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Book Review: Unpublished Letters: A Contribution to The Hagiography of Oscar Romero: Oscar Romero, The Church Cannot Remain Silent: Unpublished Letters and Other Writings, trans. G. Palumbo & D. Livingstone

There is much to commend in this book—a helpful analysis and explanation of many of the assumptions that lie behind much of modern ‘contemporary’ worship in many churches in the USA, the UK and beyond. There are a few errors—for example the equation of what was happening in Christianity in the US as a representation of what was happening in Christianity across the world! Such a narrow and blinkered view of the worldwide church does a disservice to the authors and the majority of Christians around the globe! But there are helpful reminders and challenges too—the assertion by John Wimber himself that ‘worship is there to bless God’ that made him dismissive of consumerist attitudes to church services; the sense of expectancy and intimacy that so many found attractive and helpful in their discipleship of Christ; and the belief in the real presence of God among His people that opened up glimpses of the not-yet Kingdom the church proclaims and embodies.