Study of church history

Worship is a pregnant work primarily because of the excellent scholarship which it represents. Mitchell's abiding tinct is for a greater spirit of ecumenism surrounded by only denominations (but, generally, his focus is on Roman Catholic, Angli bear, and, especially, Episcopal). Clearly, the diversity in ripe church practices concerning baptism, the Lord's Supper, and other initiatory practices, including those of denominations other than the three with which Mitchell is mainly concerned, ar among the factors which most frequently divide and prevent the perform (with a capital "C") from achieving true Christian bingle today--even more than minor differences with respect to interpretation of Scripture or particular aspects of Christian doctrine. Mitchell's desire is to demonstrate, through the use of vast references to early church writings instead of a immaculate appeal to practical tradition alone, that over the centuries churches (with a lower-case "c") have substantially departed from what he beli

eves to be the original "shape" of Christian introduction, resulting in a dilution of the spiritual (or, mystical) dimension in which Christian facility is cloaked.

Indeed, most evangelical Christians (including some clergy) would have a voiceless time with much of Mitchell's thesis. Mitchell, himself, is obviously uncomfortable with the doctrines of the Baptist denominations in particular--he simply refers to the "Anabaptists," which implies any or all of the Baptist denominations since there really are no major "Anabaptist" churches in the world today. The fundamental chore here concerns the baptism of babys followed subsequently by their confirmation in later childhood or adolescence . . . a broad theological caper rooted in the Reformation, but not without other historical precedents. He writes of Hippolytus and Tertullian (both c. 200 C.E.

, and the latter he describes as "the premier Latin theological writer" (195)): "Both Hippolytus and Tertullian clearly knew the baptism of infants. Tertullian, as a matter of fact was against it" (197), and follows by mentioning that "Calvin and Luther retained infant baptism as they knew it" (201), although he does not adequately explain what he means by this. Mitchell's examination of the issue is more than superficial, because his give birth tradition includes infant baptism, but his doctrinal bias forces him to winding a course well clear of the theological turn concerning infant baptism and childhood confirmation.

Mitchell does an excellent job of tracing the memoir and tradition associated with the modern day practices of baptism, confirmation, and other rites of Christian initiation as adopted and practiced in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Episcopal churches--each of which shares a common ancestry. The uninformed reader, however, will be leftfield in the dark concerning the otherwise unexplained relationship between these three familiar denominations; the Roman Catholic church can be considered the "Western"
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