James F. Turrell teaches liturgy at the School of Theology of the University of the South, where he also serves as dean. He has served on the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, where he led a committee that revised the rites for the catechumenate in the Book of Occasional Services. He is a priest of the Diocese of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee.

"Professor Turrell has long been a reliable guide to the rites of Christian Initiation as they have developed and are practiced in The Episcopal Church. This new edition of his commentary incorporates updates based upon the revised catechumenal rites, an arresting discussion of recent debates about communion of the unbaptized, and challenging insights on the making of new Christians and the future of the church. Turrell's work is an indispensable resource for seminarians, catechists, and clergy."—J. Neil Alexander, Custodian of the Standard Book of Common Prayer

“‘Christianity is a practice, not a body of doctrine.’ James Turrell, in his updated reflection and guide to the rites of initiation, both reminds us of the continued “muddles” and contradictions of the 1979 BCP and current canons and adds to that the more recent revisions of the Episcopal Church found in the BOS 2022. But this volume (as was the first edition) is more than a “practical ceremonial guide”. It relentlessly reminds us that we pray what we believe and believe what we pray and that the church will continue to adapt and shift its liturgies as we grow in the understanding of what the church is to be about. That ecclesial journey forward invites us into living what Confirmation is not, what Baptism is, how Baptism and Eucharist are united, how to be ecumenical partners in offering and often sharing the rites of initiation, and how a church steeped in the classroom model of learning about God grows into a community that models and welcomes all its members into encountering and coming to know God.”—Lizette Larson-Miller, Canon Precentor, Diocese of Huron, Professor of Liturgy and Sacramental Theology, Bexley Seabury Seminary

“As a practitioner and a teacher, I welcome this valuable resource… I enthusiastically recommend Celebrating the Rites of Initiation to all liturgical leaders and those who teach liturgical practice. It belongs in their hands and on their course bibliographies.”—Anglican Theological Review

“Jim Turrell offers a gift to the church as the work of deepening its baptismal identity continues. Not simply a “how to” guide to the celebration of the rites of initiation, this book is scholarly, practical, and profoundly pastoral. It insists that the way we enact the rites matters how they will shape us. This volume is a loving challenge to the renewal of the Christian faith through holy baptism as a way of life.”—Jeffrey D. Lee, XII Bishop of Chicago

“In the end, this is what Celebrating the Rites of Initiation proclaims with great vigor: our leaders, both lay and ordained, must enter more deeply into the great symbols of our faith, which routine pastoral practice has often trivialized and thus deprived of their power, so that these symbols may speak from the depth of their meaning in the lives of the entire baptized community and so form us as the people of God.”—The Rev. Dr. Louis Weil