God’s Prayer Book: The Power and Pleasure of Praying the Psalms
Ben Patterson
Saltriver, September 2008, 320 pp., www.tyndale.com
Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals
Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
InterVarsity Press, October 2008, 124 pp., www.ivpress.com
Ben Patterson exudes the warmth and elfin optimism of a monk, in spite of his solid Presbyterian pedigree. God’s Prayer Book is a journey more than a book. Bound with rough-hewn edges and a warm brown font, it has the feel of a personal journal highlighting 62 selected psalms to coach the reader into a deep and meaningful prayer, reflection and devotional encounter with God. There is a lot of theology and subtle commentary in this book, but the purpose is to encourage the reader to actually pray, and Patterson seems to have accomplished his purpose.
Two self-proclaimed mystics who live in “intentional community,” Claiborne and Wilson-Hartgrove take the reader into a conversation about prayer. As “radical” Christians, they see the danger of burnout and spiritual erosion when those who tend to the marginalized fail to pursue the divine romance that is prayer. The authors use the three NT prayers—The Lord’s Prayer, John 17, and Ephesians 1—to move the reader outside ordinary assumptions about prayer and challenge us to a deeper relationship with Christ.
