Educating People of Faith

Book excerpt: A much-needed addition to the emerging literature on the formative power of religious practices, "Educating People of Faith" creates a vivid portrait of the lived practices that shaped the faith of Jews and Christians in synagogues and churches from antiquity up to the seventeenth century. This significant book is the work of Jewish, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant scholars who wished to discover and describe how Jews and Christians through history have been formed in religious ways of thinking and acting. Rather than focusing solely on either intellectual or social life, the authors all use the concept of practices as they attend to the embodied, contextual character of religious formation. Their studies of religious figures, community life, and traditional practices such as preaching, sacraments, and catechesis are colorful, detailed, and revealing. The authors are also careful to cover the nature of religious education across all social levels, from the textual formation of highly literate rabbis and monks engaged in Scripture study to the local formation of illiterate medieval Christians for whom the veneration of saints' shrines, street performances of religious dramas, and public preaching by wandering preachers were profoundly formative. "Educating People of Faith" will benefit scholars and teachers desiring a fuller perspective on how lived practices have historically formed people in religious faith. It will also be useful to practical theologians and pastors who wish to make the resources of the past available to practitioners in the present. Contributors: John C. Cavadini Anne L. Clark Lawrence S. Cunningham Joseph Goering RobertGoldenberg Stanley Samuel Harakas Robert M. Kingdon Blake Leyerle Michael A. Signer Philip M. Soergel David C. Steinmetz John Van Engen Lee Palmer Wandel Robert Louis Wilken Elliot R. Wolfson