A Sociological History of Christian Worship

Introduction: discourse, devotion and embodiment; 1. Early Christian worship, texts and contexts to AD 300; 2. Worship and the Christianisation of public spaces 300-600; 3. Hegemonic discourses in the worship of Empires 600-900; 4. The dominant discourse of cosmological Christianity 900-1200; 5. Accessing the demotic discourses of devotion 1200-1500; 6. Worship and the rise of humanistic discourses 1500-1800; 7. The globalisation of Christian worship 1800-2000.

Martin D. Stringer is lecturer in Sociology and Anthropology of Religion and Head of the Department of Theology at the University of Birmingham.

'This is a well and lucidly written book. A great deal of material have been included and crafted into a convincingly written narrative. The scholarship is profound and the wealth of material here is always germane to his argument. I found it required considerable concentration at times, but this is right and only to be expected in a work of this depth. Dr Stringer has written a book of seminal importance which deserves to guide and inform the study of Christian worship for many years to come. Buy. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.' Dr Richard Buxton, Society for Liturgical Study 'The reader is spared impenetrable jargon, and, indeed, the book is lucidly written ... accessible to the general reader, as well as a key resource for the student of Christian religion and culture. ... the book succeeds in helping us to hear the sheer variety of voices in the story of Christian worship.' Church Times 'Within each chapter Stringer presents a closely argued presentation of the main theme and accompanies it with fascinating 'case studies', diverse in their geography and cultural richness. ... This is a refreshing book which ought to take its place in any bibliography of liturgical studies, and which should certainly be read alongside more 'traditional' histories.' Benjamin Gordon-Taylor, College of the Resurrection, Mirfield '[A] remarkable tour de force in terms of professional daring as well as interdisciplinary scholarship ...' Times Literary Supplement '... there is a great deal of interest in the book ...' Contemporary Review 'Stringer is excellent at placing worship in its social, cultural and political context ... This is a refreshing book which ought to take its place in any bibliography of liturgical studies, and which certainly should be read alongside more 'traditional' histories.' Theology '... a mine of out-of-the-way information, a salutary antidote to the parochialism of much British attitude to current Church-going trends and encouragement that, even if