The Art of Tentmaking

The Art of Tentmaking: Making Space for Worship

Contributors include Paul F. Bradshaw, Stephen Cottrell, Steven Croft and Martyn Percy.
The 13 eminent international contributors to this volume share a respect for the thought and pioneering liturgical ministry of Richard Giles, who wrote Repitching the Tent, Creating Uncommon Worship and At Heaven’s Gate, among other things. A former town planner, Giles ministered in the dioceses of Peterborough, Wakefield and Newcastle, and served as Dean of Philadelphia Cathedral. His daring ideas about liturgy and the interior design of churches may still put him ahead of his time, not fully honoured by the church establishment. The essays in this new anthology are described by their editor as ‘overwhelmingly appreciative’. That is not to say they avoid some areas of disagreement (see particularly what Rosalind Brown writes about the handing over of the stole to the reader). Don’t think the essays focus narrowly on Giles, for some of them go much further, for example on art, on music, on liturgy for funerals and on the Eucharist (Richard Fabian writes in lively fashion about ‘the scandalous table’). In his enlightening essay, Steven Croft praises the ‘mixed economy’ of the Church of England in its worship, and appeals for the preservation of liturgical patterns of worship This is a stimulating little collection, which should make you think and send you back to what Richard Giles himself has written.

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