Praying Shapes Believing is both a contribution to ongoing scholarly dialogue about how to do liturgical theology and an exposition of the liturgical theology of the Episcopal Church, the church which more than any other church seeds its own identity in terms of its liturgy. This in-depth look at The Book of Common Prayer systematically gives a theological answer to the question, "What does it mean that we act and speak these particular words of liturgy?" The book has a two-point focus. The first is to set forth the liturgical theology of a particular liturgy without importing a priori considerations from sources outside the liturgy itself. The second focus is an expansion of the theology of The Book of Common Prayer as the expression of the faith and life of the Episcopal Church.