Book Review: Testimony and Trauma: Making Space for Healing by Amanda Hontz Drury

Abstract

and, in some cases, long years of labor in the fields relevant to their chapters. Of course no book can achieve all aims at once, and while 294 pages is a sturdy tome, it offers barely enough length for so many topics. The section on Protestant worship necessitates eight chapters of about fifteen pages each, give or take a few, to cover everything from Lutheran to Pentecostal developments. Others of similar length deal with an impossibly complex topic like the historical development of a particular rite over the better part of Christian history. I do not intend these comments so much as criticism of the book, which is rich in learnings, as of the genre itself: the longer a liturgical history gets the more complete it can be, but the less usable. But in fairness, this sort of text is best deployed in tandem with lectures and investigations into primary materials in which texture and detail can be explored more closely. And usability is certainly a primary aim here: every chapter includes helpful practical implications for liturgical theology, practice, revision, and critique. All in all, I would recommend this book as a fine option for a secondary resource in liturgical history to be coupled with further lecture, teaching, and catechesis, in tandem with careful inquiry into primary texts.