Historical-critical method in biblical scholarship has been a Pandora's box for the intellectual life of the church. No achievement of modern scholarship has been more effective in understanding the Bible, yet it has also seriously challenged a church trying to preserve the integrity of its cherished theological traditions. In this critically acclaimed book Roy Harrisville and Walter Sundberg trace the development and drama of historical-critical method by surveying the major figures who created and employed it -- from Baruch Spinoza in the seventeenth century to present-day interpreters....

Against contemporary trends that conceive of Christian worship primarily as entertainment or sheer celebration, Walter Sundberg argues that repentance is the heart of authentic worship. In Worship as Repentance Sundberg outlines the history of repentance and confession within liturgical practice from the early church to mid-twentieth-century Protestantism, advocating movement away from the -eucharistic piety- common in mainline worship today and toward the -penitential piety- of older traditions of Protestant worship.