Evangelicals Now
Christian news worldwide
magnifying glass Search archives
home Home check the archives Archives Subscribe Subscriptions Advertising Information & booking of classifieds Adverts Find a local evangelical Church Find a church for the search engines and extremely curious! About us Contact us Site Map
Printable
Version

Pray With Hearts and Hands

Pray with Hearts and Hands
By Celeste Snowber Schroeder
Marshall Pickering. 209 pages. £6.99
ISBN 0 551 02980 3

This is a book with a mission. It aims to bring us back to what it regards as authentic biblical prayer - prayer in which bodily movement is very prominent. The author claims that our overriding emphasis on the soul in worship and prayer is an unbiblical scorning of our true bodily nature. Her conviction is that we lose out tremendously if we do not involve our bodies in the work of prayer. She promises that 'by including the language of movement in praying or reciting the Psalms we allow God's Word to take on a deeper dimension in our lives.'
These are challenging assertions worthy of serious consideration. However, as an invitation to consider seriously these issues, the reviewer found this book both immensely frustrating and profoundly disappointing. Why is that? The answers are depressingly simple.
First, this is not a biblical book. There are many Scriptures quoted and alluded to, but robust discussion of Bible texts and passages is almost totally absent. In a book that claims to point us back to a more biblical practice this is a fatal omission. The result is that the book is long on encouragement to and description of dance and 'embodied prayers', but is painfully short on any biblical justification. This is all the more disappointing because the reviewer agrees with Mrs. Schroeder that there is a great need in the church for biblical thinking about the body. We are bodily creatures by divine creation and destined to be so in eternity.
Secondly, this is not an evangelical book. All kinds of authors are quoted with enthusiasm, from Jung to a Benedictine monk. Many of the quotations are from medieval mystics. Mrs. Schroeder views Protestantism as but 'a limb of the church', has great enthusiasm for mystery plays and commends feminist language for God. Any part of the wider church that has a tradition of ritual and dance is held up as a fine example of biblical religion, though she does warn against ritualism.
These features make the book dangerous reading, especially for young or ungrounded Christians. It is not that there is nothing helpful or thought-provoking in the book - there is. It is that it lacks a biblical frame of thought and so is afloat on a sea of subjectivism. When it parades the blessings of embodied prayer it is really testifying to the values of earnest prayer and thoughtful reflection upon the character of God - the very heart of true godliness.

Graham Heaps,
Dewsbury