Preserving our Christian Heritage since 2001.
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Preserving our Christian Heritage since 2001.
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| Title: Appointment with God |
| Author: Philips, J.B. |
| Format: Hardcover: 61 pages |
| Publisher: Macmillan; 1954 |
| ISBN: |
| Review Date: February 4th, 2007 |
| Book not available from Amazon.com. |
Rating: |
| Book Description: Some thoughts on Holy Communion. |
Review:
Appointment with God is a small book, barely making it to 60 pages in length. The chapters are compiled from a series of weekly address Philips gave while a Vicar for the Church of England. Philips is better known for his other book, Your God is to Small, and his New Testament translation.
The first chapter has aged well and is particularly anecdotal for our own times. He explains the dangers of emotionalism during a Church service, because it impairs our rational faculties. As he says, "God calls us to transcend reason, not contradict it." He elaborates that people under the influence of their emotions have a hard time distinguishing if something truly is good or just a "tear jerker." The closer something is to our own hearts, the harder time we will have at discerning when we are emotional. He goes on to say this is why we have so many bad Christian films and books, because Christianity is so dear to many people that they never ask themselves if this is a good, or true, or useful, or even challenging Christian book or film. He contents that just because it is a Christian work does not mean that it should automatically be good.
The overall theme of the book is to always be striving to closer get closer to the heart of God. If you have been Christian in communion for years and have never seen any moral and spiritual progress, Philips tells you to ask yourself why. Are you even viewing communion in the correct way? Is it a duty for you? Do you not see any use in the sacrament? He then says that one must always be in prayer searching their soul. He gives several examples on how Christians have done this before.
As an Anglican his communion theology lines up with the Real Presence, and there are a few comments against Memorialism and Transubstantiation. At the end he apologizes about the comments, but states he would not be holding true to his own convictions if he did not point out the differences. He then makes a case for promoting open communion between the fractured Christian denominations.
