SEI In review

BOOKS
Time out

N
OT ONE BUT TWO books sion and experience the worship or tended church on Sunday morning
about a single day of the pious observance (or total lack of spir- then returned for another service in
week? I didn't plunge with ituality)—everything that set the day the afternoon, and an entirely secular-
much enthusiasm into either off from the balance of the week, the ized Paris at the end of the 19th centu-
one. The topic seemed too massive impulses and meanings inherent in ry, when mass was regarded as the do-
(one day of the week totals one-sev- this marking of time. main of "idiots and morons." How did
enth of human history!) or too passé. I found myself entirely caught up in the change happen? Who was the first
But both books surprised me, held my each period. There is no hint of nostal- person who bucked convention and
attention, taught me just refused to go to
things I didn't know and church? Or who was the
made me think. And yet first woman to sport sul-
they are very different try fashion or the first
from each other. man to shoot dice on
Craig Harline's Sun- what no longer felt like
day is a sprawling narra- the Lord's day? How did
tive with a journalistic the gradual erosion feel
feel, ostensibly answer- to people? Did they feel
ing the question of how a tinge of guilt? Or was it
we got to where wTe are exhilarating? Obviously
on Sunday, a day we all the Sundays of the past
care about but for wildly were swept up in the
divergent reasons. tide of the other six-sev-
While he doesn't tackle enths of history, but cu-
the causes of emerging rious minds are left won-
views of Sunday as satis- dering.
factorily as I might have Harline presents some
liked, the story itself is Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the incisive reflections on the
fascinating. Super Bowl, sacralizing of Sunday
Harline does not bore By Craig Harline. Doubleday, 464 pp., $26.00. sports and also on the so-
us with a tedious, contin- cioeconomics of the Sab-
uous chronicle of "this A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims Find Faith bath: the rich and
happened, then that Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath. leisured in every place
happened." Instead, as By Christopher D. Ringwald. Oxford University Press, 336 and time know no Sunday
though a docent is lead- pp., $27.00. because the distinction
ing us through a time- between the work week
travel tunnel, we touch down at in- gia; the gritty realism of the account is and Sunday matters only to those who
triguing moments in history and walk compelling. The singing probably was labor. In the U.S., there was a "furious
around to feel what Sunday was like. A awful in those dreary Reformed bout over Sunday," and the forces of
village in the south of England during churches of the 17th century, and isn't it piety eventually lost. When Harline re-
a summer around 1300, a Dutch town amusing that every Friday Buffalo Bob counts that loss, he simply states the
in the winter of 1624, Paris in the reminded the children watching fact, with no trace of lament. I imagine
spring of 1890, Belgium on the last Howdy Doody to attend church that that Christopher Ringwald, on the
Sunday before the outbreak of World Sunday?
War I, the United States in the 1950s: I wished for more analysis of why Reviewed by James C. Howell, senior
we take in the pace of the day; see changes happened. The chasm is un- minister at Myers Park United
where people walked; get a taste of the fathomably wide, for instance, be- Methodist Church in Charlotte,
food, moods, mores; go on an excur- tween 1624 Holland, when people at- North Carolina.

C H R I S T I A N CENTURY Augus 34
other hand, could not write of the
demise of the Sabbath without consid-
erable emotion and an appeal to draw
you into his grief. For he values Sunday
passionately, and he writes as an un-
flinchingly zealous advocate for the
virtue of observing a day apart. When I
read Harline s Sunday, my intellect was
teased, my curiosity piqued. But with
Ringwald s A Day Apart, my heart was
moved, and I had a curious urge to trav-
el back in time and raise my family
again.
Ringwalds subtitle, How Jews,
Christians, and Muslims Find Faith,
Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath, re-
veals his cross-cultural interests. I can-
not recall reading anything on the
three faiths that so deftly engages
them in robust conversation without
any watered-down "Oh, we're really all
the same" vapidity. Instead of dialing
in to some moment in history, Ring-
wald walks us around his own neigh-
borhood, and we find ourselves swept
up in his wide-eyed education on what
the sacred day means to real people in
each faith.
But not just any real people. The
subjects are people serious about
Sabbath-keeping—individuals not so
easy to find in our day, when sloppy
Sabbath-keeping has become the
norm. Exasperated that only a minor-
ity in these faiths accept the divine
gift, he sadly admits that "The Sab-
bath remains the dessert most people
leave on the table." What are we miss-
ing? Writing wonderfully, Ringwald
shares the tastes, the music, the si-
lence, the sighs of the day apart. The
blessings of the Sabbath—closeness
to God, the calm of rest, the forma-
tion of community—are evidenced in
all three religions despite their formal
differences
had gone awry; so they turned the TV
off, played with the children and had
dinner with neighbors. His clinching re-
mark? "Thus the Jews save another
Gentile family."
Casual observers miss the mercy in
the day apart. "A God of love invites us
into the day. We are admitted by our
humanity, not our perfection. We may
miss this fact, distracted by the
avalanche of rules and regulations in
all three religions. Who could live a
whole day perfectly? The day calls us
to a banquet of time, not a prison of
gestures and abstinence. An omnipo-
tent God needs not our perfection."
A Day Apart is replete with history,
from Pompey s invasion of Palestine to
Sandy Koufax's refusal to pitch in the
World Series. And Ringwald marshals
arresting facts: Israeli mortality charts
indicate a consistent dip in natural
deaths on the Sabbath, for example, and
when Jews in Manhattan opened their
stores on Saturday because of economic
pressure, many parents recited a Yid-
dish prayer that those storeowners
THE DOCTOR OF M I N I S T R Y
might prosper so their children would
not have to desecrate the Sabbath.
Amazingly learned, Ringwald none-
theless has a light, friendly touch. The
warmth of his soul is unmistakable,
which serves his purpose well: the
book is never nostalgic, but on every
page Ringwald issues an ardent plea
not to recover the Sabbath or Sunday
or Juma, but to discover it. It won't be
easy: "We fight for the Sabbath: against
ourselves, perhaps against other be-
lievers, and certainly against the claims
of the world. The day apart pits the be-
liever against all his or her worldly in-
tentions." A kind of combat is involved,
although Ringwald notes a residual
clinging to the need for a day apart
even in totally irreligious partying, the
weekend of revelry. On Sunday, many
pay for Saturday night fun "with a
hangover and regret—some people's
idea of religion s function." Ringwald
believes in the power of the day apart
so unblushingly that he can say: "The
Sabbath rest has been pushed under-
water in Western lands only to bob
PROGRAM

-w.
Ringwald's Jewish friends, the
Khgermans, do not drive on the Sab-
bath, since making a fire was prohibited
by God on Mt. Sinai and an automobile
engine requires a spark. So the Kliger-
mans stay home or go for walks. The
kids frolic; the adults visit. "Its a joy de-
rived from a restriction." Might it be
that we miss joy because we despise re- 4L \ LOUISVILLE
strictions? After listening to the Kliger- IK »"SEMINARY
mans describe their Sabbath, Ringwald
hung up the phone and told his wife www.lpts.edu · 800.264.1839
that their own observance of Sunday

35 C H R I S T I A N CENTURY August7,2007
back up repeatedly, often in secular
garb."
For Christians, even Saturday has a
beneficial function: "Though the Sab-
bath can be lost in the weekend, the
day of preparation provides a useful
buffer. To be in heaven, or somewhere
close, on the holy day, we need the sec-
ond day, a day for chores and market,
for the mundane but satisfying activi-
ties that make possible the divine rest
of the next day. Saturday can be a way
station between the office and the
church."
The book is a feast of elegant ex-
pression. Ringwald speaks of "the egal-
itarian throb" of Sabbath laws and the
"contented languor" of Sunday. "I now
see the unfolding opposites of the day.
We do less and are more, we stop earn-
ing and grabbing and have more, we
cease from making and make more, we
let Creation be and in our repose we
see it to be more than we ever knew."
In Islam, Friday—Juma—encourages
not rest, but worship and work: "Faith
must show in works, so it seems natural
that the Muslim returns to work on his
day apart... a sign of Islam s mission to
make holy the world."
To make the world holy, to stop
building fires and sit together for a
while, to rest in God and shake off our
cultural hangover, we need guides,
and with Harline pointing us to the
door and Ringwald opening it, we can
enter the day and enjoy the dessert
we've been missing.

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