Review: Spirit and Sacrament (Wilson

Spirit and Sacrament: An Invitation to Eucharismatic Worship
Andrew Wilson

This is a book that I really wanted to like. Wilson is an excellent writer, and I had been awaiting this book for some time. I am attracted to the vision of "eucharismatic" worship that Wilson describes. At the end of the day, however, there were two big problems. First, I still don't know what a church like this would look like; Wilson only hints at this, and admits to not being able to offer concrete examples. I suspect this is what some Anglican churches are trying to pull off with, at least from testimonies I've heard, very mixed results. Second, I am what many would call a theoretical continuationist but a parctical cessationist. That is, I see no Biblical evidence that miraculous spiritual gifts were only for the early church, but I remain unconvince that what we see in the American charismatic movement resembles what was going on in the early church to any serious degree. Even despite Craig Keener's massive book on Miracles, most of the testimony I hear does not strike me as miraculous (see Bethel Church's extensive page of healing testimony--if Bethel, probably the most well known charismatic church in America, can't offer compelling evidence I'm not sure who can.) So ultimately, this book left me unsatisfied.

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