Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical, and Theological Perspective - Hardcover

Mcgowan, Andrew B.

4.05

81 ratings by Goodreads

9780801031526: Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical, and Theological Perspective

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801031524 ISBN 13: 9780801031526

Publisher: Baker Academic, Div of Baker Publishing Group, 2014

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An Important Study on the Worship of the Early Church This introduction to the origins of Christian worship illuminates the importance of ancient liturgical patterns for contemporary Christian practice. Andrew McGowan takes a fresh approach to understanding how Christians came to worship in the distinctive forms still familiar today. Deftly and expertly processing the bewildering complexity of the ancient sources into lucid, fluent exposition, he sets aside common misperceptions to explore the roots of Christian ritual practices--including the Eucharist, baptism, communal prayer, preaching, Scripture reading, and music--in their earliest recoverable settings. Now in paper.

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From the Back Cover:

"Consistently learned and insightful, Andrew McGowan offers a comprehensive introduction to the worship life of early Christians. He covers the broad spectrum of Christian practice, from celebrating common meals to reading and commenting on Scripture, praying in various forms, initiating new members, and shaping sacred time and space. He is sensitive to both the continuities and the evolutionary changes in practice as Christians adapted their common life across a range of cultures and social circumstances. McGowan covers an impressive range of primary materials and deftly sifts through the scholarly debates surrounding them, preparing an easily accessible feast for anyone interested in the origins and multifold forms of early Christian liturgical practice."
--Harold W. Attridge, Yale Divinity School

"This is the book that I wish I had written, but Andrew McGowan has done it so much better. Easily accessible to a nonspecialist reader, it nevertheless contains the fruit of the most up-to-date academic scholarship. Anyone wanting a reliable and comprehensive introduction to the practices of the early Christians must start here."
--Paul Bradshaw, University of Notre Dame

"Ancient Christian Worship is the book that scholars, teachers, and students of early Christianity and liturgical history have long needed. Andrew McGowan provides an authoritative, accessible, and up-to-date synthesis of what we know (and do not know) about the worship lives of the ancient Christians. Anyone interested in the early church or Christian liturgy will learn from this gracefully written and clearly argued book."
--David Brakke, Ohio State University

"Andrew McGowan here provides a clear and beautifully written introduction to ancient Christian worship. While never oversimplifying the richness and complexity of his subject, McGowan has produced a study that is simultaneously comprehensive and accessible. All readers, from beginners to those more advanced, will be rewarded by both his erudition and his insight. This work justifiably will be cherished by students and teachers alike for generations to come."
--Robin Jensen, Vanderbilt University; author of Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity

"Ancient Christian Worship provides pastors, students, and interested readers with a lively, detailed account of how Christians ate together, prayed, read Scripture, and celebrated with song and dance from New Testament times to the fourth-century basilica churches. The story of diversity and change will encourage twenty-first-century believers struggling with church renewal."--Pheme Perkins, professor of theology, Boston College

About the Author:

Andrew B. McGowan (PhD, University of Notre Dame), an Anglican priest, is president and dean of the Berkeley Divinity School and J. L. Caldwell McFaddin and Rosine B. McFaddin Professor of Anglican Studies and Pastoral Theology at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut.

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