"The Silence of Angels"

I discovered this little book of essays by Prof. Dale Allison some years ago when browsing through my catalog from Eighth Day Books, one of the best bookstores for the Christian bibliophile. It appears to be out of print now, so you'll probably have to try a used-bookstore. I've read through it a number of times, and I always seem to find a new insight. Allison was a professor at Friends University in Wichita, then at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. I'm not sure where he is now.

The essays have different subjects, but one theme Allison returns to time and again is the effect of environmental factors on the Christian faith--sound and light, for instance. The title essay is a fascinating rumination on the effect of sound--or conversely, the effect of silence--on the faith of our ancestors:

"Anyone who pays heed to the Christian tradition, or to any religious tradition for that matter, would have to wager that a significant increase in noise will make religion increasingly exotic. One strongly suspects that the relatively unfrenzied atmosphere of most church services is partial cause for drops in attendance. How can those at ease in a world of the frightful clamor and rapidly passing, disjointed images of MTV not be bored during a church service?"

Indeed. This sheds new light on the "Lying in Church" posting, below, on the state of present-day worship in evangelical churches.

But Allison's point is not merely to rail at noise. Rather, he has something very interesting to say about its opposite:

"Silence, let me emphasize at this juncture, should not be thought of as a negation, as the absence of sound. It should instead be envisaged as a desirable presence. ... Silence is sacred. It cannot be made secular. ... Silence is not nothing. It is instead the divine liturgy leading to communion with God, the mute awe and reverence required by encounter with the holy."

And the whole book is this good!