I do not recall whether I ever met Nathan Mitchell. I do not think I ever heard him speak, and I know I never took a class with him. This volume, a “celebration of [Mitchell's]…thought” (xxv), makes me wish that I had had such opportunities. The editors have selected nine of Mitchell's approximately 120 “Amen Corner” essays appearing over the span of two decades in Worship, organized them along six themes, and paired them with essays written by six of his former students; in these six essays Mitchell's “thought is put into dialogue with their own developing theological reflection” (xxv).

The six themes in question are “body,” “word,” “Spirit,” “beauty,” “justice,” and “reconciliation.” The companion essays on these themes are authored respectively by Kimberly Hope Belcher, Joél Schmidt, Anne McGowan, Clare Johnson, Katharine Harmon, and Melanie Ross. Given the nature of this text as an anthology with seven different authors in total, I am not able in this space to provide a thorough assessment of all the parts of the book. What follows, then, are impressions and sketches of a book that is well worth reading.

As Johnson observes, one of the key features of the “Amen Corner” is the way that Mitchell “effortlessly weaves together everything from politics, papacy, and pop stars, to arts, aesthetics, and architecture, offering his readers a measured and critical view of the most recent happenings and topic issues of both a secular and sacred nature” (xxiv). Mitchell's essays in this volume engage inter alia the works of T. S. Eliot, Adrienne Rich, Flannery O'Connor, Emily Dickinson, Peter Singer, John Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, Walter Burghardt, and Annie Dillard. The essays make for dense reading, but in the end what matters for Mitchell is that people be aware of the ways in which liturgy can and should touch them in the marrow of their bones, shaping them and challenging them to live as disciples of Christ.

Though all of the companion essays are stimulating, I especially appreciated Belcher's comments on the body, with its important claim that “a theology that seeks to find Christ in the Eucharist to the exclusion of Christ elsewhere will end with a Christ that remains nowhere” (11), and Harmon's insights into the ways in which liturgy has and has not addressed concerns related to racism, poverty, and the place of women in church and society. Particularly in the cases of Harmon (“justice”) and McGowan (“Spirit”), I was aware of the “dialogue” feature mentioned above. Harmon has published on the role of women in the American liturgical movement, and McGowan has published on the status and function of the epiclesis in eucharistic prayers.

I offer three comments by way of critique. First, I happen to be aware of the work of Harmon and McGowan. I am somewhat less familiar with the other contributors. It might have been helpful if the editors had included a bit more about how Mitchell shaped the contributors’ scholarly trajectory (or if the contributors had said more on this topic). Second, some contributors refer to Nathan Mitchell as “Nathan” and others as “Mitchell.” I found the contrasting intimacy and formality a little jarring. Third, there is a question of consistency with respect to the axiom lex orandi, lex credendi. Early in the book, Mitchell is quoted as challenging the sufficiency of the adage, to the effect that doctrine also checks liturgy (xviii), but later he is quoted affirming that “doctrine arises from doxology” (105). This inconsistency is not explained or discussed.

I would recommend each of the individual sections of the book for use in undergraduate or graduate instruction. The book as a whole would be useful for courses treating major (American) liturgical theologians.