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-This final word' from Australian liturgical theologian Graham Hughes is a distinctive and rich contribution to contemporary discussions about sacramentality. Hughes challenges the ways in which a Reformed disseminated sacramentality--where awareness of God and the sacred are located in everyday experience--has shaped the sacramental understanding of many Protestant churches and placed them in danger of secular colonization by modernity.' He takes on what he calls the uncertain place' of materiality in the Reformed tradition, arguing that material physical forms--sacramental things--have a necessary place in the church's life and practice. In doing so, he ably demonstrates the need to balance disseminated sacramentality with a condensed' sacramentality, through which our awareness of the sacred is found in specific trusted material actions, our physicality is acknowledged and engaged in Christian worship, and our encounter with God is given physical form. Readers new to Hughes will also find Steffen Losel's introductory essay a helpful and clear survey of Hughes's work and thought, placing this book in context with Hughes's major contribution, Worship as Meaning.-E. Byron Anderson, Styberg Professor of Worship, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL

The Reformed tradition is in need of sacramental reform! This timely work comes to light in an era in which brain research makes clear that human knowing arises from sensory engagement with the material and social environment. This bold and provocative work by Hughes calls for a fundamental reconsideration of the role of embodiment in Reformed approaches to baptism and the Lord's Supper. Taking cues from a robust Christology that highlights Christ as the icon of God, Hughes provides a fresh way of thinking about the fusion of materiality and the sacred in the sacraments. Losel's introductory essay provides illumination and context for the thought-provoking challenges offered here. Rev. Dr. Gordon S. Mikoski, Princeton Theological Seminary

-This posthumous study is a long-awaited consideration of an issue which concerns all thoughtful practitioners in the Reformed Tradition: it explores the origins of Reform's bifurcation of spirit and form, its long favouring of the cognitive over the physical (and indeed the affective) mode, of speech over symbol in sermon and sacrament. Hughes constantly reaches out to other Christian traditions as he delineates a new Reformed canonicity. It is especially pertinent to his own church, the Uniting Church in Australia (Reformed/Methodist), for a reclamation of the materiality of faith itself, and therefore of both word and sacrament, is a key to the recovery of rich and enduring forms of worship.-The Rev. Dr Robert Gribben, Professor Emeritus of Worship and Mission, Uniting Church Faculty of Theology, Melbourne, Australia

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Steffen Lösel is associate professor of systematic theology at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. He received his master of divinity from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria and his doctorate in theology from the University of Tübingen. His book, Kreuzwege: Ein ökumenisches Gespräch mit Hans Urs von Balthasar, appeared in 2001 with Ferdinand Schöningh.

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