Rachel Bagley (who blogs about books at What Rachel’s Reading) recently reviewed A Primer on Worship and Reformation. Her review raised some very good questions, and I wanted to interact with them a little here on our blog.
Rachel writes,
I’m still chewing on this book, and I’d like to hear your input, dear reader. It seems like there are two audiences to Mr. Wilson’s book: the typical American Christian, and the theologically conservative pastor. I can’t help but feel like I missed a crucial point or something, but at first read I don’t fit either of those two categories. However, I don’t want to read something convicting and just agree how it applies to other people. What can I learn from this? Where is my sin?
I, like Rachel, don’t really fit into either of those categories—we don’t even have a Christian bookstore here in Moscow anymore, and you’re not likely to see me behind a pulpit anytime soon (if ever). But there are two reasons I believe that this book is helpful.
First, it’s a great book to give to friends, family, and others who want to know, “What’s the big deal about worship?” And this question is not just for evangelicals. Plenty of Reformed folk—yea, even those who have been Reformed for generations—go to church every Sunday without understanding why faithful, weekly worship is crucial to the health of the church. Although Christian music’s “modern worship” movement displays a growing sense of the importance of worship for the believer’s health, many Christians have yet to connect the state of the Church and of our countries with the state of Christian worship.
This leads to my second point: just because we sing Psalms every Sunday and don’t teach our kids Veggie Tales doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. The heart of this book is not to tear down modern evangelicalism, but to call the Christian to continual, faithful worship. Which is something that every Christian needs. As the Reformers realized, we need to be called to faithfulness over and over again. Calvin observed that the human heart is an “idol factory,” which means that we must consistently war against the temptation to worship wrongly. I believe that Pastor Wilson lays out principles in this book which are helpful not just to those who have the symptoms he mentions, but also to those of us who need to be on guard against failure and against idolatry.
Do I think this book is for everyone? No, I don’t. Very few books are. But I do think it is a helpful little book, for readers both like and unlike me.