Reviewed by Betsy Shirley
Uncommon worship
Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, by Shane Claiborne,
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Enuma Okoro. Zondervan.
LITURGY HAS ALWAYS been radical.
In 1549, Thomas Cranmer rocked ye olde
reformation England by publishing his
famous book of church liturgy, The Book
of Common Prayer, in vernacular English
instead of Latin. And 461 years later, Shane
Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and
Enuma Okoro have co-conspired to rock the
church again with their new book: Common
The beauty of this
new liturgy emerges
from its patchwork
sources and
decidedly
ecumenical flavor.
Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals.
Like the books of liturgy used in many
Christian traditions, Common Prayer is a
cohesive body of prayers, songs, scripture
readings, and spiritual writings arranged
into a yearly cycle of morning and evening
prayers.
Yet, while the 1549 Book of Common
Prayer is praised for beautiful language
that scholars accredit to Cranmer’s “single
powerful voice,” the beauty of this new lit-
urgy emerges from its patchwork sources
and decidedly ecumenical flavor. Rooted in
voices ranging from Frederick Buechner and
Frederick Douglass to Dorothy Day and the
Desert Fathers and Mothers, this liturgy has
been harvested from both new and ancient
branches of Christianity. “We want the fire
of the Pentecostals, the imagination of the
Mennonites, the Lutherans’ love of scrip-
ture,” write the authors, “the Benedictines’
discipline, the wonder of the Orthodox and
Catholics.”
Anticipating an audience as diverse as
its sources, the authors have made Common
Prayer accessible to liturgical newcomers and
old-timers alike. In the not-to-be-missed
introduction, liturgy is playfully redefined as
“soul food ... kind of like family dinner with
God,” with an emphasis on practicing liturgy
in community, including friends, neighbors,
and family members, as well as the body of
Christ around the world and those who have
gone before. That’s why it’s called “common”
prayer; it’s communal, something meant to be
shared—and savored—around God’s table.
Historically, liturgy has been criticized
for making Christians “so heavenly minded
that we are no earthly good.” Yet, in the tradi-
tion of Bill Wylie-Kellermann’s classic work,
Seasons of Faith and Conscience (Orbis,
1991), Common Prayer not only reminds us
“another world is possible,” but also leads us
to live into that new world here on earth.
As the authors point out, liturgy teaches us
to pray together, but also to become “the
answer to our prayers.” So, woven through-
out Common Prayer are stories of people
around the world (and throughout his-
tory) who are “taking liturgy to the streets”
to stand up against the powers of injustice,
and some suggestions for how to create a lit-
tle “holy mischief ” of your own.
Sidebars introduce the richness of tradi-
tional liturgical practices, including creating
sacred spaces, the use of “smells and bells”
in worship, and balancing order and spon-
taneity. And marking each new month of
morning prayers, you’ll find woodblock
prints paired with meditations on themes
such as reconciliation, hospitality, creation
care, and peacemaking, all with suggestions
for further reading.
If you’re familiar with Claiborne and
Wilson-Hartgrove, you’ll likely recog-
nize that Common Prayer is a significant
milestone for the new monastic move-
ment. Taking its cues from old-school
monasticism (we’re talking seriously old-
school—circa 400 C.E.), new monasticism
began in the 1990s with “relocation to
the abandoned places of empire”—inner-
city neighborhoods—by groups of young,
mostly single evangelicals who lived
among the poor and mapped out a new
way of being church marked by simplicity
and communal life. In 2004, new monas-
tics from around the country gathered in
Durham, North Carolina, to establish a
Common Rule, or the essential practices
that would govern their communities (see
School(s) for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New
Monasticism, Wipf & Stock, 2005).
While the practices identified at Durham
recognized a shared “commitment to a dis-
ciplined contemplative life,” guidelines
for public worship or liturgy were notice-
ably absent. With Common Prayer, the new
monastic movement has taken another cue
from traditional Christian monasticism: for-
mation of its own liturgy.
Of course, as Claiborne, Wilson-
Hartgrove, and Okoro would likely remind
you, it’s not their liturgy. “We are pray-
ing prayers crafted not by our lonely piety,”
they write, “but by the entire body of Christ
throughout her history.” The tradition of
praying with all the saints is not new, but
Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary
Radicals extends a fresh invitation to join in
the celebration. “Now,” invite the authors,
“add your fingerprints.” n
Betsy Shirley is editorial assistant at
Sojourners.
Reviewed by Jess O. Hale Jr.
Can I Get a
witness?
Split Ticket: Independent Faith in a Time
of Partisan Politics, edited by Amy Gopp,
Christian Piatt, Brandon Gilvin. Chalice
Press.
IN THE U.S. it seems almost every policy
matter gets entangled in a war of partisan
politics from which little emerges, too often
only a shadow of what is needed. Just look at
the results of health-care reform, immigra-
tion, and climate/energy initiatives.
With anger from the tea parties—and
to a lesser extent the left—challenging both
Republican and Democratic politicians,
political ferment bewilders and frustrates
many citizens of Christian faith who seek
the welfare of the city in which they dwell.
We do not find a deliberative democracy.
Instead, people speaking out of a faith per-
spective to issues of national importance,
such as health reform, are frequently vilified
as partisan, even if those outside the partisan
and media echo chambers would consider
february 2011  sojourners  43