Church Unity in Scotland

The call for the negotiablity of psalmody in the Free Church of Scotland as an ecumenical gesture has left me perplexed. Granted, the situation in Scotland is dire; and the institutional disunity of evangelical Protestants a scandal. Further, I write as someone with great friends, colleagues and allies in the C of S; I also attend a non-psalmody church -- unaccompanied psalmody is my strong preference, I find neglect of the psalms a scandal in Reformed circles, and I've yet to find anything remotely equal to it; but it is not for me a decisive, second-commandment issue. Still, I want to ask the questions: is adherence to psalmody really a significant part of the problem?

First, is it really the case that psalmody is what keeps the C of S evangelicals out of unity with the FCS?  Are we to believe that, in the list of fundamental articles of Christian belief, psalmody is a bigger deal-breaker than, say, denial of the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation etc?  The Gent was interviewed for a position at New College some 15 years ago and, on the panel was a woman who held office in the C of S and wrote book arguing for the benefits of visualising the naked Christ dying on the cross as a woman.  How is it easier to express insitutional unity with that person than with a psalm singer?  How can one tolerate allowing such a person to train others for the ministry?

Second, why is it that singing less of God's word in the worship service is part of the solution to the church's problems in Scotland?

Third, if ecumenism is the name of the game, would it not be more ecumenical for C of S evangelicals to give up hymnody?  That would place them more in line with the wider and longer church tradition and mean their hymn-book was also universal and ecumenical.  Surely a small price to pay to make sure that your collection-plate money doesn't help fund the ecclesiastical careers of people who like to think of Jesus as a woman.

To abandon psalmody on the pragmatic grounds that it will somehow win over the C of S evangelicals is to be led up the garden path, believing the excuse they have given all these years for tolerating tosh in their pulpits; and it will ultimately not unite the church in Scotland -- it will simply put the division at a different point.  The left of the FCS (with which I myself generally identified while in the denomination -- hey, I had a Scottish ceilidh at my wedding in 1990, then a sure sign of damnable liberalism) will have won a few new friends but lost many old ones who deserve better.

I've said this several times on this blog: the problem in the C of S is that most, not all, evangelicals seem to lack a real cohesive understanding of the church, specifically presbyterian polity, and tend to operate as independents.  That's why they can tolerate said tosh; and that is the key cultural issue between the FCS and C of S; psalmody, practically speaking, is really neither here nor there.