Matthew M. Boulton, God Against Religion: Rethinking Christian Theology Through Christian Worship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), Pp. xviii +242. $28.00.
Boulton is an assistant professor of ministry studies at Harvard Divinity School. This text outlines a Christian theology that takes worship as its basic framework as the occasion of approach toward God in piety and holiness. Boulton draws upon Luther, Calvin, and heavily upon Barth, in maintaining that the God of Jesus of Nazareth is a God against religion, in the popular sense of the term, by entering into religion, transforming it, and ultimately ending religion. Building upon Barth, Boulton echoes Bonhoeffer’s religionless Christianity. Boulton avers that worship, properly understood, could facilitate this religionless Christianity.
Boulton has several goals for what this title might accomplish. For example, he desires that pastors, teachers, and scholars might interact with – if not adopt – his conceptioning of ‘worship’ as the work of the people with God, versus being the work of the people alone, or the work of the ministerial staff (122). In today’s environ in which many churches have specialized ministers – one for music, one for evangelism, one for education, plus the senior pastor – it is important to remember, Boulton intimates, that leaders within the church are primarily facilitators, intended to develop characteristics in others, versus being the ones who are solely responsible to do what their titles suggest.
Moreover, Boulton hopes that the people of God recover a sense of gratitude as the ground of proper and genuine worship. He deems it unfortunate that most worship in today’s world is seemingly driven by fear, guilt, or selfish ambition. Boulton deems it essential for Christianity today to cast aside these anterior emotions, and instead cultivate gratitude toward God, expressed through worship, which would then spill over into a display of gratitude toward others. Additionally, Boulton hopes that this text will cause more people to closely link worship with the doing of theology. He claims that it is somewhat astonishing that many theologians do not attribute a status of importance to several worship practices, such as prayer, hymns, and other gestures. He contends that a critical approach to Christian worship, founded upon gratitude, would increase the import of such practices to theologians, and as a result, to those who follow and implement their teachings. It is asserted that there is a conceptual overlap between a theology of worship and other, commonly perceived as more important, issues within the theological discourse. For example, a fully developed theology of worship will elucidate the relation between divine and human (re)actions, which will expand thinking regarding the doctrine of faith and the doctrine of providence.
Boulton further desires that this text may work toward recovering the life-giving practices of penitential worship. He contends that repentance is a vital and crucial aspect of Christian practice, and it should therefore be reflected more so in modern worship. To be honest and forthright, I contend that Boulton has more than exceeded his hopes and desires for what this text might bestow to its readers. Indeed, this volume is well worth reading because of its dialogue with Barth alone, and its systematic theology of worship is proverbial ‘icing on the cake’. In sum, Boulton avers that there very well could be – and in fact should be – a religionless Christianity which would triumphantly exalt God, and radically reorient humanity, which is achievable through worship marked by gratitude. Boulton has produced a masterful systematic theology of worship that should be read by laity and academians alike.
Bradford McCall
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.