The Ancient Path-Blogging for Books review

The Ancient Path is supposedly a book about the early Fathers, but it turns out to be much more a story of a modern monastery in Arkansas founded and sustained by the author of this book, John Michael Talbot. The Fathers are present, to be sure, but only as one element in a complex and well-told journey from rock and roll to the monastic life. Perhaps it is because the story ends in a monastery that Mr. Talbot chooses to describe his path as "ancient," but his reading of the Fathers is much more in dialogue with the modern evangelical Protestantism which he chose to leave partway through his Christian life than with the early controversies of the primitive church. Each of the thirteen chapters corresponds to some topic on which Mr. Talbot has clearly meditated, sung, and prayed. From analyses of Community to Jesus Christ to the Episcopate, he unfolds his meditations slowly and conversationally. At worst, they sometimes sound like old Sunday School lessons and twist texts like the Didache into making points in contemporary controversies that were never intended by the authors. At best, he is a wise Christian elder unfolding the wisdom of many centuries worth of prayer and contemplation. The Ancient Path is not a gateway to the Patristic  literature, but a wonderful portrait of a man who found and loved the Fathers on his own journey.