Rites of Christian Initiation

Maxwell E. Johnson is emeritus professor of liturgy at the University of Notre Dame and a retired presbyter in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. His numerous publications are on the origins and development of early Christian liturgy, contemporary rites, and current ecumenical and theological questions in both East and West. He is the author and/or editor of more than twenty-five books and over one hundred essays and articles. He is also a former president of the North American Academy of Liturgy, a member of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, a member of Societas Liturgica, and a member of the scientific advisory board for the journal Ecclesia Orans. He has received the Berakah Award from the North American Academy of Liturgy and the Christus Rex Award from the Liturgical Studies Institute at Valparaiso University.

• ContentsAcknowledgments   xAbbreviations   xiiPreface to the Second Edition   xiiiIntroduction   xviiChapter 1: The Origins of the Rites of Christian Initiation   1Chapter 2: Christian Initiation in the Pre-nicene East   41Chapter 3: Christian Initiation in the Pre-nicene West   83Chapter 4: Initiation in the Christian East During the Fourth and Fifth Centuries   115Chapter 5: Initiation in the Christian West During the Fourth and Fifth Centuries   159Excursus: Baptismal Preparation and the Origins of Lent   201Chapter 6: Christian Initiation in the Middle Ages    219Chapter 7: The Rites of Initiation in the Christian East   269Chapter 8: Christian Initiation in the Protestant and Catholic Reforms of the Sixteenth Century   309Chapter 9: Christian Initiation in the Churches Today   375Chapter 10: Back Home to the Font: The Place of a Baptismal Spirituality and Its Implications in a Displaced World   451Index   479

Max Johnson has done it again. If you have room in your library for only one reference book on initiation, this is the one to choose. . . . This revision paints and even broader, deeper, and therefore even more complex picture of how Christians have ritualized and understood Christian identity and the making of Christians.Celebrate