The Oxford History of Christian Worship [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Geoffrey Wainwright (Editor), Karen B. Westerfield Tucker (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 2005

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.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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.
--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 960 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195138864
• ASIN: B0013JB8XU
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 6.6 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,216,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable reference material, November 3, 2005

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Oxford History of Christian Worship (Hardcover)

When I first heard this text was in preparation, I couldn't wait for its release. I have studied theology, church history, and liturgy, and have made some attempts to piece the three together in various ways, but this book in many ways represents a convergence of my interests in a singularly interesting way. As is often the case with such texts from Oxford, it is comprehensive, authoritative, well illustrated, well documented, and well constructed. According to the preface, 'Christian worship has a history of two thousand years and, by now, a global reach. This book traces its winding course and describes its varied manifestations in ways suited to the general reader as well as to historians, theologians, and scholars of religion.' The book is also useful as reference for students, church-goers and liturgists who wish to learn more about the history and development not only of the broader sweep of Christian practice, but also their own particular traditions or denominations.

There are overlapping ideas of organisation of the text. The primary principle is chronological arrangement, breaking from there into geographical and confessional/denominational identity. Many of the thirty-four chapters are devoted to specific practices of traditions in a time or place (for example, the chapter on 'Anglicans and Dissenters' by Bryan D. Spinks traces Anglican worship from the early 1500s to the present in England), whereas some chapters are devoted to more general considerations ('Women in Worship' by Teresa Berger or 'Liturgical Music' by William T. Flynn).

The first chapter, by editor Geoffrey Wainwright, sets the tone for this broad study of Christian worship. He looks at issues in worship and liturgy from scriptural and theological bases - there is a highlighted essay entitle 'Liturgy and/as Language' which describes the complex system of verbal and non-verbal symbols and signs that form a distinct pattern of communication and communion.

The final sequence of chapters looks at particular practical issues involved in worship situations (music, spatial settings, visual arts, vestments and objects), together with some general theological/social concerns (women in worship, ecumenical work). Editors Geoffrey Wainwright and Karen B. Westerfield Tucker provide the final chapter, entitled 'Retrospect and Prospect', the writing and photography is so up-to-the-minute that there is a picture of Pope Benedict XVI at his inaugural mass. Their description touches on contrasts and comparisons, continuations and innovations, and they end with words that make sense: 'What will, by definition, prolong the history of Christian worship is the continuing gathering of people, in faith and in the name of Jesus, to encounter in praise and prayer, in scripture and sermon, in sacrament and song, the God understood to be the self-revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and thus communally to exercise the vocation and fulfill the destiny for which they as humans were created and redeemed.'

Each chapter includes its own bibliography, notes, highlights of primary texts and liturgies, and graphics (of which there are over 200 black-and-white images through the chapters). There are also over 30 full-colour plates in three collections interspersed with the text. There is a biblical references index, and an incredible 46-page general index in the back that is very helpful.

Geoffrey Wainwright and Karen B. Westerfield Tucker are both Methodists (Wainwright a British Methodist, Westerfield Tucker a United Methodist), but both have worked and served in ecumenical capacities for a long time. The thirty-six additional contributors include women and men from every inhabited continent, and denominations and jurisdictions Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant.

This has become my regular bedside reading, and promises to be one of the more valuable and significant reference books on my shelf for some time to come.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The unity of Christian worship and witness, September 8, 2006

By 

D. H. Knight "Doug" (London UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Oxford History of Christian Worship (Hardcover)

The Oxford History of Christian Worship is 860 pages of wonderfully perceptive and accessible historical scholarship in the service of Christian theology. The book is sympathetic to every strand of Christian worship: there is nothing dry or patronizing here. The masterly Introduction by Geoffrey Wainwright is not only theological, it is positively evangelical: if we do not worship the true God we worship false ones.

The book starts with the apostolic tradition, the ancient oriental churches, and goes on to Orthodoxy. I was most impressed by Alexander Rentel's fifty pages on Eastern Orthodoxy, by André Haquin on changes in Catholic worship in the twentieth century, and by Karen Westfield Tucker's forty page chapter on North America. Other chapters deal with different ecclesiologies (Mennonite, Charismatic), territories (Africa, Asia) and themes (Music, the Spatial Setting, Women), and there are seven chapters on church and worship in the global south. The chapters lay out the theological logic of each form of worship: the content and structures of worship services are discussed, with some information laid out in boxes, and lots of illustrations.

Several chapters discuss the twentieth century, in which worship underwent rapid changes in every church. The Roman Catholic recovery of the idea that whole church is the people of God, communion ecclesiology (an unnoticed reformation?), meant that Vatican II was not simply the Catholic church `catching up' with change outside it; it has also been the impetus to liturgical revision in every other (Protestant) denomination. Revision of lectionaries, service books and hymn books shows an increasing Evangelical understanding of the role of the lectionary in cementing the unity of the Church, and thus a growing Protestant realisation of the catholicity of Church. There is an intelligent discussion of Pentecostal and charismatic worship and a tentative look forward, perhaps to a church led by the charismatic churchmanship of the global south. The Oxford History of Christian Worship is a compelling read, and I was gripped even by subjects that I thought I had no interest in. It is the best purchase I have made this year.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Oxford History of Christian Worship is a "Must Have", January 31, 2006

By 

Lectio Veritas (Richmond, VA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Oxford History of Christian Worship (Hardcover)

THE OXFORD HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP should be an essential part of the library of any serious student of Church history and liturgy. Beautifully written and illustrated, it is a comprehensive look at Christian worship and certainly serves well as an authoritative text for those committed to the study of the Church and its divergent denominations and practices over the centuries. It should be required reading for all seminary students, Christian educators, and lay persons interested in peeling away the layers of liturgical practice and focusing upon the real core of Christian worship. In addition, it is an excellent volume to reference in any ecumenical discussion.