Book Review: Recovering Mother Kirk
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) PostsRecovering Mother Kirk: The Case for Liturgy in the Reformed Tradition
by D. G. Hart
Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, 2003.
Softcover, 252 pp.
Reformed worship is, by definition, liturgical. Presbyterians, by definition, cannot be evangelicals. Presbyterianism is a churchly tradition, believing that such things as church membership, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and corporate worship are central, not ancillary, to the Christian faith.
These are the contentions of Westminster Seminary (California) Church History professor Darryl Hart in his book Recovering Mother Kirk: The Case for Liturgy in the Reformed Tradition. Hart presents the connection between Reformed theology, worship, and polity, and explains how Presbyterianism in the U.S. became enamored of revivalism (beginning with Whitefield), a courtship which, ultimately, left Presbyterians with worship that no longer flowed from either their theology or their polity. The fact that Hart’s main points, as outlined in the opening paragraph of this review, will raise eyebrows if not vehement denials from many Presbyterians today, only proves Hart’s thesis.
For everyone in the Reformed tradition who is truly concerned with glorifying God (and that should be everyone in the Reformed tradition, period), this book is absolutely essential, because it shows us just how far we have drifted from an expression of corporate worship that truly glorifies God to being no different from the evangelical Christians around us.
Perhaps the most important section of the book is Chapter 13: “The Irony of Presbyterian Worship.” Here Hart points out that, in the “worship wars”, those individuals and churches who are usually regarded as “liberal,” i.e., the mainline churches such as the PC(USA), are the very churches who are the conservatives when it comes to worship, as they are the ones who are the most concerned with recovering, celebrating, preserving, and advancing Reformed distinctives in worship. The mainline church, usually seen as more liberal, pluralistic, and relativistic, is where one is much more likely to find Reformed worship that flows from Reformed theology and polity. On the other hand, groups such as the conservative Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), who so staunchly defend moral absolutes and oppose relativism and compromise with the culture in other areas, are extremely relativistic and pluralistic when it comes to worship. To make his point, Hart compares Worship That is Reformed According to Scripture by Hughes Oliphant Old, a PC (USA) minister, to Worship in Spirit and in Truth by John Frame, a PCA minister (formerly in the OPC). When it comes to worship, the “liberals” behave like conservatives, while the “conservatives” are the true liberals. Hart explores how this strange turn of events came to be. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book: anyone involved with planning or executing worship in a Reformed church needs to read this chapter with an open mind and heart.
Also quite valuable is the afterward, “A Case for Observant Protestantism,” in which Hart contrasts the Reformed tradition with evangelicalism. Hart demonstrates how the Reformed/Presbyterian outlook, in which the church holds the keys of the kingdom and is the place where one finds the means of grace (the proclamation of the Word, the administration of the Sacraments, and corporate prayer) are found, is not compatible with evangelicalism, in which such “churchly” ideas are peripheral at best to “real spirituality.”
The chapters of the book are articles that have appeared elsewhere, or essays delivered by the author on various occasions. Because of this, at times the book seems disjointed. At times, one wonders, “Why is this chapter in here?” Nothing is completely off-topic, but some of the chapters would seem to fit better in other contexts than a work on Reformed worship. In the end, however, all the topics covered come together to present the author’s compelling vision for liturgical worship in the Reformed tradition.
