Reviewed Book: Talley, Thomas Julian. Worship Reforming Tradition. Washington, DC: Pastoral Press, 1990

Nevile, Donald C.

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 20Issue 1 A Ministry Miscellany Article 295-1-1994Worship Reforming TraditionDonald C. NevileFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationNevile, Donald C. (1994) "Worship Reforming Tradition," Consensus: Vol. 20 : Iss. 1 , Article 29.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol20/iss1/29Book Reviews 149against clergy burnout and escalating, run-away conflicts in the congrega-tion. Perhaps the classic “survival manual” is Rabbi Friedman’s Generationto Generation—Family Process in Church and Synagogue (1985), in whichyet another relational triangle is expounded in the three distinct familieswhose emotional forces interlock: the families within the congregation, thecongregation itself as a family, and the pastor’s own family.I gladly welcome Randall’s book into the company of those who saythat the level of debilitating stress in pastoral ministry may be more theresult of how we view and interpret the dynamics of ministry than of whatwe actually do or fail to do in our ministry. The Eternal Triangle offersa perspective that, in my opinion, rings true in our own experience as itfocuses on the emotional process rather than the content of what makesministry not only a joy but a pain.Peter L. VanKatwykWaterloo Lutheran SeminaryWorship Reforming TraditionThomas TalleyWashington, DC: The Pastoral Press, 1990ix + 155 pp. $14.50Talley is an Episcopalian who, until his recent retirement, taught liturgyat General Theological Seminary in New York City. These are essays pub-lished elsewhere between 1979-1987. Some began as public addresses, andthese benefit especially from Talley’s conversational style. However, henever sacrifices scholarly precision. Historical in nature, the essays showthe broad range of Talley’s liturgical interests. He unpacks a wide varietyof historical issues and problems for the reader.His theme, “worship reforming tradition”, betrays Talley’s general the-sis throughout the book: that liturgy and worship over the centuries haveinteracted with our traditions to influence, change, and adapt them. Histopics include baptism and ordination; sources of the eucharistic prayer;healing; the liturgy of reconciliation; history and eschatology in the primi-tive Easter celebration; the origins of Lent and All Saints; and the liturgicalyear.Sometimes essays like these, in addition to being “historical”,can alsobe written off as “history”. Not so Talley’s collection here. His research iscurrent enough that nothing comes through as outdated. Talley is on thefrontier of liturgical research, and most of us have a long way to go to catchup with him!He provides many fascinating nuggets within his essays, some of whichindicate what history at its best can teach us. For example (69f), he de-scribes the development of the “confessional booth”, under Charles Bor-romeo in Milan between 1560-1584, as a practical device to protect and150 Consensusseparate celibate priests from confrontations with emotionally vulnera-ble women. According to Talley, the confessional was. a contrivancewhich effectively protected penitents from intimate contact with theirconfessors. . . . This, of course, put an end to the imposition of the confessor’shand.” Talley discreetly avoids making the application of the principle toour own times!Elsewhere (78-79), he provides evidence to argue that in the earlychurch it was unlikely that the model of the Paschal Vigil was that ofan all-night liturgy ending at sunrise, but simply a modest imitation of thePassover celebration of the Jews. This proposal provides us with a ratherdifferent valence for the planning of the Vigil, and relieves any pressure tomake it a long and arduous endurance test lasting from sunset until dawn.Talley also provides historical evidence for a pattern of initiation (102ff)other than the standard Roman pattern of preparation during Lent forbaptism at the Vigil. He points out that in Alexandria, the pattern wasdifferent. There, preparation began at the Baptism of Jesus, and concludedwith Holy Baptism on Palm Sunday. He points out that even today in someparts of the eastern church, baptism is forbidden between Palm Sunday andPentecost.Talley also challenges the notion (132-133) that Christmas was inventedin Rome by Constantine to displace the ancient pagan festival of the sun{Sol Invictus). This, he says, is simply a twelfth century fabrication. He ar-gues that Constantine was too busy in Constantinople to bother with affairsin Rome; that Christmas was celebrated in North Africa before Constan-tine’s time. And he suggests that December 25 became associated with thenativity of Jesus because it is nine months after the historical date of thePassion, March 25th, which also became identified with the Annunciation.The essay, “Healing: Sacrament or Charism?” is the best brief treat-ment this reader has seen on the topic of rites of healing, the use of oil, therelation of sickness to sin, and the meaning of dying within the context ofillness.Often the study of history and its details can confound our easy over-simplification of liturgical history. This is certainly true here. HoweverTalley, unlike some writers on the history of liturgy, rather than droppinga mess of historical detail in our laps and abandoning us to pick at it asbest we can, takes the time to sort through the details and assemble for usa new synthesis.Book Reviews 151This book is recommended reading, especially if you are prepared tohave some of your views stretched and challenged by historical argument.Donald C. NevilePeace Lutheran ChurchPickering, OntarioPeculiar Speech: Preaching to the BaptizedWilliam H. WillimonGrand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1992xi + 124 pp.“How many of our sermons speak as if no one in particular has gatheredhere, as if we are an audience of disinterested listeners, as if nothing likelife or death were at stake in our speech? Such speaking is an affront to thedignity of the baptized. The baptized gather here on Sunday because theyhave been called, summoned / certainly did not call them. If / werecalling a church, I doubt that I would have called this church. I am, I havenoted over the years, a good deal more discriminating than God” (ix-x). SoWillimon catapults himself into his prime question: “What difference doesit make to our preaching that all of us there are either preparing for baptismor else trying to figure out what happened when we were baptized?” (3).Holding a high doctrine of baptism as initiation into the church, andholding to a high doctrine of the church as the called-and-incorporated-by-baptism communion of God, Willimon vigorously makes a case for preach-ing as distinctive discourse arising from both those realities. “We preacheither under the promise of baptism, ‘Come forth, be washed, and you shallbe odd,’ or the mandate of baptism, ‘You are washed, you are ordained, youare odd.’ Do we preachers appreciate the baptismal, liturgical quality of ourspeech?” (3). Because preachers speak within the distinctive communitythey “talk funny” (6). He accuses the church (especially liberal, mainlineProtestantism—he himself is United Methodist) of trying desperately touse every language but its own. “In conservative contexts, gospel speechis traded for dogmatic assertion and moralism, gospel self-help psycholo-gies and narcotic mantras. In more liberal speech, talk tiptoes around theoutrage of Christian discourse and ends up as innocuous, though urbane,affirmation of the ruling order. Unable to preach Christ and him crucified,we preach humanity and it improved” (9). But the church, by virtue ofbaptism, is called to be a counter-reality in the world. “We preach, likeJohn or Jesus, among the family, bringing to speech that which has hap-pened in our baptism” (75). More, the church, by virtue of baptism, iscalled to create a new world: “Christian speakers do not just massage theworld as we find it. We create a new world” (86), in which our hearers, thechurch, can live.

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