A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original review appears below. Calvin Brown is worship editor of Channels and pastor of First Church, Nelson.
Reflections on the Gospels: Daily Devotions for Radical Christian Living. John Michael Talbot. Servant Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“Reflections on the Gospels is destined to help the reader meditate on a gospel passage throughout the day. Some readers will be particularly interested to note that each reading corresponds to the daily gospel readings for the liturgical year … Whether or not you read Reflections on the Gospels in concert with the liturgical season, it is designed to bring you into contact every day with the living word of God.”
This is how a note to the reader introduces this book. It is a devotional guide that is suitable for those who truly wish to embrace a radical Christian commitment — to those willing to be challenged and to wrestle with an “activist” piety. It will be of little use to those with no desire to change or no desire to “get involved” in others’ concerns yet it is radical piety, not “political evangelism.” Often the devotionals are in the form of exhortations either quoting the gospels or Talbot’s own writing. For example: “It is not enough to profess Christ with our lips without changing our life. It is not enough to receive the touch of Jesus’ healing without becoming a servant of others.”
Again he challenges us, breaking down a “Presbyterian” cultural idol although he speaks as a Roman Catholic. We do not allow the simple into our seminaries and religious orders, yet it is often they who live the gospel more radically and evangelize more effectively. We screen out the extremists, so that all we are left with are those willing to follow the program. Therefore, our church comes more to resemble the dull and mundane structures and activities of a secular corporation than a radically enlivened kingdom of God empowered by the fire and zeal of the Holy Spirit.
If there is a fault with the book from a Protestant perspective it is that from time to time he implies the superiority of his own Roman denomination, but the well known singer John Michael Talbot, a member of the Franciscan Minors, has much to share with us from his own journey and reflections as he seeks to live a simple life, marked by radical obedience to the Gospel.