Sacred Games: A History of Christian Worship

In this splendidly written history of Christian worship, Lang, a professor of religion at the University of Paderborn, Germany, traces the development of the elements of Christian worship from their pre-Christian origins to their modern use by Christian congregations. Underlying the practice of Christian worship, says Lang, are six ritual forms: praise, prayer, sermon, sacrifice, sacrament and spiritual ecstasy. Lang devotes a section to each of these ""sacred games"" of Christian worship in an effort to uncover the origins and the meaning of each ritual form. For example, in the section on prayer, Lang begins his exploration with a study of the function of petitionary prayer in the Greek tragedies of Aeschylus and in the Essene community. He then devotes a lengthy chapter to the ways that Christianity spiritualized the ancient Jewish text of the Lord's Prayer. In his final chapters on prayer, Lang emphasizes the ways in which Christianity set petitionary prayers in liturgical settings to establish the ""sacred game of prayer."" Lang's lively writing, historical insights and extensive reliance on primary sources combine for a fascinating portrait of the history of Christian worship. (Sept.)