In the title of this book, which began life as a doctoral thesis, Alex Sider is signalling that he will depend on an important image in Yoder's writing. In many writings Yoder indicates his belief that mortals – certainly including those mortals who call themselves Christians – should realise that our primary stance in relation to history is one of thankful dependence on God. Understood properly, hymns of doxology not only warm our hearts on Sunday mornings, but give shape to how we live in a world that is under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the servant who rules.

This emphasis will perhaps not surprise anyone reading this book. It is perhaps more significant that Sider joins this emphasis to that contained in the subtitle. He begins the book by reflecting upon the perceived differences between our typical understandings of holiness and the fact that life is difficult or messy. However, what he wants to display in this book is that Yoder is committed to both – holiness and the messiness of real history – as being components of any proper understanding of the church.

Underlying the whole book is a set of assumptions regarding Yoder's theological commitments. The practice of patience, including the particular contours of such patience, has its moorings in particular beliefs about the gift of salvation and holiness, a gift which comes in the person of Jesus the Messiah. This gift, when received, creates a people, the church, which then lives its life within the contingencies of history. The life of the Christian community is thus lived at the intersection between an imitability of Jesus and the realities of history – holiness as difficulty, as discernment and dialogue. On the one hand this difficult holiness creates a particular people with a discernible identity, on the other there is always an openness of horizons, a reaching out to the ‘other’ which prevents a totally closed community.

In making his argument about Yoder, Sider places him in conversation with Oliver O'Donovan, Ernst Troeltsch, Miroslav Volf, Alistair MacIntyre and others to name contrasts and show the strengths of Yoder's approach. After e.g. naming significant overlap with O'Donovan, Sider points out ways in which Yoder sees the church as much more fundamental to God's salvation of the world than does O'Donovan. Sider shows that Yoder shared Troeltsch's historicism and yet departs from him dramatically because for Yoder the gospel content of eschatology forms lives that respect the Lordship of Christ and thus refuse to usurp the place of God in controlling history. Sider also shows ways in which the centrality of the cross for Yoder leads him to have different emphases in relation to issues of forgiveness and memory from Volf. Sider also offers criticisms of Yoder. Sider questions Yoder's overarching use of the trope, ‘Constantinian’. He wonders whether or not Yoder hasn't himself in this case abandoned true (nuanced) historical narration and thus hasn't engaged in an overly controlling rhetorical style which is inconsistent with his formal commitments. Finally, Sider suggests that Yoder's approach to seeing history doxologically – especially within the Christian community – would be enriched by an Aristotelian, MacIntyrian account of dependency. For my money, this last discussion is the most instructive of the book.

Undoubtedly various readers will gain new angles on Yoder from an engagement with this book; there is much to learn here. I would have various criticisms to offer. I will simply mention one. Yoder's thought was fully stocked with biblical imagery and texts. As I read Sider's discussions of holiness and salvation, I was reminded that not all expositors of Yoder's thought have equally stocked imaginations. It makes a difference.