the title).
Worship is a significant work primarily because of the excellent scholarship which it represents. Mitchell's abiding concern is for a greater spirit of ecumenism between all denominations (but, generally, his focus is on Roman Catholic, Anglican, and, especially, Episcopal). Clearly, the diversity in modern church practices concerning baptism, the Lord's Supper, and other initiatory practices, including those of denominations other than the three with which Mitchell is principally concerned, are among the factors which most frequently divide and prevent the Church (with a capital "C") from achieving true Christian unity 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 extensive references to early church writings instead of a mere appeal to practical tradition alone, that over the centuries churches (with a lower-case "c") have substantially departed from what he believes to be the original "shape" of Christian initiation, resulting in a dilution of the spiritual (or, mystical) dimension in which Christian initiation is cloaked.
Mitchell does an excellent job of tracing the history 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 left in the dark concerning the otherwise unexplained relationship between these three familiar denominations; the Roman Catholic church can be considered the "Western" (or, Latin) version of the Orthodox church, the Anglican is a further British revision of Catholicism, and the Episcopal church is the Americanized form of the Anglican church. There are now significant ritualistic deviations between these churches in b...