Presbyterian scholar-pastor Eugene Peterson – one of the half-dozen most-read Evangelical writers in the English-speaking world today – has probably never had an ‘unpublished thought’. He brings to his craft an unusual combination of gifts and experience: some unique (for American conservatives) insights into pastor-as-spiritual director, rather than pastor as CEO; a thorough knowledge of the biblical languages (witness the popularity of ‘The Message’); a combining of the best wisdom of the classical devotional writers and the Catholic spiritual masters in his affirmation of the contemplative life; and he’s been a faithful pastor – 29 years at Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Maryland: which, incidentally, did not become a mega-church under his gifted leadership. (Peterson is quite scornful of the ‘church growth’ movement).

This volume is one of a trilogy in his ‘Spiritual Theology’ series, written in retirement following his years as Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College, Vancouver. (The others: ‘Eat This Book’, and ‘Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places’).

Here Peterson’s aim is ‘to teach and preach the Holy Scriptures as the revelation of Life, the life defined and created by Jesus. He begins with a chapter on Jesus, and then examines the lives of Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah of Jerusalem and Isaiah of the Exile – people who ‘prepared the way of the Lord’. He then offers chapters on ‘other ways’ – those of Herod, Caiaphas, and Josephus.

The material here comes across – at least to this reviewer – as a combination of his sermons, worked over for classes in spirituality and special guest lectures in various places. I love the footnotes, with their rich citations of literary and theological works. Peterson reads broadly in both fields, but is also conservative: he writes about ‘the devil’ without any discussion about ancient dualistic ideas; he assumes Abraham’s existence; he’s critical of the critics who ‘take the text apart, but lack a method for putting it back together again’. He writes a book about Jesus but doesn’t mention the Jesus Seminar. The closest he gets to them perhaps is this comment (p. 272): ‘The way of Jesus is under perpetual attack, but that attack rarely looks or feels like an attack. There is a good deal of sleight of hand involved.’

But he’s not a ‘right-wing political’ evangelical: those people wouldn’t quote Dorothy Day with approval (they wouldn’t know who she is!)… nor Saul Bellow, Karl Barth, Wendell Berry or Walter Brueggemann…

Peterson’s a devoted family-man, regularly hiking in the mountains with his family. (‘Why do nectarines taste so much better at altitudes above eight thousand feet?’).

Here’s a miscellany of ideas which ‘gave me pause’ (or ask myself ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’):

* ‘No Christian will suppose that Jesus in his carpentry shop ever laid aside the hammer and used the Holy Ghost to drive an awkward nail’ (quoting Austin Farrer).

* ‘The great, great grand-daddy of all sins is the denial of sin, the refusal to admit sin. Such refusal is odd because, as G K Chesterton observed, sin is the only empirically verifiable item in the entire Christian/Jewish belief system’.

* ‘One of [our] bad habits… is to separate things and people into secular and sacred. We assume that the secular is what we are more or less in charge of: our jobs, our time, our money, our opinions [etc.]. The sacred is what God has charge of: worship and the Bible, heaven and hell, church and prayers…’

* ‘It is interesting to note that Jesus, who in abridged form is quite popular with the non-church crowd, was not anti-institutional. He regularly led his followers into the two primary religious institutions of his day: the synagogue and the temple.’

* ‘Following Jesus is not a skill we acquire so that we can be useful to the kingdom (the Essene way). Following Jesus is not a privilege we are let into so that the kingdom can be useful to us (the Caiaphas way). It is obedience (“my Lord”). And it is worship (“my God”).’

Peterson is not an easy read sometimes. He’s not funny anywhere (they say ‘Presbyterian humor’ is an oxymoron and Peterson does nothing to change that perception :-). But his insights nourish the mind and feed the soul. He’s best read in small doses, a few pages at a time.

More on Peterson, including a list of his published works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Peterson

Rowland Croucher

October 2008