Prayer

A brilliantly concise book on what should be one of the foundations of the Christian faith. Walking through various aspects Keller pulls from a rich treasury of the Protestant reformed traditions. With some handy outlines as to how to start the spiritual discipline of prayer and deepen it with some practical steps that would suit most. The appendix at the end is useful if you want to read deeper into various aspects as he suggests a couple of books as jumping off points.

Short Review: I am going to take a dissenting opinion on this one. Most people I know have loved this, but I was fairly frustrated with it. First the good, the concluding sections on repentance and confession and the practical suggestions on how to pray were well done. I do not think I have read any other general books on prayer that have had a significant section on repentance and confession and I think Keller was right in including it.

But while I found much that was helpful in the rest of the book I think it could have been better. Keller has read widely on prayer and it shows. He quote three different catholic writers in the first chapter and I was hopeful that this would be a book that ecumenical in its focus of prayer. But when Keller moves to a teaching section the quotes are almost always John Owens, Martin Luther, John Calvin or occasionally Augustine. While Keller is aware of others, this is clearly a reformed book on prayer. This shows in his definition of prayer, “personal, communicative response to the knowledge of God”. By this he seems to me that unless we have a right theological understanding of God we will not have a right life of prayer. Based on what is around it, it appears that he means to pray we need to study to have proper theology. This counters my personal experience of people of prayer. They are often not theologically sophisticated, but instead actually pray and depend on God. They are clearly orthodox in their Christian faith, but while I think I understand Keller's point, he does not make it well and throughout Keller make this into a textbook which further confirms my suspicions.

I am not anti-theology or against properly understanding God. But this just seemed to be another Reformed book that wants to make sure all of its theological lines are crossed and/or dotted and misses out on the life lived in the Spirit.

I don't want to say this is a bad book, there is a lot of good here. And Keller gives a lot of good nods in the right direction of spiritual growth and maturity, but the thrust is too theological, too biased toward the academic and too narrow a view of Christianity.

My full review (over 1200 words) is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/prayer-tim-keller/