What do you think?
Rate this book
Re-enchanting Time: A Primer on How Christ’s Lordship Re-enchants Time-Keeping
As Christians we confess that Jesus is Lord. But do we fully understand what all that entails?
In this his book Re-Enchanting Time, Josh Robinson makes the case that Jesus' lordship touches on how we understand and keep time. In the spirit of Abraham Kuyper, Robinson argues that there's not one square inch of creation that does not belong to Christ, and that includes how we observe holidays. The book begins by laying out a biblical-theological understanding of timekeeping starting all the way back when God placed the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament, and tracing the theme of the Sons of God all the way from Adam to the Patriarchs, to Israel, and to Christ and the Church. It then answers objections to sacred timekeeping and abuses of sacred timekeeping, then concludes with some practical advice for how to put it all into practice. The book also contains an appendix at the end touching on the holiday of Halloween and whether or not Christians should participate.
See what others are saying about this book!
“Robinson presents a case for orderly observation of holidays within the church and challenges modernity’s discarding of healthy rhythm and liturgy. I was challenged and compelled to consider why God places people like me in charge of annual rhythms—and I was moved to honor Him with our time.” - Will Basham, Author of Rural Mission, Pastor of New Heights Church, and Acts 29 Regional Director
"Not only does Robinson make a great case for biblical timekeeping, but he cites everything very well (especially in regard to Scripture). He also lays down a solid foundation for why biblical timekeeping is both important and relevant for us today." - Michael John Petty, Author and Filmmaker
In this his book Re-Enchanting Time, Josh Robinson makes the case that Jesus' lordship touches on how we understand and keep time. In the spirit of Abraham Kuyper, Robinson argues that there's not one square inch of creation that does not belong to Christ, and that includes how we observe holidays. The book begins by laying out a biblical-theological understanding of timekeeping starting all the way back when God placed the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament, and tracing the theme of the Sons of God all the way from Adam to the Patriarchs, to Israel, and to Christ and the Church. It then answers objections to sacred timekeeping and abuses of sacred timekeeping, then concludes with some practical advice for how to put it all into practice. The book also contains an appendix at the end touching on the holiday of Halloween and whether or not Christians should participate.
See what others are saying about this book!
“Robinson presents a case for orderly observation of holidays within the church and challenges modernity’s discarding of healthy rhythm and liturgy. I was challenged and compelled to consider why God places people like me in charge of annual rhythms—and I was moved to honor Him with our time.” - Will Basham, Author of Rural Mission, Pastor of New Heights Church, and Acts 29 Regional Director
"Not only does Robinson make a great case for biblical timekeeping, but he cites everything very well (especially in regard to Scripture). He also lays down a solid foundation for why biblical timekeeping is both important and relevant for us today." - Michael John Petty, Author and Filmmaker
84 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 18, 2023
2 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 28, 2024
This book was amazing! Very well argued and extremely edifying to be reminded that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord over timekeeping as well. Not only did he change the sabbath to Sunday, the day he rose from the dead, and change the way we count years to B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (after death), but even the whole calendar has evangelical feast days celebrating different elements of Christ’s victory over sin and death. The covenantal argument that we are the new sun moon and stars and therefore have the ability and right to make holidays was very eye opening! Thanks Brother! Highly recommend this book!
September 21, 2023
I was really excited to read this book -- and thoroughly disappointed by it when I did. The argument built in the book is not a solid, sequential one, which is one of my issues with it, and also makes it difficult to articulate a solid, sequential argument for what's wrong with it. It's kind of scattered in a lot of ways. Ultimately, I thought it DIS-enchanted time and undermined one of its (supposed) most basic premises: that Christ is Lord of Time. The book could be roughly summed up as: Christ is Lord of Time; therefore Christians can and should do whatever they want.
There's a lot of equivocation here. The book opens with the idea that at Creation, God gave the sun, moon, and stars for signs, seasons, days, and years. (So far, so good.) He tell us that the heavenly bodies are also symbolic representations of the sons of god, so "stars" = "sons of god." And already we've departed from an enchanted concept of the world, because we've made these heavenly bodies mere symbols and detached the language from anything substantive.
The argument continues: the first "sons of God" were Adam and his offspring, but they fell, so God transferred that sonship to the (physical) Sons of Abraham, but they were disobedient, too, so He ultimately transferred that Sonship to us. Note that throughout all of this there's nothing more than a very brief passing allusion to the angelic Sons of God, or any sacramental relationship between us, them, and the heavenly bodies. Just this sort of "heavenly bodies can be a symbolic reference to people"-type presentation.
Of equal, if not greater, importance, is the fact that the underlying message is not that the Sons of God -- or even the actual heavenly bodies (the literal sun, moon, and stars) mark time as God has determined, but that the Sons of God (not the heavenly bodies) determine time. So where I would have expected a book about God being the Lord of Time to carefully examine what God Himself said about how we are to keep time, there's a complete disregard for this. The question isn't even raised. (And anything in the Old Testament about how to mark time is rejected as part of the old order of the "Sons of God" [physical descendants of Abraham] who fell.)
The bulk of the book is this tenuous thread woven through what is primarily a basic explanation of the "passing of the guard," so to speak, from Creation to the old-covenant law (sort of, because we mostly leapfrog over Moses) to the grafting in of Gentiles. It's a little bit weird because the points raised and the language used make it difficult to tell who the intended audience is. The principles are pretty elementary for long-time Christians, but the language used would, in many cases, be unfamiliar to new Christians.
The intent seems to be to lay a foundation for the last few chapters of the book, which are the real point. One of these chapters raises, and attempts to answer, objections. In my opinion, it does this poorly, either misrepresenting or failing to grasp the actual nature of the objections, so that he's answering straw men more than he's addressing the heart of the objections. Another chapter describes the slate of holidays the author's church celebrates -- and tells us briefly how -- and the final chapter (presented as an appendix) is a defense of Halloween.
The impression one gets is that the entire book is one long apologetic for "why it's okay for us to celebrate what we're celebrating" (especially Halloween). Which is a valid reason for writing a book, but not particularly true, in my opinion, to the title or the promised goal of the book. While I disagree with many of the author's premises and most of his conclusions, I thought the chapter about how they observe the holidays they observe was interesting and valuable. I would have liked to see that fleshed out and expanded, and think the book would have been more valuable and more honest if it were almost inverted: the bulk of the book about what they celebrate and how, with a brief introduction about why that's what they celebrate.
The bit about Halloween missed the mark, I believe. Admittedly, I disagree with the author so I have a preexisting bias, and I'm sure that comes into play. However, the author also has a preexisting bias and I believe it's created some blind spots, so that many pieces of this argument are weak and unconvincing.
Apart from the insights into how the author's church celebrates the holidays they keep, the most substantive parts of this book (that aren't Scripture quotes -- which, by the way, don't ever tell us what translation they're from) are actually direct quotes from James Jordan and Peter Leithart, which leaves the reader wondering why we didn't just read Jordan and Leithart.
There's a lot of equivocation here. The book opens with the idea that at Creation, God gave the sun, moon, and stars for signs, seasons, days, and years. (So far, so good.) He tell us that the heavenly bodies are also symbolic representations of the sons of god, so "stars" = "sons of god." And already we've departed from an enchanted concept of the world, because we've made these heavenly bodies mere symbols and detached the language from anything substantive.
The argument continues: the first "sons of God" were Adam and his offspring, but they fell, so God transferred that sonship to the (physical) Sons of Abraham, but they were disobedient, too, so He ultimately transferred that Sonship to us. Note that throughout all of this there's nothing more than a very brief passing allusion to the angelic Sons of God, or any sacramental relationship between us, them, and the heavenly bodies. Just this sort of "heavenly bodies can be a symbolic reference to people"-type presentation.
Of equal, if not greater, importance, is the fact that the underlying message is not that the Sons of God -- or even the actual heavenly bodies (the literal sun, moon, and stars) mark time as God has determined, but that the Sons of God (not the heavenly bodies) determine time. So where I would have expected a book about God being the Lord of Time to carefully examine what God Himself said about how we are to keep time, there's a complete disregard for this. The question isn't even raised. (And anything in the Old Testament about how to mark time is rejected as part of the old order of the "Sons of God" [physical descendants of Abraham] who fell.)
The bulk of the book is this tenuous thread woven through what is primarily a basic explanation of the "passing of the guard," so to speak, from Creation to the old-covenant law (sort of, because we mostly leapfrog over Moses) to the grafting in of Gentiles. It's a little bit weird because the points raised and the language used make it difficult to tell who the intended audience is. The principles are pretty elementary for long-time Christians, but the language used would, in many cases, be unfamiliar to new Christians.
The intent seems to be to lay a foundation for the last few chapters of the book, which are the real point. One of these chapters raises, and attempts to answer, objections. In my opinion, it does this poorly, either misrepresenting or failing to grasp the actual nature of the objections, so that he's answering straw men more than he's addressing the heart of the objections. Another chapter describes the slate of holidays the author's church celebrates -- and tells us briefly how -- and the final chapter (presented as an appendix) is a defense of Halloween.
The impression one gets is that the entire book is one long apologetic for "why it's okay for us to celebrate what we're celebrating" (especially Halloween). Which is a valid reason for writing a book, but not particularly true, in my opinion, to the title or the promised goal of the book. While I disagree with many of the author's premises and most of his conclusions, I thought the chapter about how they observe the holidays they observe was interesting and valuable. I would have liked to see that fleshed out and expanded, and think the book would have been more valuable and more honest if it were almost inverted: the bulk of the book about what they celebrate and how, with a brief introduction about why that's what they celebrate.
The bit about Halloween missed the mark, I believe. Admittedly, I disagree with the author so I have a preexisting bias, and I'm sure that comes into play. However, the author also has a preexisting bias and I believe it's created some blind spots, so that many pieces of this argument are weak and unconvincing.
Apart from the insights into how the author's church celebrates the holidays they keep, the most substantive parts of this book (that aren't Scripture quotes -- which, by the way, don't ever tell us what translation they're from) are actually direct quotes from James Jordan and Peter Leithart, which leaves the reader wondering why we didn't just read Jordan and Leithart.
June 10, 2023
“Re-enchanting Time” is a wonderful primer on how and why the Church has authority to keep time for the glory of God alone. Not only does author and pastor Josh Robinson make a great case for biblical time-keeping, but he cites everything very well (especially regarding Scripture). In laying down a solid foundation for biblical time-keeping, he emphasizes why it is both important and relevant for us today. There’s no doubt that if you’re interested in Church history, holidays, or how Christ remains Lord of Time, this is the book for you.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews