I’m in the early stages of reading through David Chilton’s Paradise Restored. If it lives up to my high expectations, I will follow by reading his book Days of Vengeance. They are about eschatology, and incidentally touch on a wide variety of other subjects. Chilton claims that rapture-based eschatologies and other eschatologies that conclude things are getting worse and worse are a recent aberration. (North lumps these together into a single large category he calls pessimillenialism.) Instead, Chilton believes that the Church’s influence will grow until it fills every part of the earth with a mostly Christian population. Early in the book, Chilton claims that it is no accident that pessimistic eschatologies have risen as the Church’s singing of the Psalms has waned. From pages 8-9 of Paradise Restored:
Historically, the basic hymnbook for the Church has been the Book of Psalms. The largest book of the Bible is the Book of Psalms, and God providentially placed it right in the middle of the Bible, so that we couldn’t miss it! Yet how many churches use the Psalms in musical worship? It is noteworthy that the Church’s abandonment of dominion eschatology coincided with the Church’s abandonment of the Psalms.
The Psalms are inescapably Kingdom-oriented. They are full of conquest, victory, and the dominion of the saints. They remind us constantly of the warfare between God and Satan, they incessantly call us to do battle against the forces of evil, and they promise us that we shall inherit the earth. When the Church sang the Psalms – not just little snatches of them, but comprehensively, through the whole Psalter – she was strong, healthy, aggressive, and could not be stopped. That is why the devil has sought to keep us from singing the Psalms, to rob us of our inheritance. If we are to recapture the eschatology of dominion, we must reform the Church; and a crucial aspect of that reformation should be a return to the singing of Psalms.
So I’m looking for experimental subjects. The experimental procedure goes like this:
1. Write one thousand words about how you see eschatology. If you don’t know what to think about eschatology, that’s fine. Write about your confusion, write about what you definitely don’t believe, write about where society and the nation are headed and what this means. Whatever. Just write a thousand words — no need to defend your views. Just express them. Then put r yethe thousand words away.
2. Go discover The Psalms of David in Metre.
3. Sing a few Psalms a day, going through the Psalms sequentially. When you reach Psalm 119, just sing a few sections at a time. Do your singing out loud. Spend one year on step three.
4. Without looking back on what you did a year before, repeat step one and include what shifts, if any, you have felt in your eschatological views and feelings, whether or not you feel that such shifts come from your Psalm-reading.
5. Now look back and compare the two descriptions and see if you can see any significant difference.
6. Write up a summary of your thoughts on the whole experiment.
7. E-mail me the first report, the second report, and your summary along with any other thoughts you want to share.
8. I’ll put the whole shebang up on my blog, or, if you prefer, link to yours if you put up a copy. Depending on your privacy preferences, we can do this with your name made public or kept anonymous. I can also censor out any parts you don’t feel comfortable sharing with the world.
Any takers?
9 Comments
I’ll play.
I’m not familiar with Psalms of David in Metre so I will have to check that out. We already have a set of tone that we use to chant the psalms each Sunday. Does that invalidate me? Since I’ve already been through the Psalter before?
Not at all.
My goodness! Somehow my eyes skipped over the words “I’ll play.” Are you saying that you’re actually taking the experiment on? How delightful!
How did I miss this post?! It sounds really intriguing. But I do have questions
:
What type of eschatology? There are several types. Worldview-ish stuff, prophecy stuff, over-arching-umbrella-generalish?
Is there an online copy of this book?
And… do I hafta take a year on this? I naturally speed through things, dragging it out would be character building and torturous. Maybe that’s the point.
If I have nothing to do when I get back from an almost month long conference in August… I think I will become a theological lab mouse. I’ll let you know.
By your eschatology I mean how you think this whole show we call life on earth will end, in as much or as little detail as you can muster. Feel free to attack that question from any angle you like.
The book can be found here (PDF). It would possibly interfere with the experiment, but it’s been an interesting read so far and I recommend it. Not that I necessarily agree with all that’s in it, but it’s a challenging romp through the Bible.
I was really preferring to do a ten-year test, but I figured it would be hard to get volunteers, so I sliced it down to one year. You can try any variation you prefer, but a year would be awesome. I shouldn’t talk, though, because I’m not even participating in this test.
May the conference go well for you.
Yes indeed I did mean that I would do the experiment. It may not be fair, however, since I already read the psalms nearly daily and chant them on Sundays as part of our regular worship. However, I think it would be interesting to see how a certain intentionality would affect my perspective.
I will write the preliminary essay this week. I’m considering topics for my DMin, which I’m hoping to begin sometime next year (maybe) and the one I’m most interested in has to do with Hamartiology. There may be a connection with your experiment…..though I am not certain as to why I think that.
Splendid!
As you know, the Psalms speak extensively about sin. Perhaps singing them will help internalize the Psalmists’ hamartiology. Regardless of where it leads for you, I’m thrilled to have you along for this experiment.
Just a note—I have not forgotten this. I’ve had a few things come up at the parish and I’ve been a little overwhelmed. Vacation soon, and I’m intending to write the essay. I think this will be a valuable project and I’m looking forward to it.
Glad to hear it’s still on.