions which have a measure of earned virtue, skill, and competence–but only because they were the particular, peculiar communities that bred the qualities that made them come into being and flourish and look like attractive candidates for collonization.)
This is hopeless! It is this kind of circular, rationalist literal hermeneutic which creates the very crises of philodoxa which, as Mark Noll puts it, “only bullets, not arguments†can resolve. Setting an inherently liberalizing, rationalist view of scripture—fortified by a mechanical understanding of conversion as the only timber against criticisms that the dominant interpretation is relativistic—necessitates, in turn, the “arms race of opinion†which escalates as philodoxers of differing stripes create ever rigidifying dogmatomachies to act as herbicide against the “postmodern†and liberalizing weed. Witness, the PCA study committee and report.
The whole house is of cards. Either get out the rubber cement, or watch it all blow away.
Let me end this overly long post with a recitation from C.S. Lewis:
[BOQ]Scripture doesn’t take the slightest pain to guard the doctrine of Divine Impassibility. We are constantly represented as exciting the Divine wrath or pity—even as “grieving†God. I know this language is analogical. But when we say that, we must not smuggle in the idea that we can throw the analogy away and, as it were, get in behind it to a purely literal truth. All we can really substitute for the analogical expression is some theological abstraction. And the abstraction’s value is almost entirely negative. It warns us against drawing absurd consequences from the analogical expression by prosaic extrapolations. By itself, the abstraction “impassible†can get us nowhere. It might even suggest something far more misleading than the most naive Old Testament picture of a stormily emotional Jehovah. Either something inert, or something which was “Pure Act†in such a sense that it could take no account of events within the universe it had created. … For our abstract thinking is itself a tissue of analogies: a continual modeling of spiritual reality in legal, or chemical, or mechanical terms. Are these likely to be more adequate than the sensuous, organic, and personal images of Scripture—light and darkness, river and well, seed and harvest, master and servant, hen and chickens, father and child? The footprints of the Divine are more visible in that rich soil than across rocks or slag heaps.[EOQ]
Here Lewis warns against the dangers of philodoxa; against the degraded and closed spirit which conceals, by substituting an abstract consensus of opinion, the engendering experience that is awakened by the immediate language. In contrast, he describes what the philosophers (such as Michael Polanyi) mean by the classic experience of reason: the experience of openness to the mystery of transcendence which flowers when the soul participates with existence as it becomes luminous for a truth which if possessed would be lost. That is the adventure of faith.
Caleb writes: Allow me to echo Darryl and Bill’s sentiments that we had hoped to hear from FV folks that their movement was intended, as DG put it, “to be a substantial critique of modernity in favor of ecclesiology and real (though spiritual) church power.†Instead, it has apparently succumbed to the very forces of modernity and become yet another version of self-fashioning protestant identity formation—“an affinity group,†as DG says.
I don’t quite know how to respond to this. I’ve never seen Van Til and Rosenstock-Huessy as representing forces of modernity. I’m wondering what works by myself, Rosenstock, and Leithart Caleb has read. His whole critique seems to be a critique of something on Mars and nothing that I recognize in the least. I don’t wish to be insulting, but I know of no “movement” in modern Reformed circles that is any more anti-modern than what is being called FV, and I know of none that has a higher ecclesiology.
James, I am sympathetic to what you say here. I really am. And I do recognize the elements of anti-modernity and high ecclesiology you mention.
However, it is apparent to me that FV has built their anti-modernity and high ecclesiology on a foundation of sand. Doug gets at some of this in his question: “Was the Reformation a Church?” I have been critical of BOTH sides for not dealing adequately with the anti-traditional, modern, anti-ecclesial roots of the Reformation.
James, what does it mean to have a “high ecclesiology” that is built on the foundation of biblicism and individualism? What is entirely modern and anti-ecclesial is the individualism that is intrinsic to biblicism. So the FV seems to suffer from an internal contradiction. On the one hand the FV extols a “high ecclesiology”, with a high view of the ministerial priesthood and a high view of the sacraments. But on the other hand the individualism of its biblicism entirely undermines that possibility. This is, I think, the internal contradiction that Caleb’s excellent essay highlights.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Nobody in FV is in the least individualistic in our Biblicism. We have always worked in communication with one another and in dialogue with the entire history of the church and in particular with the Reformed tradition. I do not know where you get this “individualism” business. Can you provide some evidence of this?
Yours.
James, please see my earlier exchanges with Jeff Meyers. Also see DG’s clear explanations of biblicism.
I don’t know if Meyers counts as being part of FV, but it seems he should.
This discussion will not go anywhere unless each side is willing to actually take stock of how certain ideas and charges are being wielded in the heat of what amounts to a political power struggle in the church.
Caleb – I can find no way to make sense of your remarks as Protestant remarks. What is more modern than the Reformation? What is more modern than reifying this thing – “modernism” – and then asking people to step up and oppose it? How can you be critical of both sides for not dealing adequately with the modernism of the Reformation when the only antidote is the most modern thing of all – leaving one’s existing relationships and joining Rome? We don’t solve the modernism of the Reformation by resetting the starting clock to now and defining all our existing denominations as real and all the rabble rousers as mere affinity groups.
This modernism / anti-modernism prism adds a grandiose dimension to the FV controversy that is more of a distraction than anything. The FV says “our tradition has theological problems” and you’re responding that if our tradition were to fix theological problems it would cease to be our tradition. And yet the PCA can’t even manage a cogent theological response from the perspective of the “tradition” – providing persuasive interpretations neither of the tradition’s primary nor subordinate standards. The biblical pattern for Zion is organic, but it is not tradition uber alles. Death and resurrection is how the world is saved. If you’re not part of a resurrection church you’re not really part of the dying one; you’re simply a curator.
There’s also nothing more modern than imposing upon, for example, Doug Wilson’s church a contrived test of “highness” for orthodoxy. Years ago a tiny independent church started moving towards an embrace of reformed soteriology and allowances were made for baptists and paedo-baptists to live side by side in the same body. That’s anti-modern right there – eschewing a purity of ideology that would break up real human relationships. What would be more anti-modern, joining the PCA and kicking out the baptists who were a real part of a real church, or continuing an organic line of growth hoping for a future coming together of various Reformed bodies?
Caleb, I’m still waiting for my post to appear. Suffice it for now to say that neither I nor anyone else needs to satisfy the idiosyncratic and novel notions of Bible, tradition, and ecclesiology that Darryl has been propounding. We’ve explained enough times how much we respect tradition and that we are high churchmen. If you want to call us liars, there’s not much we can do about that!
James, I’m not sure which post you are waiting for.
Again, I am not calling you a liar. I am calling you stubborn for not being willing to look past the “take us at our word or call us liars” dichotomy.
Again, I refer you to the comments and exchange with Mr. Meyers and Sandlin chimed in on this as well. They both defined the reformed tradition as “anti-traditional” and rely on the biblicist, individualist hermeneutic that is found in WCF along with other reformed founding documents and doctrines. Do you repudiate their sentiments? This is actually a point of some disagreement (I think) between Hart and myself, as I am more ready to conceed that the Reformation was an iconoclastic movement than perhaps he is (though I don’t wish to speak for him).
Living traditions are not just ideas. They adhere in institutions, lineages, geographies, peculiar rituals, heroes, stories, narratives, originary myths, etc. It is hard, if not impossible, to choose a tradition. This, I think, is Darryl’s point about FV not being “embodied” enough. It is a valid point.
This leads me to respond to Jon’s questions. I have never suggested the anecdote to the problem I am describing is conversion to Rome. I have always fairly strenuously argued for sticking where one is. You are misreading my description of tradition, as it should be clear that I agree that if “tradition” becomes the subject of musuem curators they will quickly become grass-clippers around a mausoleum.
I guess I’d like to know more about Jim Jordan’s church affiliation. Who is this guy? I’d like to know what church he represents, since he’s such a high churchman.
I sent a post that delineated at some length all the things we have written critical of the “modern” aspects of the Protestant Reformation, which I thought would interact with your second post above. I guess it will show up eventually. If not, I’ll rewrite it, if you want.
If you don’t know who I am, you have no business in a discussion of the Federal Vision. Please, don’t come in here and offer opinions on things you know nothing about!
So how are these embodied traditions changed from within?
As for Rome, the point is that all of your arguments would have worked quite well against Luther.
Come now, Mr. Jordan, your ecclesiastical credentials are less than clear. I believe you were the only signer of the FV Confession without ecclesiastical credentials given. Nor does a simple google search reveal anything.
C’mon Jim, CBrown asks a fair question and I have been wondering that myself. You have been claiming to believe the WCF here and there over the past 10 days, but that begs the question of how and to whom you have subscribed. On the Federal Vision statement you signed, you are described as a minister in the ARC and a member of CREC. What is the ARC and what does it mean to minister in the former and be a member of the latter?
Caleb, just to be clear, do you regard the Reformation as an affinity group? And, if so, is it bad to be an affinity group?
Oh, I have no secrets. I was ordained in the Association of Reformation Churches c. 1981 (I can’t recall). As such I subscribed to the three universal creeds, to the three forms of unity, and to the three Westminster Standards as mutually contextualizing one another. That is, in the ARC we took the Reformed faith as a whole, by “good faith,” and were free to adopt varying views on those particular matters where the Continental standards were not the same as the Westminster. We also had an additional statement allowing paedocommunion. I left the parish ministry in 1987 to pursue writing. The ARC went defunct as its churches all went different places. My credentials are in limbo; since I’m not pastoring at present I’ve had no need to apply to transfer them anyway. At present I’m a member of a CREC candicate church. I’m not a pastor there.
As far as being a “high churchman” is concerned, that only actually means anything in Anglican circles, and since I’m not Anglo-Catholic, I don’t get to be a “high churchman.” It’s a rather contentless spatial metaphor anyway. But I can be a founding member of the Three Peas in a Pod Pentecostal Holiness Church of Jesus Christ, and have every bit as strong an ecclesiology as anybody here, for it’s a matter of how I act and how I believe things should be.
Caleb, I did not “define” the Reformed Tradition as anti-traditional. I said that anti-traditionalism is one aspect of it. It’s a multivalent tradition, and anti-traditionalism is a *part* of that Tradition.
Doug, this is an excellent question that I think lies at the heart of the matter. I will do my best to give my understanding as an answer and perhaps fodder for further discussion (though I suspect I am a fool to tread on such ground when there are many others more knowledgable than I on such matters).
But it will have to wait until tomorrow when I get some time to try to do justice to the issue. Again, blogging eternity, I know!
Caleb, I don’t know what happened to what I wrote before, but here’s what you wrote: “I have been critical of BOTH sides for not dealing adequately with the anti-traditional, modern, anti-ecclesial roots of the Reformation.”
I wrote about all the critiques of the anti-traditional, modern, and anti-ecclesial aspects of the Reformation that we have produced. They may not all scratch your itch, but
1. Leithart’s Th.M. on stoicism (modernity) in Calvinism, which Biblical Horizons has made available for 15 years, surely fits the bill.
2. Rushdoony’s criticisms of what he called neoplatonic elements in the Reformed branch of the Reformation.
3. The numerous criticisms found in 1984 in *The Reformation of the Church,* such as (a) the replacement of Biblical psalmody with modernized metricized poetry that keeps the IDEAS but destroys the FORM; (b) the preaching centeredness (primary of the intellect); (c) the casting out of annual festivals and calendar; (d) the suspicion of musical instruments.
4. My criticisms of Calvin and the tradition of “condescension” in *Creation in Six Days.*
5. Plenty of stuff over the years critical of the uncritical acceptance of Renaissance myths about “common law of nations” and “Roman law” and failure to maintain Biblical law as foundation.
6. Calvin’s unecclesial failure to go with Bucer’s attempts to formulate things all could agree with. We Recons and FVers are, after, Bucerians. In fact, I’m getting the impression that part of the FV “evil” is that we cooperate with other churches and do our theologizing more in a Bucerian context of the larger church than in the tiny circles of one or another Reformed sect.
. More could be added. At any rate, those of us who have opposed modernity for 35 years, and who have written often about the problems of the Reformation in this area, and who have been attacked for doing so — believe that we DO have some idea about the problem of modernity and the Reformation.
Mr. Jordan, that’s the most arrogant comment I’ve heard in a long time. FYI, I’m a minister in the RPCNA, the denomination sponsoring this whole discussion. You’re the guest; I’m the host. You’re the one offering opinions; I’m asking questions. I’m trying to be open-minded and learn here; you’re proving to be rather closed-minded and unteachable.
James,
In Keith Mathison’s _The Shape of Sola Scriptura_, he clearly acknowledges the individualism of solo scriptura. Being in communication with persons with whom one agrees, and in dialogue with the history of the church and the Reformed tradition, is fully compatible with solo scriptura. Solo scriptura is intrinsically individualistic because in solo scriptura the church and tradition are made subject to the individual’s interpretation of Scripture. One picks and chooses eclectically from tradition and church decisions, according to the degree to which they agree with one’s own interpretation of Scripture. Being in conversation with others and in dialogue with the history of the church is therefore fully compatible with being an individualist in the relevant sense of the term ‘individualist’ described in Mathison’s book. So the question is: How is the biblicism of the FV in principle any different from the individualism of the solo scriptura position that Mathison rejects? Being in conversation with others and in dialogue with the history of the church does not provide a principled difference between the FV’s biblicism and solo scriptura.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
My apologies, Rev. Brown. Since I did not know who you are, and since you asked who I am in a context of discussing FV, perhaps you can understand my frustration. But I’ll elaborate. We were asked here to discuss our views; I was not directly asked, but since I’ve been permitted, I think it’s close to having been asked. I think it is not out of line for us to expect that people interacting with us have read some of what we’ve written. We’ve been around for 30 years or more. Instead, for over a week various people have spouted off about what we supposedly believe about various matters, and have rejected our comments to the effect that we don’t believe those things. It has become very tiresome. Then you write in and ask who Jim Jordan is, and that struck me rather wrong and laughable. If you’re going to discuss Calvinism, and then ask who Martin Bucer is, it’s about the same. Anyway, I apologize for my sharpness. I really do not know how to engage people who won’t engage, and that’s been the story of the last week.
Mr. Jordan,
You claim that the Federal Vision, in some form or another, has been around for more than three decades, and yet, still no one can seem to understand or properly interpret what you all are saying.
Is this due to 90% of the Reformed world being too stubborn, or too dense, to engage your positions, or rather to your speaking out of both sides of your collective mouths by denying essential Reformed doctrines then turning around and claiming you adhere to them?
And if your reply is, “What Reformed doctrines have we denied?”, then you made my point for me.
Bryan,
Perhaps you’d better describe the alternative. What Mathison describes is what I think pretty much every scholar does. How can one avoid it? It certainly is what the Reformers did. It is certainly what Calvin did. How else can one proceed? One puts out what one sees God saying, and shows that one is at least not the first to say it. Then one waits to see what others say, for the Church is a Conversation that has a very long way to go still. I don’t know how else one can proceed. What does Matheson see as the alternative?
I can see a sliding scale between hyperindividualism and drumbanging tradition mongering. Everyone worth hearing is somewhere in the middle, I should think.
Certainly I have argued in print for 25+ years against the hyperindividualism of modern pop worship, showing that the Reformation chorales and psalms came out of earlier plainchant, which itself is traceable back to the Temple; while modern pop worship comes from the radio. Certainly I was the first person publicly to attack the hyperpreterists 23 years ago, and my first argument was precisely on the basis that they ignore the Spirit’s work in the history of the church.
Instead of charging us over and over with not respecting tradition, perhaps someone should give an instance. We reject the charge.
Apologies accepted, Mr. Jordan. Another FYI–you can click on my name to find out more about me and my church. I did this for you, but I couldn’t find any information on your website about your credentials or church affiliation. By all appearances, you’re just a guy with a computer, who happens to be the godfather of the FV.
Mr Cross, it would help if you gave us an idea of your alternative. What does “interpreting within the tradition” look like?
Rev. Brown: Go here: http://www.biblicalhorizons.com
James,
Regarding your question “How else can one proceed?”, I think that is a very important question that deserves more attention. To Mathison’s credit, he is trying to find a principled way out of this problem. If there is no principled distinction between solo and sola scriptura, Mathison’s criticisms of solo scriptura present a challenge to the Reformed tradition.
It seems to me that the question has to do with the grounding of the “secondary authority” of church and tradition. If the authority of these is grounded in their agreement with the individual’s own interpretation, then the “drumbanging tradition monger” is just as much of an individualist as the “hyperindividualist”. That kind of grounding of secondary authorities entirely enervates them, it seems to me. These authorities must have some other grounding in order to avoid the individualism of Mathison’s “solo scriptura” and biblicism.
Peter, it seems to me that interpreting within a tradition requires distinguishing between those parts of the tradition that are permanently binding from those parts of the tradition that are either temporarily binding or not binding at all. The former can be developed but not removed or contradicted. The latter may be removed. Otherwise, if all tradition is fixed, there is no room for any development. But if all tradition is contingent and temporary, then there is nothing solid and fixed and certain within which and upon which to grow. The whole tradition would be up for grabs at any time. And that is, it seems to me, equivalent to having no tradition at all.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
It is unfortunate that it has taken so long to actually engage one another. Caleb has a project with which he has been engaged for some time, here and on his own web site. DRC is a covenanter sponsored web discussion, but the newly invited interlocoturs don’t know the background discussion here. Dr. Hart has been carrying on his discussion here, with some Covennaters both sympathetic to, and critical of, his various projects. W2K sits in the background, and foreground, because it has influenced the thinking of some of the younger RP Pastors (the late 90s generation of Seminary Grads). Theonomy was in the background for those of us who did Seminary in the 80s, and Dooeyeweerd those in the 70s. Caleb was raised by parents who began their ministry in the late 60s and early 70s. So, we all have our various background issues. Background issues did not determine that all the various generations embraced either Doowyeweerd, Rushdooney, or Kline! But, it was there – along with a lot of other stuff!
I think Caleb’s questions are fruitful. But, it appears that he has read the critiques of FV, and found them wanting (rightly so), without having read much of the on-going FV (Biblical Horizons, etc.) background material. His questions are relevant, but it has been difficult to get everyone tuned to the same key, let alone singing from the same sheet of music!
Let me just caution that reading what has gone on here through Dr. Hart’s grid mostly adds confusion to the cacophony.
FVers and Covenanters are both committed to Christocracy in the vein of MESSIAH THE PRINCE (Symington). Dr. Hart is against the tradition here, but is in sync with much of the same material as the FVers on Liturgics. However, his view of the Church is an expression of a unique American sectarian approach (vs. Scottish and Continental sectarian approaches, vs. Roman Sectarianism, or EO sectarianism). Sect is not a bad thing all the time – it is a reality with which we all have to deal.
But, as Jim Jordan has indicated, the FV men are all engaged in Church work, most of them being full-time pastors (at least those on the list). So, a lot of that discussion has been a distraction, though I suppose an inevitable issue.
To solve this I invite you all to join the ARP Church. There.
Ha.
Let’s see what’s next.
Hugs,
Tony
Tony, I just don’t think I could bring myself to sing those circus-style gospel refrain settings of the psalms in the ARP psalter. Sorry. Just a bridge too far.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think many of the new ARP churches have the ARP Psalter. We don’t. We have the red Trinity Hymnal and a Praise & Worship book. Sadly the Trinity does not have all the Psalms. Looking towards getting the Trinity Psalter, at least. I’m not familiar with the new Cantus Christi (is that right?) put out by some CREC folk (right?). There is lots of liberty in the ARPC. Maybe too much. A recent worship Committee revision of the Directory is in the process of being adopted, and it has good stuff. But, I missed the last two synods, and am not on top of the denominational developments myself. THe RP Synod takes place in my back yard, so I’m still in better touch with them. Sad to say, I don’t think they are revising their Psalter in the direction of including non-metrical as well as modernized metrical psalms. Still, looks like a decent project – and they (RPs) are attempting ever more literal translations for the update of the Book of Psalms for Singing. Modernizing tunes as well, mostly – which is not necessarily the best. Revs. Brown, Reese and Chellis know more. BTW, Where is Bill Edgar (RP, not WTS)?
Ciao,
Tony