Continuity and Change in Christian Worship: (Studies in Church History)

Worship is at the heart of the Christian tradition, its history marked by both continuity and change, by stability and upheaval. Its centrality to Christian experience, particularly as codified in liturgy, makes it a focal point of conflict: it can be manipulated to recreate the past, or to establish new forms supposedly more in tune with contemporary needs and perceptions. Liturgical traditions contribute to an individual Christian's identity, particularly since the sixteenth century and the proliferation of denominations with their own forms of worship. This collection addresses aspects of the many issues raised by the evolution of worship in Christian history, from the first tothe twentieth century and moving from Christianity's ancient heartlands to the missionary stations of Uganda and Rwanda. While texts and actions are central to liturgical practice, and are considered in detail, these essays show the need to set worship in context, and to appreciate historical and contemporary forces working within the Church to support continuity and to stimulate change. Dr R.N. SWANSONteaches in the Department of Medieval History at the University of Birmingham.

Table of Contents:
Continuity and change in early eucharistic practice: shifting scholarly perspectives - Paul Bradshaw The song of songs and the liturgy of the velatio in the fourth century: from literary metaphor to liturgical reality - Nathalie Henry The carolingian liturgical experience - Donald Bullough Change and change back: the development of english parish church chancels - Carol F Davidson The `sample week' in the medieval latin divine office - Message, celebration, offering: the place of twelfth and early thirteenth-century liturgical drama as `missionary theatre' - Brenda H. Bolton The altars in York minster in the early sixteenth century - W J Sheils `One heart and one soul': the changing nature of public worship in Augsburg, 1524-1548 - Philip Broadhead Transcendence and community in Zwinglian worship: the liturgy of 1525 in Zurich - Bruce Gordon Evaluating liturgical continuity and change at the reformation: a case study of Thomas Muntzer, Martin Luther, and Thomas Cranmer - Bryan Spinks The traditio instrumentorum in the reform of ordination rites in the sixteenth century - Expedient and experiment: the elizabethan lay reader - Brett Usher Giving tridentine worship back its history - Simon Ditchfield From David's psalms to Watts's hymns: the development of hymnody among dissenters following the toleration act - Patristics and reform: Thomas Rattray and the ancient liturgy of Jerusalem - Stuart George Hall The mirage of authenticity: scottish independents and the reconstruction of a new testament order of worship, 1799-1808 - Deryck W Lovegrove `Shut in with thee' The morning meeting among scottish open Brethren, 1840-1960s - Neil Dickson Goths and romans: Daniel Rock, Augustus Welby Pugin, and nineteenth-century english worship - J Champ `The rector presents his compliments': Worship, fabric, and furnishings of the priory church of St Bartholomew the great, Smithfield, 1828-1938Smithfield, 1828-1938 - Martin Dudley Prosper Gueranger O.S.B. (1805-1875) and the struggle for liturgical unity - P Raedts A `fluffy-minded prayer book fundamentalist'? F.D Maurice and the Anglican liturgy - Jeremy N Morris A new broom in the Augean stable: Robert Gregory and liturgical changes at St Paul's cathedral, London, 1868-1890 - Penelope J Cadle A broad churchman and the prayer book: the reverend Charles Voysey - Garth Turner `This romish business' - ritual innovation and parish life in later nineteenth-century Lincolnshire - R.W. Ambler Continuity and change in the liturgical revival in Scotland: John Macleod and the Duns case, 1875-6 - Douglas M. Murray Anglican worship in late nineteenth-century Wales: a montgomeryshire case study - F Knight `Walking in the light': the liturgy of fellowship in the first years of the east African revival - Emma Wild `Austere ritual': the reformation of worship in inter-war english congregationalism - I M Randall Reservation under pressure: ritual and the prayer book crisis, 1927-1928 - G I T Machin Reservation of the sacrament at Winchester cathedral, 1931-1935 - T E Daykin `The catchechumenate for adults is to be restored': patrisitc adaptation in the rite for the christian initiation of adults - Edward Yarnold

Review :
An impressive collection of essays on liturgical topics.