Book Review: The Liturgical Year

A while ago, I signed up for a program through which I receive free books in exchange for a fair review. As of yet, I haven't really enjoyed any of the books that I've reviewed. Until now. The Liturgical Year is another installment in The Ancient Practices series overseen by emergent-ecumenical-ancient-modern-guru Phyllis Tickle. The author, Sister Joan Chittister, does a great job as a Catholic in introducing an ignorant Protestant like me to the almost 2,000 years of church year tradition. Having been raised in more non-denominational & charismatic circles, our focus is always on "the new" or "the fresh thing." While there is nothing inherently wrong with that focus, I can't help but feel like we've lost a bit of our roots.

This book serves as an excellent introduction not just to the what or how of the church year, but to the why. As Chittister puts it,

We do not develop a liturgical life to look good to other people. We do not develop a liturgical spirituality to affect a kind of spiritual dimension to our lives. And we certainly do not go to Mass regularly to avoid hell. We live a liturgical life to learn to think like He thinks. To do what He would do. To mak Him the center of our lives - not our work or our money or our status...Liturgical spirituality is about learning to live an ordinary life extraordinarily well.

The author does a good job as a Catholic to be welcoming and inviting to Protestants through her writing. With the exception of the very last chapter on the Marian feasts - which I found to be a incongruent with what I know of Catholic doctrine - there was almost nothing that I had any significant theological quibbles with. I appreciated her focus on the major issues without getting bogged down into Catholic dogma.

The first few chapters felt a little repetitive and unnecessarily touchy-feely, but much like the church year itself, the book picks up steam and gets more and more exciting as we head toward the ending chapters on Resurrection Sunday. The writing style is accessible and is an easy read. 5 stars from this non-liturgical Protestant for this book.

Book Review: The Jesus You Can't Ignore

The Jesus You Can’t Ignore is a book by John MacArthur that highlights the conflicts of Jesus’ earthly ministry. The main thesis of this book is that Jesus often gets portrayed in our post-modern America as a soft-spoken, mild-mannered conversationalist who would never ever do anything to upset anybody, but that is an untrue caricature. The Jesus... is mainly comprised of scriptural accounts where Jesus finds himself at odds with the leading religious figures of the day and proves that He is not afraid of conflict.

MacArthur also takes opportunity to call out some of the Emergent Church-type Christians who, in his view, are more interested in theological conversations that are non-emotional, intellectually disconnected, and open to all possibilities than they are with the truth. I can’t help but feel like MacArthur is missing something, though. In this book, virtually all of the stories show Jesus clashing with the religious leaders of the day, while it seems that the Emergent folks are calling for civility with those who are skeptics, seekers, and the like. While I am certainly not a fan of Brian Maclaren, I don’t think that he has any problem clashing with those who, in his mind, are the modern day Pharisees.

The bottom line to me is this: why do Christians seem to have such a hard time finding balance? I completely agree with MacArthur’s premise that there absolutely a time and a place to “earnestly contend for the faith” (Jude 1:3), there also needs to be a humility present that says “maybe I don’t have everything completely figured out.” Call me crazy, but I think followers of Jesus are at their best when they are neither spineless nor butt-heads, when they know which battle are worth dying for and which battles are worth having a conversation about. I think this book by MacArthur brings up some very necessary ideals that we must be reminded about, but in the end, he just kinda sounds like he’s looking for someone to fight with. In the end, however, one fact remains incontrovertible: Jesus was and is and will continue to be a controversial figure who is impossible to ignore.

Legal note: I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair review. I am not required to make this a positive review.