Research Paper on:
Book Review of The Study of Spirituality Edited by Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, and Edward Yarnold

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the selections are not inaccessible to the uninitiated, and are written in a straight-forward style that is lucid and comprehensible. Nevertheless, while these selections are not solely aimed at the  academician , they do not pull punches, or water down their observations, but rather take the novice reader into areas of scholarship previously unknown to the average lay person.  The contributors to this volume represent Anglican, Roman Catholic, Free church and Orthodox traditions, and the essays offer a comprehensive study of the nature and form of Christian spirituality and  dogma has it has evolved through the centuries. Part one contains six selections and is on the "theology of spirituality." Part two, The History of Spirituality, is by far  the largest section of the book and offers ten major divisions, some of which are subdivided, with each division containing a selection of essays. Part three, Pastoral Spirituality, contains  nine essays, with a last word by Geoffrey Wainwright on the types of spirituality. As this indicates, this content of this work is far too vast to examine each  essay in detail. However, the various essays selected for examination in this report appear to be very representative of the entire book. Particularly interesting to this reviewer were the essays  that on the evolution of spirituality in the Middle Ages. For instance, Anthony Russells article, "Sociology and the Study of Spirituality," offers an intriguing glimpse at evolution of  spiritual thought took place in the medieval period. Russell tells us that medieval spirituality was "essentially" public, "communal and ecclesial in nature, a form of worship that focused in  on the liturgy of the "Church, the bible and the cult of the saints" (36). The coming of the Reformation, however, with its challenge to the Church hierarchy, gave