The Knowledge of the Holy

Book excerpt: A.W. Tozer maintained that a theologian’s message must be ‘both timeless and timely’, a sentiment borne out in the fact that his writing on worship still acts as an urgent warning today. Tozer is primarily concerned with the loss of the concept of ‘majesty’ from the popular mind and more importantly from the thinking of the church. He sees the church as having surrendered her once lofty concept of God – not deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge. With this comes a further loss of religious awe and a sense of the divine presence, of an appropriate spirit of worship and of our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. Tozer addresses this problem, to go back to the causes of the decline and to understand and correct the errors that have given rise to our devotional poverty. ‘It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate,’ he tells us. What is needed is a restoration of our knowledge of the holy.