The Worship Artist

Before reading my review, people should note that I have a particular bias. I am a seminary student who is from the reformed tradition of theology. In my seminary research papers I intentionally try to research and cite various people that span the theological spectrum. This shaped my preconceived expectations for Nora Gallagher’s book, The Sacred Meal.

Nora Gallagher is licensed to preach in the Episcopal church and was hired by Thomas Nelson to write the book on Communion for the “The Ancient Practices Series.” The Sacred Meal is a collection of life stories from Gallagher’s life in relation to the Christian practice of communion.

Gallagher is a good story teller, and this is the essence of her book. The way she tells stories is more than merely hearing a story and relating, but she cues people into the small, seemingly unrelated, details of each story which allows for the reader to know her story on more of an experiential rather than strictly mental level.

With the positive stated, I must admit, it was a very difficult to continue reading. Sense Gallagher is from the Episcopalian tradition, I would love to hear her perspective on The Sacred Meal, what, why, and how do Episcopalians celebrate it, and maybe even give a scriptural and doctrinal apologetic for it. Most books will do this and intertwine life stories in the process. The way Gallagher wrote the book felt like I was only getting the stories, and thus only getting half the book. During my education there have been several times when I forgot about a paper being due. I then pulled an all-nighter to finish the paper on time by filling it with a lot of rambling and life stories to make up for the lack of research done on the subject. This is what the book felt like. Early in the book, Nora actually says that she was surprised that Thomas Nelson asked her to write on The Sacred Meal because she knew little of the subject. When I read this, I assumed that she was moving me through a process of her discovery, but she moved through a process of life stories and memories associated with The Sacred Meal.

If you like short stories, then you may like this book. I even enjoyed reading some of her stories, but as I mentioned earlier, I felt like I was missing half the book.

If this comes true, are we ready?

At some point in the twenty-first century, Christians in Africa will become more numerous than Christians in any other single continent & more important than ever before in articulating a global Christian identity in a pluralist world”

Kevin Ward (found in quotations from the book “The Changing Face of Christianity” edited by Lamin Sanneh and Joel A. Carpenter, 122).

Will our Christian-Western-centric pride be hurt? Are you ready to start reading commentaries, theology books, and take church advice from Africans? Sometimes I think we can be more racist that we realize.

Our DNA seems to know that it is wrong for babies to die, for disease to pillage our bodies, for government to abuse those they are called to protect. The earliest literature we possess speaks of humanity’s quest for immortality. Humanity somehow knows that it should not die, even though in all remembered experience humanity has died. And this sixth sense is not restricted to those who believe. No, all of the sons of Adam and daughter of Eve somehow know that Adam is not what they were supposed to be, that there is something profoundly wrong with the world as it is. I believe this sense is evidence of the residual presence of the image of God in humanity. The image is broken and marred, but it remains. And it is this aspect of humanity that recognizes the “wrongness” of this world and continues to cry out for the world as it should be–Eden.

The Epic of Eden by Sandra L. Richter

Nelson Jennings makes a great point to remind us that God is dealing with all peoples and we can avoid our arrogance to think God only dealt with the Israelites, and he now only deals with American Christians.

The Bible gives specific examples of God’s various dealings with peoples whom we might study in school but not consider in connection with God is Jesus Christ. In Genesis 15, God covenants with Abram to multiply his descendants and to give them the land of Canaan. He adds, however, that they will spend several generations in Egypt before returning to Canaan to occupy it. God’s stated reason for this delay is that the current occupants’ sin “is not yet complete” (15:16). Their judgment will have to wait 400 years more until the Israelites come and conquer them under Joshua’s leadership.

This implies that God’s dealing with the people of Canaan did not take place only insofar as he related to Israel. Rather, God, to whom all peoples throughout world history have been responsible as their Covenant-Creator-Master, was offended by the Canaanites’ sin and rebellion against him–irrespective of his special dealings with Israel. Ultimately he would provide for the Canaanites’ and all other nationalities’ salvation in Israel’s Messiah, the world’s Savior, Jesus of Nazareth. That special work of God was interlaced with his ongoing dealings with all the peoples of his rebellious world.

-J. Nelson Jennings – God the Real Superpower: Rethinking Our Role in Missions

In today’s age in Christianity we know a lot about other religions and how to “deal” with them. We know how to logically disprove Islam or virtually any other religion. We also know how to scientifically “prove” the historical facts of the Scripture to the Atheist. But lets remember that we’re dealing with an actual person, not a mere belief system.

Preaching must thus be an encounter, an encounter not with a part of a person, not only with his reason, or with his poetic feeling, but an encounter with the entire person, with the whole man, as he exists in this world, as he is in flight from God, as he plays a role in that tremendous drama that is enacted between God and the rebellious human heart.
J.H. Bavink, An Introduction to the Science of Missions

Let us avoid the temptations of doing the “quick and easy” witnessing where, like a rapist, we quickly jump an unsuspecting person and leave them feeling violated. We do it without an actual care or concern for the person, but only out to quick get one thing. Converts. Although Bavinck’s words are dated, we ought to take his words to heart today. Viewing our world as our mission field, constantly on mission, constantly loving people. And through genuine, unconditional love (love which is not based on the condition of conversion), we may be Christ to people.

I must feel a community or a fellowship with this man; I must know myself to be one with him. As long as I laugh at his foolish superstitions, I look down upon him; I have not yet found the key to his soul. As soon as I understand that what he does in a noticdeably naive and childish manner, I also do and continue to do again and again, although in a different form; as soon as I actually stand next to him, I can in the name of Christ stand in opposition to him and convince him of sin, as Christ did with me and still does each day.

J.H. Bavinck, An Introduction to the Science of Missions

The following quote is from J.H. Bavinck’s book “An Introduction to the Science of Missions.” Before reading the quote, it would be beneficial for you to know the word “elenctic” in it’s basic definition is: the conviction of sin through guilt from the Holy Spirit working on the heart of an individual which leads to repentance. It is a crucial, and foundational, element of the salvation process

It is characteristic of the science of missions that in it the “world” appears in a different aspect than in the other departments of theology. In all the other departments, the “world” is the area out of which temptations arise; it is the sphere of confusion, seduction, the sphere of heterodox ideas and conceptions. In the science of missions the “world” appears as the domain where God discloses his wonderful power, where Christ celebrates his triumph. And it is in this series of triumphs of the living Christ that elengchein, the conviction of sin, so essential to elenctics is to be found. And it is for this reason that we prefer to list elenctics with the department of missions. The missionary motive which controls it will then not be obscured.

“To them [people in today's culture], Christianity isn’t normal. This is really important to realize, and if you aren’t sensing this in our emerging culture, you might be too enclosed in your Christian network and subculture to fully see what’s happening.
If you are a baby boomer or of an older generation and were born into a Christian home, you probably have relationships with people who still share values and beliefs that are more in line with a Judeo-Christian world, and you might not see the change in emerging generations. If you are younger, were raised in a church, and surround yourself socially only with Christians, then you might not notice this as strongly either. And so it’s important that we think like missionaries. Instead of viewing our towns and cities as Judeo-Christian and feeling that everyone needs to automatically adhere to what we believe, we need to act like missionaries do when they enter a different culture. When missionaries enter another culture, they listen, learn, study the spiritual beliefs of the culture, and get a sense of what the culture’s values are. Then may try to discover what experiences this culture has had with Christians and what the people of the culture think of Christianity. Missionaries in a foreign culture don’t practice the faiths or embrace the spiritual beliefs of that culture, but they do respect them, since the missionaries are on the other culture’s turf.“

They Like Jesus but Not the Church by Dan Kimball

I read an article from the newest “Christian Research Journal” yesterday titled “Why I Am a Calvinist” by Kevin DeYoung. It’s one of those articles that if you were to highlight it, you’d end up highlighting the whole page. Here’s a specific excerpt that resonated with me:

I’d like to think that we are Calvinists because of what we see in the Bible. We see a God who is holy, independent, and unlike us. We glory in God’s goodness, that He should save miserable offenders, bent toward evil in all our faculties, objects of His just wrath. We rejoice in God’s electing love, which He purposed for us before the ages began. We are grateful for God’s power by which He caused us, without our cooperation, to be born again and enabled us to believe His promises. We take comfort in God’s all-encompassing providence, whereby nothing happens according to chance, but all things–prosperity or poverty, health or sickness, giving or taking away–are sent to us by our loving heavenly Father.