A Book Review: Worshipping with Calvin

Worshipping with Calvin is a timely work in the wake of the American Church's "worship wars."  Terry Johnson has done us all a great service with this important book.  While I found myself mostly disagreeing with Johnson's solution, I found his diagnosis of the problem with modern worship to be very accurate.

Johnson states in the preface, "The new Calvinism must take seriously the liturgical reforms of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, not just the theological, if today's dynamism is to endure."  He then goes on throughout the book to describe the kind of worship to which he is referring.  While the description given is certainly characteristic of the reformed tradition of worship, I would argue that much of it is not unique to the reformed tradition.  This point seems to be lost on Johnson throughout the book.  His conclusion and solution do not necessarily follow from his arguments.

The book is divided into three major sections.  The introduction accurately describes the problem with much of what passes for worship in many churches today.  The overview presents the exegetical, historical, and theological case for Reformed worship.  The exegetical case is extremely weak in my estimation and seems to be more of a call back to the worship of the first century (as is appropriate) than to the time of the Protestant Reformation.

The most beneficial section and the bulk of the book is devoted to the strengths of reformed worship and ministry.  My only problem with this section as noted earlier is the fact that much of what is described here is not unique to the "Reformed" tradition and denominations.  Regardless, it is a helpful summary of what the worship of God's church ought to look like.

As a Baptist, I obviously took issue with the section on baptism, but that is only a small and expected issue with the book.  Overall I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to think more about what the worship of God's church should look like in the 21^st century.  Undoubtedly, it should look more like the worship of the 1^st century than today's culture of pithy choruses, rock bands, and strobe lights. 

Disclaimer: I received this book as a part of the Cross Focused Reviews book review program.