I read this book hoping for, as the subtitle puts it, a "Case for Liturgy in the Reformed Tradition," but was fairly disappointed. It's actually a collection of Hart's essays (a somewhat poorly edited collection at that) in which he lets loose on American popular evangelicalism and ways he believes that conservative Presbyterianism has sold out to it. I agreed with quite a few of his critiques but was so turned off by his polemical tone in advancing them that I had trouble getting through the book. I found it dishearteningly uncharitable, and, as my husband put it, the people who might benefit most from the gist of his arguments would likely be too alienated by his tone to really hear them.

When I look honestly at where I've been in recent years, I probably identify more with aspects of confessional Protestantism than with popular evangelicalism. I also want to see the evangelical church recover more of a sense of historical consciousness, a stronger spirituality of the church, and other things Hart advocates. However, this is not a book I'd recommend to like-minded evangelicals, much less skeptics. Reformed liturgy is a subject I'm trying to learn more about, but I don't feel encouraged to track down Hart's other books on the topic. ( )