These two volumes on eucharistic theology are a welcome sign of the commitment to serious academic engagement on the part of Anglican clergy in full-time ministry. Either book would enhance the reputation of a university research scholar, but Julie Gittoes serves as a parish priest in London, and David Kennedy is vice-dean and precentor of Durham Cathedral. The rigour of these studies is encouraging evidence of the continuing presence of theological engagement in the midst of the theology-free zone typical of so much Anglican debate today.

Furthermore, neither of these scholar/priests is content to look at the liturgy in isolation, simply as an object of interest in its own right. Each is concerned that the Eucharist should be a means of the transformation of the life of the Church. Kennedy points out that for too long debate on the epiclesis (the invocation of the Holy Spirit on the eucharistic elements and/or the gathered faithful) has been confined to narrow theories of eucharistic consecration. ‘One of the most pressing needs of the Church is to recover a dynamic eucharistic spirituality … the eucharist as a pledge and promise of eschatological hope … and the means of empowerment for Christian discipleship and mission, until the kingdom of God comes’ (pp. 2–3). Likewise, Gittoes affirms that her book ‘explores the connection between the source event of the Church's life and the transformative encounter with Christ in the Eucharist, the effects of which are seen in social/ethical/political action and the Church's mission’ (p. i). What the people of God receive in the Eucharist – Christ's presence and very self – is inseparable from what they do with that gift when they are sent out into the world, a world (like the Church) in urgent need of transformation into the likeness of Christ.

Gittoes, like Kennedy, is concerned to free eucharistic theology from the bonds of internecine church debate. The Low Church has historically tried to confine anamnesis to a matter of subjective mental recollection, while the High Church has insisted that it underpins Christ's real presence in the sacrament and is associated with a repetition of Christ's sacrifice. She therefore surveys the Anglican tradition and recent ecumenical discussions to draw together these polarities to articulate the agreed ground expressed in Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM) and the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), that to remember the past event of Christ's sacrifice is to make it real and effectual in the present. This being the case, ‘The Eucharist is Church generative: it renews fellowship within the Body of Christ, and should also initiate a missiological imperative’ (p. 48). Gittoes then (in the core of her book) surveys the use of anamnesis in the work of three contemporary theologians – David Ford, Catherine Pickstock and Rowan Williams – to assess how far each makes use of the ‘sending out’ dimension of the Eucharist for social and political transformation.

Both Ford and Williams pass this test with flying colours. Ford emphasizes the importance of the Eucharist as a ‘face-to-face sharing of peace, bread and wine, in memory of the last supper but also in anticipation of the feast of the kingdom of God’, so that this interpersonal dimension leading to ethical action becomes necessary to the working out of the Eucharist in the world. Williams brings to the table an engaging seriousness about sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ through the Eucharist; personal and corporate transformation and growth in Christ are inseparable from the liturgical action—'transformed failures become the grounds of service’ (p. 131).

In the face of the shared social emphasis in Williams'and Ford's writings, Pickstock's work comes in for sharp criticism not because she argues against it but simply because she has as yet failed sufficiently to engage with it. This is not to say that Gittoes neglects Pickstock's own agenda; if readers have been put off from engaging with Pickstock's theology because of the density and complexity of her work, here is an accessible and largely sympathetic introduction to it. Pickstock is concerned to reconnect the Church with the narrative power of the sacrifice of the Cross to enable the ‘continuing coming to be of the Church’. It seems out of proportion for Gittoes to criticize her so repeatedly simply because their common conviction that liturgical anamnesis should transform and nourish the Church ‘remains [in Pickstock's work] abstract’.

The epiclesis, like the anamnesis, has come out of centuries of debate to form part of an emerging ecumenical theological consensus. It is widely agreed that ‘the eucharistic rite in general, and the structure of the eucharistic prayer in particular, should be explicitly Trinitarian’ (p. 81). Nevertheless, the presence of the epiclesis and its location within Anglican liturgies feels far from settled. Many Anglo-Catholics continue to resist any suggestion that the epiclesis might share the consecratory efficacy of the words of institution, or indeed that the whole eucharistic prayer might be consecratory rather than any particular part of it. Many Evangelicals and others for whom the epiclesis has formed no part of their liturgical practice are uncomfortable at the incorporation of epicletic formulae that go beyond their own Anglican traditions.

Kennedy seeks to move the Church on from the sterility of these old debates so that the people of God in the Eucharist might be gathered up into the full sweep of the Triune God's work in creation, redemption and promise, for the transformation of the whole creation. He surveys exhaustively both the history of Anglican epicletic theologies and the place of Anglican liturgies and theology within current ecumenical dialogues. His scope is international as well as ecumenical, and he explores the distinctive liturgical traditions of Anglicans in Britain, North America, Africa and India.

Just as these two scholars share a determination that the Church's celebration of the Eucharist should enable the transformation of the Church and of the world, so both of these studies share a common weakness, remarkable in liturgical study. Kennedy and Gittoes engage with the Eucharist as texts, but neither of them pauses for a moment to reflect on the Eucharist as enacted rite, as liturgical action. Yet surely how the Eucharist is celebrated must have a crucial impact on how people understand it and live it out. Both Kennedy and Gittoes insist on the importance of an eschatological dimension to a right understanding of the Eucharist, but how is that to be understood when the predominant model of celebration focuses on God's presence in the midst of his gathered people sharing a communal meal? This well-nigh universal, present-focused celebration ‘in the round’ leaves little space for an eschatological Christ coming from beyond his people or for the expression of a mission-focused sending into the world. Gathered in an inward-facing community, their backs are symbolically turned both on the future and on the outside world. There is a sharp disjunction between the Church's contemporary theology of the Eucharist as expressed in these books and the way the people of God ‘pray out’ their theology in their churches, and one would have expected liturgical scholars to address it.