
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


A forthcoming book on the sacraments, edited by Justin Holcomb and David A. Johnson, has got me thinking about the “means of grace” — or rather, how do we know and recognize God’s grace in our actual personal lives. The history of the Christian Church could almost be reduced to a long timeline of disagreement over the sacraments as means of grace, and in particular, the Lord’s Supper/Eucharist.
In order to think about this today, I’ve had to travel back to basics: which is Jackie DeShannon, and a song she wrote, and performed and released in 1964, entitled “When You Walk in the Room”.
Almost everything you would want or hope a sacrament to be and to represent is covered in that song. Only thing is, the form of ‘sacrament’ portrayed in the song is instantiated in a relationship — an overwhelming emotional and corporeal encounter. The parallels, to me, are obvious.
I invite you to listen to the song (and to The Searchers’ version, too) “every time that you — Boom Boom Boom” — go into church.
By Mockingbird4.8
6767 ratings
A forthcoming book on the sacraments, edited by Justin Holcomb and David A. Johnson, has got me thinking about the “means of grace” — or rather, how do we know and recognize God’s grace in our actual personal lives. The history of the Christian Church could almost be reduced to a long timeline of disagreement over the sacraments as means of grace, and in particular, the Lord’s Supper/Eucharist.
In order to think about this today, I’ve had to travel back to basics: which is Jackie DeShannon, and a song she wrote, and performed and released in 1964, entitled “When You Walk in the Room”.
Almost everything you would want or hope a sacrament to be and to represent is covered in that song. Only thing is, the form of ‘sacrament’ portrayed in the song is instantiated in a relationship — an overwhelming emotional and corporeal encounter. The parallels, to me, are obvious.
I invite you to listen to the song (and to The Searchers’ version, too) “every time that you — Boom Boom Boom” — go into church.

15,980 Listeners

1,083 Listeners

335 Listeners

762 Listeners

117 Listeners

49 Listeners

80 Listeners

117 Listeners

396 Listeners

206 Listeners

432 Listeners

29 Listeners

213 Listeners

546 Listeners

658 Listeners