Liturgical Theology Research Articles

Homilia w osmozie z teologią liturgiczną

Nowe Dyrektorium homiletyczne przedstawia homilię jako syntezę słowa Bożego, celebracji liturgicznej i chrześcijańskiego życia (por. DH 12–14). Homilia jawi się tutaj jako przykład syntezy teologicznej bądź też jako przykład syntezy w teologii. W takim ujęciu może być ona uważana za najlepszy przykład zrodzonej w okresie reformy liturgicznej teologii liturgicznej. Osmoza pomiędzy teologią liturgiczną a homilią polega na tym, że obydwie pozostają w funkcji liturgii i jawią się jako teologia z liturgii. W takim ujęciu homilia, podobnie jak teologia liturgiczna, ma cztery podstawowe cele: pozostaje w służbie zbawczemu misterium, tak aby włączyć w nie uczestników celebracji liturgicznej; jest teologiczną syntezą prowadzącą do pełnego poznania misterium Chrystusa; jest syntezą wszystkich dyscyplin teologicznych; jest teologią ortodoksji dla ortopraksji w perspektywie doksologii – żywą teologią zbawczego misterium.

Revising the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer (1979): Liturgical Theologians in Dialogue

Revising the Episcopal Church's <i>Book of Common Prayer</i> (1979): Liturgical Theologians in Dialogue

On not playing Jesus: The gendered liturgical theology of presiding

The male gender of the presider at Eucharist has long been a source of theological reflection both about the Eucharist and the presider’s role within it, and about ordination, particularly in relation to the exclusion of women from ordained office across Christian churches. The relatively recent admission of women and gender minorities to orders in some churches troubles the received liturgical and theological traditions in this regard. Drawing on the legacy of the 20th-century North Atlantic liturgical movement and its recovery of the assembly as the ‘primary symbol’ of the liturgy, this article explores the possible liturgical and theological ‘adjustments’ proposed by a change in the presumed gender of the presider in relation to the ‘primary symbol’ of the assembly, and suggests changes in presidential practice that cast into greater relief the liturgical theological significance of gender diversity in the assembly.

Liturgical Formation, Liberation Theology and Latin American Culture: A Study about the Changes in Liturgical Formation in the Context of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brazil

Liturgical Formation, Liberation Theology and Latin American Culture: A Study about the Changes in Liturgical Formation in the Context of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brazil

КОНЦЕПЦІЯ ЛІТУРГІЙНОГО РЕАЛІЗМУ В ТЕОЛОГІЇ ОЛЕКСАНДРА ШМЕМАНА

У статті розглянуто головну тему богословських розвідок О. Шмемана – літургійне богослов’я, яке запропонованоназивати літургійним реалізмом. Осмислення богослужінняцеркви як одного з головних джерел богопізнання стало провідною темою для богослов’я у ХХ ст. Літургійне богослов’яО. Шмемана ґрунтується на цілісному світогляді, в основуякого покладено євхаристійну еклезіологію й екзистенційнепереживання присутності трансцендентної реальності Царства Божого. Важливими складовими елементами літургійного богослов’я О. Шмемана як комплексної богословськоїсистеми є утвердження центрального значення літургії длявсього буття церкви, дотримання принципу lex orandi est lexcredendi, розуміння літургії як здійсненої есхатології та послідовне витлумачення літургії як події, що безпосередньостосується життя всіх її учасників. The author analyzes the main theme of A. Schmemann’stheological investigation, which is the liturgical theology.The author proposes to define it as the liturgical realism. Interpretation the liturgical worship of the church as one of themain sources of the knowledge of God was the central themefor theology in the twentieth century. Liturgical theology ofA. Schmemann is based on his holistic outlook. Its foundationsare eucharistic ecclesiology and the existential experience of thepresence of the transcendent reality of the Kingdom of God. Theimportant elements of A. Schmemann’s liturgical theology as acomprehensive theological system are the following: affirmation the central importance of the liturgy for the whole being ofthe church; application of the principle lex orandi est lex credendi; understanding the liturgy as an implemented eschatology;and a consistent interpretation of the liturgy as an event thatdirectly affects the lives of all its participants.

Renewing Liturgical Catechesis: Towards the Cultivation of Desire for God

Renewing Liturgical Catechesis: Towards the Cultivation of Desire for God1 James Pauley (bio) Cyprian Vagaggini, O.S.B., one of the twentieth century’s most important liturgical theologians, described the liturgy as “the privileged place of encounter between man and God.”2 Because God so generously gives himself—his very life and love—to those who seek him in the liturgy, extraordinary fruits are possible. Yet, increasing numbers of Catholics today choose to live apart from the Church’s corporate prayer. Many have not experienced the liturgy as a locus of encounter, and many more are uncertain whether such an encounter with God is even possible. Reconfiguring our approaches to sacramental preparation and mystagogical catechesis in the years to come will be instrumental to preparing them to encounter God more fully in the Church’s sacramental life. Such a work is important today as we face significant declines in sacramental participation. In this article, we will delineate the contours and priorities of a catechesis that focuses on how the liturgy is, above all, a transformative encounter with God. [End Page 2] A MORE PERSONAL APPROACH Most of us are familiar with the language of “personal accompaniment” employed by Pope Francis in a variety of his writings and speeches. Best described in Evangelii Gaudium, he suggests that we who are engaged in Catholic evangelization must “remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other.” The Holy Father emphasizes pastoral approaches that accentuate relationship, approaches that move at a “steady and reassuring [pace], reflecting our closeness and our compassionate gaze which also heals, liberates and encourages growth in the Christian life.”3 Accompaniment, as described by Pope Francis, is a respectful dialog leading ultimately to God. I suggest that such a way of engagement finds a “willing dance partner” in the context of liturgical catechesis. This idea of personal accompaniment in inviting others to live the Christian life is not a new concept. Vatican II’s Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church used the term “apprenticeship” to describe the newly restored Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) and the Council fathers’ intent for this process through which adults would join themselves to Christ’s Mystical Body: “The catechumenate is not a mere expounding of doctrines and precepts, but a training period in the whole Christian life, and an apprenticeship duty drawn out, during which disciples are joined to Christ their teacher.”4 The catechumenal model described in the decree was understood to be an integral formation of the whole person, carried out by clergy and catechists who could teach and encourage catechumens into a living of Christianity. For this reason, one of the most fascinating statements in the 1997 General Directory for Catechesis is found in the first part, where the document calls the baptismal catechumenate the model, the [End Page 3] inspiration, for all catechetical activity. 5 Such an assertion means many things. One certain implication is that the emphasis on personal mentoring seen in the apprenticeship model is being recommended more broadly for the whole of the catechetical enterprise. What would it mean for catechists to apprentice those entrusted to them for sacramental formation? First, the essential content of catechesis would of course be communicated, but those being catechized would be approached with a sensitivity to each person’s respective movement towards the Lord and sacramental understanding. Such a catechesis would teach the timeless truths of Christianity, and would additionally promote a responsiveness on the part of participants. With such an approach, passive receptivity of doctrinal content would become less pervasive in our collective catechetical experience as we encourage active learning of the content of Revelation. Second, apprenticeship leads to a new way of seeing and a new way of living—these are its enduring fruits. Through liturgical catechesis, as we learn to see reality more clearly, this vision organically changes how we think, how we choose and how we live. In mentoring others in this way, we catechists would find ourselves deeply challenged to be living this faith integration ourselves. Such a mentoring in holiness requires that the catechist not only teach the precious truths of Christ but also speak from experience about how...

Book Review: The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology. By Nicholas Wolterstorff

Book Review: The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology. By Nicholas Wolterstorff

German Romanticism and Liturgical Theology: Exploring the Potential of Organic Thinking

There is significant correspondence between two phenomena that are very rarely treated together yet reveal intriguing similarities: liturgical theology and German Romanticism. The key shared concept is “organism,” a category expressing active life as well as coherence. It shows a way out of the deadlock caused by a simple opposition of objectivism and subjectivism. This article first of all presents an interesting kind of liturgical theology that was done by representatives of the Catholic Tübingen School, and then shows that the emerging Liturgical Movement was intrinsically Romantic in its theological approach to the liturgy.

NicholasWolterstorff, The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015, 180 pp. $20.00

NicholasWolterstorff, The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015, 180 pp. $20.00

The figure of the monk as the ideal of a liturgical life? Perspectives from political philosophy and liturgical theology

ABSTRACTThis article investigates some salient features of the fascination for the monk in contemporary scholarship. Interestingly, the figure of the monk has attracted the attention of authors engaged in fields as diverse as political philosophy and liturgical theology, clearly without referring to one another. On the one hand, the much talked-about Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben discusses the liturgical heritage of Western civilization to better understand the mechanisms behind modern politics and economy. In that context, he sees the monk as someone in whom rules and life have become indistinct. On the other hand, liturgical theologian David W. Fagerberg extensively deals with the monk in his groundbreaking study on liturgical asceticism. He seems to make a similar point as Agamben: the monk exemplifies not simply obedience to rules but embodies the very life a Christian is supposed to live. This article compares both frameworks of thought to see whether the one can be used to critically evaluate the other and to propose some reflections about (liturgical and civil) formation.

Book Review: Christ's Gift, Our Response: Martin Luther and Louis-Marie Chauvet on the Connection between Sacraments and Ethics

Christ's Gift, Our Response: Martin Luther and Louis-Marie Chauvet on the Connection between Sacraments and Ethics. By Benjamin Durheim. Collegeville, Minn.: Michael Glazier, 2015. xviii + 184 pp. $24.95 (paper).The phenomenological approach the sacrament of the eucharist from the French Catholic theologian Louis-Marie Chauvet (b. 1942) has become somewhat de rigueur among contemporary sacramental and liturgical theologians. In the last decade, a spate of English monographs on Chauvet have appeared and at least two studies set Chauvet in direct conversation with thinkers (Heidegger and Benedict XVI, and Rahner, respectively). Benjamin Durheim s slim volume contributes ably this conversation and with a new methodology: placing Chauvet and Martin Luther, through the Finnish School of Luther Interpretation, side-by-side as sources for each other (p. 145).He offers this as a new sort of ecumenical endeavor see how the others theology might strengthen the theology of ones own tradition. Durheim attempts to read each theologian in light of the and allow the insights of each theologian speak the tensions of the other, thus producing not unity in thought but a new kind of unity of purpose (p. 145). A similar approach birthed the Finnish School through its engagement with Eastern Orthodoxy. The reason for choosing Chauvet is directly tied Durheims ecumenical goal: sacraments and ethics are the two places that embody both the church's internal division and its relationship the world, and they are also central Chauvet's project. The most significant interconnection between these two theologians is precisely what Durheim hopes each theologian and his followers can be the other: gift.Chapter 1 sets up the background for a conversation on sacraments and ethics in the twentieth century. The scope here is quite broad: the American liturgical movement's unique vision; the original sacraments-ethics union in Don Saliers, Jean-Marie Roger Tillard, and Bruce Morrill; the philosophical basis of Chauvet's work (especially Heidegger, and Marcel Mauss); and a summary of the Finnish School of Luther Interpretation with its reading of justification as union with Christ. Durheim's summaries are succinct and extremely clear, particularly his summary of Heidegger.Chapter 2 presents Luther's sacramental theology, which Durheim frames through the interlaced triad of Christ's gift, presence, and promise. Because Christ is truly given the Christian in the sacraments through the mechanism of faith, Christ dwells in the Christian by faith such that ethics becomes Christian (or, he suggests, Christ-in) ethics. Chapter 3 provides an overview of Chauvet's take on the relationship between sacraments and ethics, most especially in his magnum opus, Symbol and Sacrament (French, 1987; English, 1995). …

Book Review: Evangelical versus Liturgical? Defying a Dichotomy

Evangelical versus Liturgical? Defying a Dichotomy. By Melanie C. Ross. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing, 2014. 148 pp. $17.00 (paper).For Christians at a historic inflection point, any attempt to mitigate division between and forms of Christianity deserves consideration. Melanie Ross's book, if not seamless, poses good questions about what those two traditions of practice and theology hold in common, and where they may differ in important ways.One might reasonably expect that defiance of a dichotomy would work from both sides of it; however, while the book does commend what both traditions have to offer each other, its emphasis is a defense of evangelical Christianity from putative misconstruals by liturgical theologians. Ross means to challenge liturgical studies to both more historical and more theological in its assessment of evangelical worship, which in turn will require a rethinking of the evangelical-liturgical (p. 6). In chapter 1 she provides an informative history of the liturgical of evangelical worship with the intention of showing that evangelicals have moved beyond that ordo that runs through Charles Finney into the seeker services of the megachurches, now on the wane. Along the way, Ross nicely captures some of the cross-denominational and pragmatic characteristics of evangelical worship. Later, two cases (chapters 2 and 5) mean to thicken the readers appreciation for exemplary evangelical liturgical practices today. Even if the case descriptions do not entirely persuade that something substantively different than the frontier is going on there, Ross does successfully show that mission outcomes liturgical theologians hope will flow from robust liturgy are impressively alive in those evangelical churches and clearly connected, in their practitioners' reflections, with their worship life.Chapter 3 offers an account of the relationship between scripture and liturgy. Placing Aidan Kavanagh and Louis-Marie Chauvet in dialogue with John Webster, Ross shows common concern among evangelical and liturgical theologians that the Bible not be interpreted naively, while protecting the evangelical claim that the Bibles meaning is not an ecclesial-liturgical creation but a discovery empowered by the Spirit. This point is well articulated, even if one thinks that the difference between Roman Catholic and Protestant ecclesial cultures better explains the differences at work in her dialogue partners than the evangelical-liturgical dichotomy. Placing Gordon Lathrop in dialogue with Kevin Vanhoozer on the shared recognition of the metaphoric, symbolic, and mythic content of biblical material, Ross defends evangelical attention to its propositional and confessional content. One who knows Lathrop's work may be inclined to say that his work takes account precisely of the interplay of all biblical genres, including the propositional. …

Nicholas Wolterstorff, The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology

Nicholas Wolterstorff, <i>The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology</i>

The ordo of care

What is the relationship between practices of care towards people living in marginalized life situations and liturgy? This article addresses this question by exploring the liturgical theology of Gordon Lathrop as the theoretical starting point for analysing a practice that would conventionally not be described as “liturgy”, but “ethical practice”. At the heart of the liturgical theology of Lathrop is the idea that the ordo of the Sunday service is organized by juxtapositions and broken symbols. In this article, Lathrop’s theology is brought into a hermeneutical dialogue with empirical material constructed from the Church of Our Lady, Trondheim, Norway, a Lutheran medieval church located in the middle of the city of Trondheim. Since 2008, the church has been run by the Church City Mission as an open church for all who need an open and hospitable sacred space in the city centre, especially people who live in marginalized life situations. The article demonstrates that when working inductively with an empirical material, Lathrop’s concepts are too narrow and hermeneutically closed. In order to be theoretically sensitive to the experiences of people who live in marginalized life situations and the ethical practices of care, liturgical theology has to reimage its understanding of space.

Newman, The Liturgist An Introduction to the Liturgical Theology of John Henry Newman

A reading of Newman’s life and writings in a liturgical perspective is an innovative and pertinent task. This article analyses six of Newman’s sermons, preached between 1829 and 1831, in their liturgical context. It offers us, in germ, an outline of his liturgical theology. Newman persistently subordinated sermons to public prayer. Every church activity, primarily preaching, is directed toward liturgical worship. He defines liturgy etymologically as “public service.” “Public” refers to the ecclesial nature of liturgy, within its two dimensions: corporate and pneumatic. “Service” refers to two aspects, which are always intertwined: it denotes the sacrificial and thanksgiving character of liturgy. Liturgy is our self-sacrifice and our praise to God. In Newman's view, liturgy is the primary repository of apostolic teaching and Church tradition. Consequently, it is the best teacher of faith formation. Thus, in Newman, there is constant interaction between liturgy and life of faith.

The God We Worship:An Exploration of Liturgical Theology by Nicholas Wolterstorff

Reviewed by: The God We Worship:An Exploration of Liturgical Theology by Nicholas Wolterstorff Chris Ángel The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology. By Nicholas Wolterstorff. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015. 180pp. Nicholas Wolterstorff is an analytic philosopher whose work is heavily informed by Reformed theology. In this work he attempts to determine, and state explicitly, the understanding of God that is only implicit in Christian worship. His source material for this consideration of Christian worship is what he calls the “scripts” of Christian liturgies, a concept based on Alexander Schmemann’s concept of the Ordo, or texts regulating the liturgy. Wolterstorff focuses on the points of convergence of Orthodox, Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, [End Page 447] and Reformed liturgies—liturgies which have “stood the test of time across many centuries by billions of Christians” (19). For example, the beginning of the Sanctus leads Wolterstorff to discuss the notion of holiness, where he considers ideas from Isaiah 6, Jonathan Edwards, Karl Barth, and Mary Douglas. His primary influences for this project are two twentieth-century liturgical theologians, Schmemann and J.-J. von Allmen of his own Reformed tradition. He is also strongly influenced by the thinking of Barth, Thomas Aquinas, and N.T. Wright. These thinkers, in conjunction with Wolterstorff ‘s devotion to speech-act theory, lead to two especially provocative conclusions. The first is that God is vulnerable to being wronged. “It’s not just a good thing for the church to enact its liturgy for the worship of God; it’s obligatory that it do so. But if it is obligatory . . . then it wrongs someone if it fails to do that. Who could that be other than God?” (44) The second is that liturgies consistently and pervasively understand God to be a listener. “. . . [M]ost of us have been schooled to think of God as agent. A good many have written about God speaking or revealing, myself included; very few have written about God as listening, my prior self again included” (62). He spends much of his work explaining and justifying these conclusions. Wolterstorff ‘s method is a source of both his work’s weaknesses and its strengths. One could question whether his approach is too general. He acknowledges early on that his focus is on the deepest levels of implicitness, what is implicit in the liturgies as a whole, and in the basic types of liturgical acts (18). Still, for a work of liturgical theology, he uses surprisingly little source material from liturgical texts. Much of this book reflects the liturgy of the Reformed tradition which leads him to his conclusions. He explicitly states that he is focusing on the commonalities between various liturgies, but leaves little room for comment on the differences, liturgical or theological. As a consequence, few examples from non-Reformed traditions are included. However, his method may also be his greatest contribution, which could be used for further study of a single tradition or a part of the liturgy. Wolterstorff himself models this approach in his ninth chapter, in which he presents a Reformed understanding of God implicit [End Page 448] in the Eucharist, which he bases on John Calvin’s analysis of the Eucharistic actions from the Institutes. This work will be of considerable interest to scholars of sacramental and liturgical theology. As a work asking “Who is God?” this would fit in well also with graduate theological study, perhaps as an early text in a sacramental theology course. Chris Ángel University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana Copyright © 2016 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc

Robert Barron’s Liturgical Theology

Robert Barron’s Liturgical Theology

The Anthropology of St John Paul II and Authentic Communal Participation in the Sacrament of Penance

The Anthropology of St John Paul II and Authentic Communal Participation in the Sacrament of Penance Owen Vyner (bio) Introduction In recent years a not insignificant number of liturgical theologians have questioned the Magisterium’s suppression of communal absolution. In support of their argument they cite the Second Vatican Council’s statement that the communal celebration of the liturgy is to be preferred to a celebration that is individual and quasi-private.1 This paper will discuss the origins of the recovery of the communal celebration of the liturgy in the writings of the Liturgical Movement. In the second part it will address the revision of the Rite of Penance and the subsequent application of the recovery of the communal nature of the liturgy to the question of general absolution. In particular, this section will consider whether the Council actually advocates an antithetical relationship between the individual and communal participation in the liturgy. Finally, it will propose the filial-nuptial anthropology of St. John Paul II as a hermeneutical lens to transcend the apparent dualism in certain post-conciliar theories of liturgical participation. I. The Liturgical Movement and the Communal Nature of Worship From the beginning of the twentieth century and leading up to the period of the Second Vatican Council, efforts were made to recover an understanding of the communal nature of the liturgy. Such efforts were driven by a concern that individualism [End Page 265] had begun to impact upon Catholic worship.2 The notion of the communal, or corporate, nature of worship rested upon two interrelated theological principles. In the first place stood the corporate nature of the Church from which flows her communal worship. Lambert Beauduin (1873–1960), one of the pioneers of the Liturgical Movement, wrote in 1914: “The Christian does not walk alone on the path of his pilgrimage… [By definition] the Catholic is…a member of a visible organism.”3 In his highly influential Spirit of the Liturgy, Romano Guardini (1885–1968) stated just a few years later: The liturgy is not celebrated by the individual, but by the body of the faithful… The entity which performs the liturgical actions is not merely the sum total of all individual Catholics. It does consist of all these united in one body, but only in so far as this unity is of itself something… And that something is the Church.4 Thus the corporate-liturgical actions of the Church originate in the being of the Church and further act as a sacramentalization of this being. The second principle from which the Liturgical Movement drew its understanding of the communal nature of worship is the Christo-Pneumatological foundations of the liturgy. The corporate [End Page 266] nature of the Church finds its origin in a prior in-corporation in Christ through the grace of the Holy Spirit. For the Liturgical Movement the image of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ becomes central to their efforts to recover the notion. As the Mystical Body, united to her Head, the Church is drawn into the worship of the Son in the communion of the Holy Spirit. The liturgy becomes the action of the totus Christus, Christ the Head together with the members of his Body, who share in the Son’s filiation through the gift of divine adoption. Guardini expressed it thus: The faithful are actively united by a vital and fundamental principle common to them all. That principle is Christ Himself; His life is ours; we are incorporated in Him; we are His Body… Every individual Catholic is a cell of this living organism or a member of this Body.5 However, it is important to note that for the Liturgical Movement, as members of this Body the individual Christian does not become lost in the corporate we.6 A third essential point for the Liturgical Movement is the caveat that, when speaking of the Church as a community, this must not be misunderstood as a reduction of the Church to a localised congregation. The community assembled to do the work of the liturgy is never merely the visible community assembled here and now. The local community represents...

Embodied Liturgy: Lessons in Christian Ritual by Frank C. Senn

Reviewed by: Embodied Liturgy: Lessons in Christian Ritual by Frank C. Senn Mark Mattes Embodied Liturgy: Lessons in Christian Ritual. By Frank C. Senn. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016. xxiii + 416 pp. Frank Senn is one of the best-known scholars of liturgical studies. This book originated in a course which he taught in 2014 at Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia, a school rooted in the Dutch Reformed tradition (xxi). Designed to present the basics of Christian liturgy and liturgical theology to college and seminary students, Senn’s Introduction advocates that liturgy should be seen through a unique perspective, human experience as embodied. For Senn, the reality of human embodiment can be established through the practice of yoga. Most chapters offer specific, guided yogic exercises designed to ground one’s body in the liturgical truths being examined. As an example, here is a short yoga sequence Senn offers in honor of the Holy Trinity: [End Page 489] Let us conclude with a bodily devotion to the Holy Trinity. This is the half-sun salutation . . . . Assume the standing (mountain) pose. Extend the arms overhead, “Glory”; backward bend, “to the Father”; forward fold to the earth, “and to the Son”; monkey pose, “and to the Holy Spirit”; stand, hands in prayer position over heart, “Amen.” 27–28. This exercise is shorter than others. For Senn, yoga serves as an auxiliary discipline to help remind us “of important aspects of our faith that we tend to forget” (327). So, for example, breathing exercises can remind us of the Holy Spirit’s work in our bodies. Postures can “influence a Christian’s self-understanding as a body created in the image of God and an object of unutterable dignity redeemed by the blood of Christ” (327). So, Senn secularizes yoga, divests it of any saving power that may have one time been attributed to it in Hinduism, and baptizes it, if you will, into a Christian context. His point is that with technology, a Cartesian mind/body split, and ambivalent feelings about the body, Westerners increasingly tend to take their bodies for granted, when in fact, the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, liturgy, rightly understood, is a deeply embodied event, akin to the incarnation. Senn situates liturgy less in a theology of the word, as Protestant theology historically tended to do, and more in cultural practices. Thereby, he links Christian practices to practices in other faith traditions, showing analogies between them and indicating how liturgy itself is shared by all humans, regardless of confession or lack thereof. This book is ecumenical in spirit, though Senn does not hide his Lutheran roots. Sensitive to his readers, Senn repeatedly refers to experiences from his decades in the parish, such as his improvising Lenten offerings or his orchestrating chancel dramas. Anything related to Christian liturgy, including matters as unique as medieval and current flagellation (175ff), exorcism (218), Greek Orthodox youth “diving for the cross” on Epiphany Day, and numerous other examples, appear. But, the crux of liturgy, for Senn, is that it should “express a disinterested character as far as the world is concerned precisely so that it can see the world in a clearer light and be able to discern where prayer is needed and what should be done to fulfill the church’s mission in the world” (113). [End Page 490] Overall Senn’s work demonstrates a wider move from an erstwhile “penitential piety” of a previous Western Christianity focused on human guilt and divine forgiveness to a “creation spirituality” centered in joyful reception of creation as a gift. While many aspects of this move should be affirmed, it is obvious that confession and forgiveness, practices which in today’s world recovering addicts would be the quickest to remind us of, is not as strong here as it was in traditional Lutheranism. Given the need of humans to receive new, clean hearts, a path honoring both penance and celebration needs to be respected. That said, this is a brilliant, creative, and daring book, worthy of study, particularly for those inclined towards reimaging the church’s praxis. Mark Mattes Grand View University, Des Moines, Iowa Copyright © 2016 Johns Hopkins University...

Holy Eros: A Liturgical Theology of the Body by Adam G. Cooper

Holy Eros: A Liturgical Theology of the Body by Adam G. Cooper