Worship in the Early Church

Rating:
Summary: An Overly Simplistic Picture, but not a Bad Start.
Review: Dr. Martin has provided us with a good, solid, although less than profound, primer on early Christian worship. This is the right book for high-school-age Sunday School classes, and for adults begin initial studies on the Christian liturgies. This text is insufficient, however, for more advanced reading.

With a well crafted vocabulary, a solid understanding of the subject matter, and an obvious infusion of Dr. Martin's own, deep faith, this is a delightful book.

Its only short-fall is that Dr. Martin paints the image of early Christian unity in faith, doctrine, and practice with too wide a brush. Thus, we read "The Resurrection is by common consent the decisive element in THE kerygma..." (p. 75, emphasis mine), even though James D.G. Dunn (Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity, Trinity Press 1990) and others have argued conclusively for multiple kerygmata in the earliest Church. In fact, for 49 pages (124-173) Dunn demonstrates explicitly and convincingly the complex variety in early Christian worship and sacramental practice. Martin, on the other hand, paints a rather flat image of an unified Church in which all the faithful believed the same doctrines, adhered to the "Didache," and smoothed over the differences between the synoptic Gospels, the Gospel according the Saint John, and the Pauline Epistles.

Dr. Martin's book is an excellent place to begin a study of the Christian liturgies, especially if the reader remembers that it is only a starting point.

Rating:
Summary: An Overly Simplistic Picture, but not a Bad Start.
Review: Dr. Martin has provided us with a good, solid, although less than profound, primer on early Christian worship. This is the right book for high-school-age Sunday School classes, and for adults begin initial studies on the Christian liturgies. This text is insufficient, however, for more advanced reading.

With a well crafted vocabulary, a solid understanding of the subject matter, and an obvious infusion of Dr. Martin's own, deep faith, this is a delightful book.

Its only short-fall is that Dr. Martin paints the image of early Christian unity in faith, doctrine, and practice with too wide a brush. Thus, we read "The Resurrection is by common consent the decisive element in THE kerygma..." (p. 75, emphasis mine), even though James D.G. Dunn (Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity, Trinity Press 1990) and others have argued conclusively for multiple kerygmata in the earliest Church. In fact, for 49 pages (124-173) Dunn demonstrates explicitly and convincingly the complex variety in early Christian worship and sacramental practice. Martin, on the other hand, paints a rather flat image of an unified Church in which all the faithful believed the same doctrines, adhered to the "Didache," and smoothed over the differences between the synoptic Gospels, the Gospel according the Saint John, and the Pauline Epistles.

Dr. Martin's book is an excellent place to begin a study of the Christian liturgies, especially if the reader remembers that it is only a starting point.