BOOK REVIEW:
To Glorify God: Essays on Modern Reformed Liturgy. Edited by Bryan D. Spinks and Iain R. Torrance. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999. 287 pp. ISBN 0802838634. 

This little volume gathers seventeen essays reviewing two liturgical books published for Presbyterians on either side of the Atlantic. They are the Church of Scotland’s Book of Common Order (1994) and the Book of Common Worship (1993) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The editors are Iain Torrance, Senior Lecturer in Divinity at the University of Aberdeen, and Bryan D. Spinks, a clergyman of the Church of England who currently serves as Professor of Liturgical Studies at Yale Divinity School and its Institute of Sacred Music. Spinks also has the distinction of being the first non-Presbyterian to be elected President of the Church Service Society of the Church of Scotland, an organization founded in the late 19^th century in the interest of the renewal of the Reformed liturgical tradition. 

Of the seventeen contributors, eleven belong to various Reformed churches, four are Anglicans, one is Russian Orthodox, and the affiliation of another is not identified. Four are Americans, one is Swiss, and the other twelve are British. 

The essays include the history and background of both books. The predecessors of the BCO include editions published in 1979 and 1940, and the name itself is meant to create a link with John Knox’s 1564 Book of Common Order. The original edition of the BCW was authorized by the General Assembly in 1906, followed by revisions in 1932, 1946, and (as The Worshipbook) in 1970. 

William Storrar of Glasgow University examines the BCO through the lenses of inculturation. His interest is to discern how well it reflects the contemporary situation of the kirk in Scotland, which he characterizes as suffering from a sense of “cultural bereavement.” 

Two American contributors analyze the books from a doctrinal point of view. Kathryn Greene-McCreight looks at the doctrine of God, and Arlo D. Duba at assumptions about Christ. Greene-McCreight finds a much stronger doctrine of God in BCW than in the BCO. Duba is particularly interested in whether the books reflect contemporary theological interest in the Christ “from below” as well as the Christ “from above.” He finds the BCW much more balanced than the BCO, in which the image of Christ is tilted heavily toward the “from above.” 

David Searle scrutinizes the texts with an interest in their doctrines of salvation, and judges the BCW more biblical than the BCO. Iain Torrance asks whether the new baptismal rites clearly express God’s covenant as a gift rather than as some kind of “deal” God makes with human beings. He finds the BCO stronger in its baptismal theology than the BCW, while conceding that the BCW is less abstract and more pastorally effective. James Kay of Princeton Seminary provides his own “dogmatic assessment” of the new rites for baptism. He finds the BCO to be in greater continuity with the Reformation, while the BCW has drawn more heavily upon post-Vatican II ecumenical liturgical consensus. Both are weak, Kay believes, in their theology of the covenant, but the BCO is the stronger. 

A minister of the Swiss Reformed Church and Professor of Liturgy at the University of Fribourg compares the two books with similar liturgies prepared in Europe by German- and French-speaking churches. Bruno Bürki celebrates both the BCW and the BCO, but laments that there is so little conversation among Reformed churches about liturgical issues. 

Other contributors write about the marriage rites, funeral rites, Daily Prayer, and language issues. Donald Macleod, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, criticizes both books as being too influenced by ecumenical theology and not sufficiently Presbyterian. 

Most of the essayists find BCW to be of higher quality, over all, than BCO. The Anglican co-editor, Bryan Spinks, writing in Spectrum, a Yale publication, confirms this assessment. “Indeed, BCW is in my estimation the finest modern English language liturgy hitherto available, and one which makes the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church appear anemic.” 

One of the great strengths of To Glorify God is that it acknowledges that worship is not merely a sideshow for Christians interested in theological integrity, but that indeed, lex orandi, lex credendi. Theology shapes worship, which in turn shapes theology; and our theology determines what kind of church we shall become. Those who care about theology cannot afford to be indifferent to liturgy. 

Ronald P. Byars
Union-PSCE, Richmond, Virginia 

PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE FOR REFORMED THEOLOGY, SPRING/SUMMER 2001, VOL. 2, #2.