David Tripp

Book Reviews : Creation to Candlemas:

Ecumenism generates a fresh appreciation of our koinonia. Some approach theology with catlike tread, others with the panache of a cavalry charge. Paul Avis assuredly belongs to the latter category, as he seeks to establish a bridgehead on new ground with his powerfully argued, scholarly book Christians in Communion (Geoffrey Chapman/Mowbray [1990], £7.95, pp. 150, ISBN 0-264-67203-8). His is a trumpet-call based on profound scrutiny of the most recent ecumenical texts in relation to scripture and the rival traditions. In the New Testament the new

Book Reviews : Jerusalem Revisited:

Gregory Dix, who did more than anyone to rescue liturgy from the specialists, insisted that the proper study of the liturgist was ’people praying’. Fifty years on, the subject now needs rescuing from the suburban captivity of the churches. Kenneth Stevenson, liturgist and parish priest, is well fitted to take up this challenge. Accept This Offering (SPCK [1989], £3.95, pp. 88, ISBN 0-281-04405-8) presents to the general reader the main findings of his earlier ’Eucharist and Offering’ (1986). His argument is that sacrifice, so far from being barbaric and outmoded, is still sufficiently embedded in general human experience to offer a powerful metaphor for our understanding of eucharistic worship, and that therefore the problems of New Testament silence and continuing Christian conflict ought neither to be ducked nor temporarily shelved. His strategy is to extend its application to cover in effect the whole liturgy: the word proclaimed (requiring the ’sacrifice of attention’); the intercession (which he would like