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by Marva Dawn Tyndale House, 2003 191 pp.; $10.99 |
Marva Dawn's writing about worship displays an interesting trajectory. The prolific Regent College teaching fellow has thought deeply and written widely on a number of important topics, and her books have received well-deserved acceptance and acclaim. But the seeker-sensitive baby-boomers who run the show in so many North American churches have remained resistant to her provocative word about worship's glorious worthlessness. So she keeps trying. In each published iteration—culminating in her most recent effort—her message stays essentially the same, but it becomes somewhat better enculturated: a bit more inductively argued, a bit more fairly illustrated, a bit easier to understand. She's reaching out, while trying not to dumb Dawn.
Her first book on worship, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down (Eerdmans, 1995), argued that many churches have confused worship with evangelism, to the detriment of both. But the book was widely understood—or misunderstood—as a defense of classically based music and traditional forms of worship. Her sharp criticisms of certain worship styles and patterns were perceived as polemical and élitist. (The charge of élitism could hardly be avoided, given the book's title.) She sought to correct these misunderstandings in her second book on worship, A Royal Waste of Time (Eerdmans, 1999). Slightly more accessible, this volume included study questions and a handful of topical sermons. In it, the argument from her first book—worship is not a utilitarian means to an evangelistic end—was expanded: worship is not rightly perceived as useful for any other end. The worship of God has its own inherent telos.
Dawn's most recent offering, How Shall We Worship?, shows her desire to go even further to connect with a wide spectrum of worshipers and worship leaders, and assist them in thinking more deeply about worship. The promotional copy on the back of the book promises that "within an evening's read, you'll be able to navigate through the worship debates." Indeed, at 180-odd postcard-size pages, How Shall We Worship? isn't nearly as demanding as the two previous books. That's partly because she's adjusted her prose style, which in this book is less scholarly (fewer footnotes and more exclamation points), though still rigorous. But it's also because this book self-consciously employs a helpful pedagogic strategy for provoking deep thought: asking good questions.
In fact, the book is part of a new series from Tyndale entitled Vital Questions. As Dawn herself notes:
Many of the manuals for how to do worship in the present age are dangerous, for they frequently prescribe 'successful' strategies that do not consider the local situation in which worship is conducted. … No liturgical scholar, theologian, or sociologist can designate how worship should be conducted in a particular place. Rather, each congregation must ask better questions, so that in every place our worship is faithful to the kind of God we have and the biblical guidance He has condescended to give us.
With each chapter, Dawn observes God's character and, with the help of Psalm 96, explores a particular question or series of questions about worship. The scriptural imperative to "Sing a new song unto the Lord" (Ps. 96:1) prompts a discussion about "What kinds of music should we use?" (A.: All Kinds.) "The gods of the peoples are idols" (Ps. 96:4) leads into a solid, prophetic riff on "What idols tempt us away from worshipping the only true God?" (A.: mammon, technology, power, prestige, and more.) Sometimes she works much harder to connect her Psalmic spine to the particular questions she wants to ask. For example, from verse 8 ("Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name"), through what seems a labored connection, emerges an important turn on the classic shape of the Church's liturgy.
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