Oxford History of Christian Worship

by Geoffrey Wainwright

Overview

The Oxford History of Christian Worship is a comprehensive and authoritative history of the origins and development of Christian worship to the present day. Backed by an international roster of experts as contributors, this new book will examine the liturgical traditions of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant, and Pentecostal traditions throughout history and across the world. With 240 photographs and 10 maps, the full geographical spread of Christianity is covered, including Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, East Asia, and the Pacific. Following contemporary trends in scholarship, it will cover social and cultural contexts, material culture and the arts.

Written to be accessible to the educated layperson, this unique and beautiful volume will also appeal to clergy and liturgists and more generally to students and scholars of the liturgy, Christian theology, church history, and world history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900195138862
Publication date:	12/08/2005
Pages:	960
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Geoffrey Wainwright is an ordained minister of the British Methodist Church, in addition to being the Cushman Professor of Christian Theology at Duke University Divinity School. He is the author of Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine, and Life (Oxford, 1980), coeditor of The Study of Liturgy (revised edition, Oxford and SPCK, 1992).

Karen Westerfield Tucker is a United Methodist elder in the Illinois Great Rivers Conference, Professor of Worship at Boston University School of Theology, and Chair of the Worship and Liturgy Committee for the World Methodist Council. She is also Assistant Editor of Studia Liturgica journal.

Editorial Reviews

In this volume, editors Wainwright (Christian theology, Duke Divinity Sch.; Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine, and Life), an ordained minister of the British Methodist Church, and Tucker (worship, Boston Univ. Sch. of Theology; American Methodist Worship), an ordained United Methodist minister, cover Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, and Pentecostal worship from Christianity's beginnings to the present in 34 chapters written by 38 international and ecumenical contributors (including the two editors). The chapters focus on various time periods, geographical areas, and ecclesiastical traditions (e.g., Mennonites, Baptists in Britain, mainline Protestants in Latin America) as well as on spatial setting, visual arts, vestments, women in worship, and ecumenical convergence. As a whole, the volume presents an amazingly comprehensive view of Christian worship in at least the major parts of all populated continents, with a focus on the Sunday service in congregational settings, special feast-day observances, sacramental rites, pastoral offices, and regular prayer offices (though monastic prayer also receives discussion). Very good indexing also makes this a useful reference work excellent for study. Essential for seminary and academic libraries. Recommended for public libraries.-Carolyn M. Craft, Longwood Univ., Farmville, VA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

"A masterful work that is both ecumenical and international in scope and content. There is no other work in English comparable to this volume." —Catholic Library World

From the Publisher