LITURGY AND EDUCATION

The substance of this brief volume by one of the foremost students of liturgical matters in the Episcopal tradition is drawn from lectures delivered at General Theological Seminary in 1964. Its aim is to treat of the relation of Liturgy to Christian Education. Two main threads run through the chapters; the way in which Christianity abolished cultic practice which it displaced. Although cross-references to the purposes of Christian education in the church are made at appropriate points, the book can hardly be said to engage in the kind of close-reasoned interplay of worship and education which the title seems to suggest. A closing chapter presents proposals for reform of the liturgy, reform here being understood to mean modifications rather than any fundamental reconstituting of the liturgy. The book is enriched by the author's great store of learning in the field of liturgy and by his personal sensitivity to the liturgy's meanings. It will be profitable read by those who share his devotion to the liturgy and who are students of the subject. It will not provide an answer to the question as to how the liturgy is to be made meaningful to many modern men who do not share the author's presuppositions.