How to Be Perfect: One Church’s Audacious Experiment in Living the Old Testament Book of Leviticus

The often baffling book of laws for Jewish priests known as Leviticus is typically dismissed by Christians as outdated legalese no longer binding on people of the New Testament. Harrell, who served as pastor of the evangelical Park Street Church in downtown Boston for 23 years, doesn’t let that get in the way of his sincere desire to understand God and the Bible in its entirety. Inspired by a secular experiment that became the successful book The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, Harrell proposes a one-month experiment to “live levitically.” Eighteen church members join him in a quest to “be holy because I, the Lord your God, am Holy,” as the text repeatedly intones. The result is a series of reflections by Harrell and his followers—many communicating with each other via a Facebook page dedicated to the project—on keeping the Sabbath, abstaining from pork, and refraining from sexual deviancy as the Bible defines it. The resulting pastiche of responses is, for the most part, generous, compassionate, and thoughtful. This book will be appreciated not for its historical understanding of Judaism but for its attempt at living devotionally. (Jan.)