I love to read and the current budget crisis has meant looking for alternatives to retail book stores for quality reading. A friend of mine told me about programs where you can receive books for free in return for reading them and writing reviews. The first one I signed up for that sent me a book was Booksneeze (Thomas Nelson Publishers). As usual, things didn't turn out as simple or easy as I'd hoped. I expected to either like or dislike the book and be able to read it through once and write a simple review explaining why. The book, Fasting, by Scot McKnight turned out to be a very weighty book with some significantly good and bad points. The exercise to read and review it was far in excess of the value of the $12.99 cover price, but the effort was well spent. For it forced me to think critically about an important subject and produce a review worthy of a piece of quality literature. I shall do this again. To fulfill my obligation and give potential readers a good overview of the book I submit the review below:
BOOK REVIEW
Author: Scot McKnight
Publisher: Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN
Contributing Author(s): Forward by Phyllis Tickle, General Editor, Ancient Practices Series
ISBN: 978-0-8499-4605-9
PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES:
Price: $12.99 USD
Reading Time: 4-5 hours
Format: Paperback
No. of Pages: 198 pages (forward 3, introduction 11, body 169, study guide 5, acknowledgements 2, recommended readings 1, notes 7, biography 1)
Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.0 x 4.3 cm (8 3/8 x 5 ½ x 9/16 in)
Weight: 197g (7.0 oz).
Cover Design: color cover by Casey Hooper
Illustrations: none
Maps/Inserts: none
Appendices:
index: none
bibliography: yes
biography: yes
glossary: none, one neologism - benefit-itis
Other: acknowledgment, recommended reading, notes
Other books by author: A Community Called Atonement 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible A Companion Guide to the Jesus Creed Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research Finding Faith, Losing Faith: Stories of Conversion and Apostasy Galatians The Historical Jesus in Recent Research Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels Introducing New Testament Interpretation Jesus And His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, And Atonement Theory The Jesus Creed Devotional The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others Jesus in Early Christian Memory: Essays in Honour of James D. G. Dunn Light Among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period A New Vision for Israel: The Teachings of Jesus in National Context Peter 1 The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus Rzim Critical Questions Discussion Guides The Story of the Christ The Synoptic Gospels: An Annotated Bibliography Turning to Jesus: The Sociology of Conversion in the Gospels Who Do My Opponents Say That I Am?: An Investigation of the Accusations Against Jesus Who Was Jesus?
Rating 8/10
SUMMARY: This is a book in a series on ancient Christian practices and is focused on fasting. It is written primarily from a Protestant viewpoint, but includes relevant material from Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox teachings and practices. The main theme is on voluntary limits on food and drink and addresses abstinence in general more peripherally. The material chiefly presumes Biblical precedents and principles and draws almost exclusively from mainstream Christian sources. The author is a degreed theological professor with multiple books published on Christian topics.
REVIEW
The review of this book should begin with well deserved praise. Scot McKnight has done the prodigious job of summarizing much of the broad subject of fasting presented in scripture and in classical and contemporary literature in a systematic fashion, and presented his findings in a very readable and well organized book. He has uncovered the fundamental principles and ultimate goals of fasting and more or less stated them in plain, understandable language. That alone is a significant accomplishment. That iT has reached publication in a readable and manageable book is even better. Moreover, he has done this while remaining true to his Anabaptist tenets and largely resisted temptation to yield to the common but questionable practice to inject trendy ideas and purulent content to enhance sales. Overall it is an intermediate level book on fasting, cautiously and conservatively drawn with no great surprises but some interesting research and useful insight and opinion.
To use an analogy, the production of this book could be compared to the situation where a mechanical genius was presented with a great heap of mixed aircraft, helicopter, truck and tractor parts (plus a lot of trash), sorted them out, discarded the irrelevant ones, repaired the damaged parts, fabricated a few missing ones and miraculously assembled a functional helicopter. However, he hadn’t charged it or fueled it and was afraid to fly it. So the builder was content to let it be inspected and admired by others, on occasion to play with the controls and swing the blades round once or twice a year by hand. As can be guessed from this analogy there are some things missing from the book and a great deal of potential not realized.
The analogy is explained as follows. Initially Scot defines fasting as “…a natural, inevitable response of a person to a grievous sacred moment.” Then the author also at first confines the topic to food and drink and sets a twelve-hour limit on fasting for most practical purposes. Thirdly, the author confidently asserts that the body and soul are integrated and at the same time frankly admits he can’t clearly explain the difference between soul and spirit. The last point suggests to me that Scot has yet to thoroughly study the body/soul/spirit subject in depth and similarly has not yet had a truly profound spiritual experience. This means both that he has some very amazing and wonderful discoveries ahead of him, and that a main theme of the book, that the body is the primary focus of fasting, should be revisited when he has.
The commitment to defining fasting in terms of grief also causes the book to tell only half the story. The other side, joy in fasting, is only addressed very briefly and lightly. The miraculous experience of prolonged fasting in communion with God without thirst or hunger and without the need for food or water is not developed at all. This is a great loss to both author and reader alike. These narrow definitions also create some difficulties for the Scot later in the book when he must deal with Isaiah 58, where social justice is equated with fasting. This is patched up by lumping other forms of fasting into abstinence and recasting social justice as a product of what is termed “body poverty.” Which is a round about way of saying compassion and social justice are the products of food and water fasting, which doesn’t stand well on its own. This leads to further unnecessary complications where justice and solidarity and holiness are made “companions” of fasting father than facets of fasting. It would have been better to leave them as legitimate, stand-alone expressions of fasting.
McKnight goes to great length to avoid three errors he calls: instrumentalism, dualism and rigorous fasting. Instrumentalism is trying to manipulate God or people through fasting. Avoiding this subject means that the use of fasting to receive God’s provision by this means is also neglected and a source of great transforming power to the believer ignored. Dualism in the book means regarding the body and soul and separate and unequal. The assumption that they are integrated and equal highly simplifies the approach to fasting for the sake of the book but it means that very useful functional distinctions between physical and spiritual aspects of fasting remain unrecognized and unaddressed. Scot plays safe by downplaying rigorous fasting both from a theological and medical viewpoint. This means that while no great harm could come by someone following this book, neither would any great benefit occur either.
There are also a few places where Scot assures the reader that the scriptures support a premise of the book – these should not be passed without carefully checking the facts. Lastly, the author treats some of the great church fathers and reformers rather lightly. While it’s his book, I think that when writing from the relative safety and stability of academia, special care should be taken when judging the lives of those who lived in less enlightened times and who can no longer defend themselves in print. But these last two are a subjective points and leaving it at that, I conclude with some more good points about the book.
Scot McKnight surely spent time in prayer and listened hard for the answers because the conclusions he arrives at are very much on target regarding the material he presented. “Encountering God’s utter holiness,” he writes, “and deep love prompts fasting.” (pg. 121) is an acutely perceptive observation given the role of grief in fasting. He also recognizes this joyful side of fasting when he writes on page 149, “There is joy in simply communicating wholly with God. Communication with God is, in my opinion, the intent of fasting.” He is right on the mark with this. The author also provides the reader with a good test for whether fasting is working or not. “If your fast does not lead you to deeper love for God and others or to a more complete holiness, your spirituality is leaky!” (pg. 138) and “If you are not discovering some moral improvement, you are not fasting aright.” (pg. 139). “The singular marks of piety in the New Testament are these: loving God, loving others and living in the Spirit.” Well done!
The final and most profound truth about fasting is tucked away on chapter 10 where McKnight cites the Eastern Orthodox church’s teaching that “’The aim of life of each and every Christian, the Orthodox teach, is union [henosis] with God and deification [theosis].’” (pg. 128) It is in that union with God and the deification of the believer that grief turns to joy and communion replaces other needs with the fullness of God. That, in essence, is what fasting celebrates and looks forward to.
In closing, I do not recommend this book to new or lightly experienced believers because some of the above mentioned deficiencies could lead them on unprofitable tangents or discourage them from deeper efforts into fasting. It is very useful to the mature Christian for its insight and scholarship. This book is also a good foundation for a more exhaustive work and I’d really like to see that get off the ground. Overall this is a well done book deserving of more thought and commentary. So I will post a more in-depth review on my blog, www.falken-farm.blogspot.com.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
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