This is a study of the social construction and the impression management of the public forms of worship of Catholicism and Anglicanism. Interest centres on the dilemmas of the liturgical actors in handling a transaction riddled with ambiguities and potential misunderstandings. Simmel, Berger and Goffman are used in an original manner to understand these rites which pose as much of a problem for sociology as for their practitioners. These rites are treated as forms of play and hermeneutics is linked to a negative theology to understand their performative basis. The study is an effort to link sociology to theology in a way that serves to focus on an issue of social praxis.