Book Review: Sacramental Life
By Trevin Wax on Dec 11, 2008 in Book Reviews | 
Print This Post | Share (Twitter, Email, Facebook)
During the last of my five years in Romania, I went through a particularly dry time of prayer and communion with God. I had a hard time praying regularly, and when I did pray, I felt as if I had little to say.
A friend gave me The Book of Common Prayer in hopes that it might revitalize my prayer life. Despite my initial skepticism toward written prayers, I must admit that the prayer book helped me tremendously. I discovered that written prayers infused new requests into my prayer life, and the words on the page widened my heart – helping me to adopt a more expansive prayer vision. The Book of Common Prayer even revitalized and re-formed my spontaneous prayers.
Sacramental Life: Spiritual Formation Through the Book of Common Prayer
The book is divided into four sections: Baptism, Holy Eucharist, Christian Marriage, and Christian Burial. Each section has a series of readings. Each reading ends in a practical application. All in all, there are 45 readings, making this an ideal book to read daily during a season of spiritual reflection.
There is much to glean from deSilva’s book. The practical applications are especially helpful. Some of them are tangible expressions that could serve as powerful object lessons in a pastoral setting.
As a Baptist, my problems with Sacramental Life are theological in nature. There is much to appreciate in deSilva’s comments on baptism. Yet, as expected, I part ways with deSilva on the mode of baptism as well as the persons qualifed for baptism.
Likewise, I take issue with several of deSilva’s theological affirmations. For example, deSilva sees patriarchy as a sinful system of injustice (and therefore, in the Marriage section, he subsumes the wife-submission texts under the principle of mutual submission). He also affirms that Christ is the only way to the Father, but then undercuts that belief by encouraging prayer for God to have mercy on the dead.
Despite occasional unbiblical speculations and left-leaning presuppositions, most of the counsel in Sacramental Life is theologically sound and spiritually beneficial. I enjoyed the thoughtfulness of the book and the emphasis on returning to the past for spiritual formation in the present. The book succeeded in increasing my appreciation for The Book of Common Prayer, even if Sacramental Life is not a book I would heartily recommend for all readers.
© Copyright by Trevin Wax | Print This Post | Share (Twitter, Email, Facebook)
I am adding this to my list of reads. Thanks.
wellis68 | Dec 11, 2008 | Reply
It’s strange that he’d encourage prayer for the dead, since that’s very much against the teaching of the BoCP itself.
Ed Yates | Dec 12, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for your interest in my book, Trevin, and — for the most part — your review of the same. I am glad you found material that deepened your own devotion and your use of the BCP.
I would like to say in my own defense that I do not encourage prayers for the dead. That was, as you can imagine, the most difficult section of Part II to write, since it is such a thorny issue. But I also had to be fair to the theology of the BCP which, quite contrary to Mr. Yates’ comment, does in fact encourage prayer on behalf of the dead in some of its forms for prayer and even envisions their continued development in discipleship post-mortem. In that subsection on prayers for the deceased, I lay out three ways in which the BCP invites our engagement with those who have gone before us — direct intercession (with the implication that we can intercede and affect the outcome), commendation to God’s final will (with the implication that we cannot affect the outcome, but it remains in God’s hands to decide as God will), and commemoration (holding in memory, hopefully for the encouragement of our own faith). My own practice lies in the second and third categories, but I would belie the book about which I wrote to avoid exploring the first.
As for “left-leaning” views, I have to say I feel pretty moderate, even right-leaning most of the time. After all, are not my primary publishers IVP, Baker, and Eerdmans? But I do distinguish between absolute, timeless rulings and unfinished trajectories in Scripture. Dealing with patriarchy is, in my reading of the NT, an unfinished trajectory, left for us to pursue more fully (like the dismantling of the systems that maintained the benefit of the free at the cost of the slave, or the status of the Jew to the theological/ideological exclusion of the non-proselyte Gentile). But I would not move in that direction if I did not find in Scripture signs of God’s desire that this is an area in which to move forward toward our full freedom as God’s sons and daughters. I am absolutely committed to the authority of Scripture in the church and the life of the disciple, and in that regard I do not resonate with being “left-leaning.”
Can’t help the disagreement about Baptism. That’s perhaps the primary reason I’m not teaching at Baylor right now.
Best wishes for a renewing Advent and joyous Christmas,
David
David deSilva | Dec 12, 2008 | Reply