Psalty

If you grew up in a Christian home during the 1980's, chances are you are familiar with Psalty the singing songbook.  If you're not, here's some background.  In 1980, The Kid's Praise! Album was released.  It was the story of some kids finding a talking big blue song book at a playground.  The book was sad because no one would sing his songs.  He was happy when the kids sang the songs from their heart and praised Jesus.

There went on to be 10 Kid's Praise! albums.  My family only got through number 4.  We had the first two on record.  When Amanda and I got married she brought a couple of the older ones into our marriage.  We have purchased a couple of the older ones on CD for the kids and they love them.  It's hilarious because even on the CD at the end of the middle song, Psalty says, "Okay kids.  It's time to turn over the record!"  These albums can be credited with popularizing many songs from that era.

• Jesus, Name Above All Names
• I Love You Lord
• Make Me a Servant
• Seek Ye First
• And many more that you'd know

You can find a wikidpedia article about Psalty here.  And you can still get all of the albums on CD here.

My only critique of all of this is that it's pretty typical 1980's evangelical Pelagianism (the idea that we are basically good and therefor "man has the ability in and of himself (apart from divine aid) to obey God and earn eternal salvation.")  Lots of the things that Psalty says are admonitions to work hard at reading your Bible, praying and being a good person, basic moralism.  This is the kind of teaching that was so difficult for me growing up, so when I hear it, it really grinds me.  I wish Psalty would say, God loves you even when you don't do these things.  He died on the cross for you because no matter how much you do any of these good things, you will never be acceptable to Him.  But that's a different blog post.  I really love these CD's.  Check them out.