Recovering Mother Kirk
By D. G. Hart
You can view this book's Amazon detail page here.
This book is linked with the post “Book Review: Recovering Mother Kirk”.
Tags: Liturgics, Theology of Worship
- Started reading:
- 9th September 2007
- Finished reading:
- 26th April 2008
Review
Rating: 9
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.
