The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Liturgical Theology E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1393

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The first research-based volume of its kind, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Liturgical Theology is an unprecedented collection of original essays on the meaning, depth, and breadth of liturgical theology. Designed for students, scholars, and practitioners alike, this comprehensive resource situates liturgical theology within the wider scheme of theological inquiry to present an expansive and interdisciplinary overview of the rapidly growing field.

Contributions by established and emerging scholars examine liturgical theology’s historical development, methodologies, key literature, and future directions. Both an introduction to the field and a starting point for further research, the Companion covers all essential aspects of liturgical theology, ranging from foundational topics such as liturgical ecclesiology, hermeneutics, linguistics, and sacramental services to emerging scholarship in womanist liturgical theology, traumatic liturgy, and liberation theology.

Bringing together essays by a diverse and balanced panel of scholars representing more than a dozen denominations, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Liturgical Theology is the ideal text for seminary and college courses on liturgical theology, the history of worship, and practical theology, and a must-read for theologians of all disciplines.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Series Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication Page

Notes on Contributors

Foreword

Introduction

Structure, Audience, and Contributors

Acknowledgments

A Word on Reading

Section I: Liturgical Theology: What It Is

CHAPTER 1: What Is Liturgical Theology?

Liturgy and Liturgical Theology in

Three Books Concerning the Church

Liturgical

Gedankengang

in North America

North American Lutheran Liturgical Theology

An Example: The

Sursum Corda

Dialogue as a Biblical Pattern of Thought

CHAPTER 2: Liturgical Theology and the Trinity

Works Cited

CHAPTER 3: The Liturgical Strange Wisdom of Dusty Shoes: Some Reflections on Liturgical Anthropology for “Post‐Truth” Times

CHAPTER 4: Methodology and Liturgical Ecclesiology

Ecclesiology

Liturgical Theology

Liturgical Ecclesiology

CHAPTER 5: Jewish Liturgical Theology: Knowing and Loving God

1

The Shema and Its Challenges

Preparations to the Shema

The Shema and Its Blessings in the Public Liturgy

CHAPTER 6: Liturgy, Apocalypse, and Practice: Reflections on Mystagogical Instruction

1

CHAPTER 7: Marmion’s Meditations on the Mysteries of Christ as an Incentive for Liturgical Theology Today

Marmion and the Monastic Revival Around the Turn of the Twentieth‐century CE

Marmion’s Comprehensive Understanding of Mystery

The Unfolding of Christ’s Mysteries Throughout the Year

Liturgical Theology as a Systematic Heortology: A Proposal

CHAPTER 8: Feminist Liturgical Theology: A Dynamic, Evolving Process

Acknowledging God

Women Claim Their Own Voices

Unmasking

Organic Ritualizing and Theologizing

Resistance and Imagination

Disregard

Feminist Liturgical Theology

CHAPTER 9: A Womanist Liturgical Theology

The Intersection of Womanism and Liturgical Theology

Toward a Womanist Liturgical Theology: Embodiment, Justice, and Rituals of Resistance

Womanist Reinterpretations of Liturgical Symbols and Practices

CHAPTER 10: Knowing God by Liturgically Addressing God

Types of Knowledge

Practical Knowledge as Yielding Objectual Knowledge

Gleaning from Elkins

Knowing a Person

Appraising Benton’s Analysis

Beyond Benton

An Unusual Example of Getting to Know a Person

Knowing God by Participating in Liturgically Addressing God

Knowing God by Taking for Granted, in Addressing God, God’s Distinctiveness

An Interruption

Gaining Knowledge of God from the Basis‐Specifications of Liturgical Address to God

Gaining Knowledge of God from the Addressee‐Specifications of Liturgical Address to God

In Conclusion

To Those Who Yearn

Section II: Liturgical Theology: What It Does

CHAPTER 11: Birthing New Liturgies: A Historical Account of the Churching of Women and a Call to Revision and Revival

CHAPTER 12: A Rite Re‐ordered, A Rite Restored: The Churching of a Woman After Childbirth

Introduction

Current Texts

Historical Analysis

Liturgy Before 1549

Wither Do We Go?

Rite Restored

Rite Re‐ordered

64

CHAPTER 13: Baptismal Waters: Bookends of Life and Mission

The First Bookend: Jesus’ Baptism, Temptations in the Wilderness, Prophetic Vocation

The Second Bookend: Jesus’ Death and the Missionary Imperative

Between the Bookends

Following the Bookends: A Baptismal Way of Life as Participating in Christ’s Mission

Patterns of Initiation

Initiation into a Cruciform, Ethical Life

CHAPTER 14: Confirmation

Introduction

A Historical Survey

Theological Questions: The Anglican Communion

Theological Questions: The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and Confirmation in the Roman Catholic Church

Pastoral, Legal, and Episcopal Issues

Ecumenical Questions and Ways Forward

Conclusion

CHAPTER 15: Jesus'

Leitourgia

and Paschal Mystery

Liturgical Theology: A Very Brief Overview

The Anchor of Schmemann's Liturgical Theology

Jesus' Leitourgia and Paschal Mystery as Corrective Lens

What Is the Paschal Mystery?

43

Paschal Mystery, Leitourgia, and Great High Priesthood

Conclusion: Paschal Mystery Central to Eucharist and Liturgical Theology

CHAPTER 16: Broken Whole: Christian Reflections on the Eucharistic Fraction in a Comparative‐Interreligious Light

Scriptural Ecology of the Fraction

The Fraction in the 1979 Episcopal Rite: Silence

The Fraction in the 1979 Rite: The Breaking of Bread

The Triduum in the Light of Dōgen

CHAPTER 17: May These Vows and This Marriage Be Blessed

Put a Ring On It

Liturgy and Liturgies

The Preface and Declarations: Theological and Legal Framework of Marriage

Vows and Rings: The Contracting and Blessing of Marriage

Prayers and Blessing: A Widening Circle of Hopes, Petitions, and Blessings

A Way of Life Made Holy: May These Vows and This Marriage be Blessed

CHAPTER 18: Holy Orders: Sacramental Service to the Church’s Sacramentality

Introduction

Church as Sacrament of Christ

Christ’s Body: A Priestly and Prophetic People

6

Priestly Ministry: Lessons from History

Liturgical Presidency: Sacrament Within a Sacrament

Priesthood, Baptismal and Ordered: Confluence in Liturgical Symbols

CHAPTER 19: Rethinking the Mystery of Reconciliation in the Liturgical Context

Baptism as the Beginning of Repentance

The Communal Character of Christian Liturgy

Rite of Forgiveness

Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian

26

Kiss of Peace

General Confession

Related Penitential Practices

Enhance the Rituals of Reconciliation at the Divine Liturgy

Extending Reconciliation Beyond the Church Walls

Expand the Breadth of the Rites of Reconciliation

Repair the Connection Between Reconciliation and Baptism

Conclusion

CHAPTER 20: The Healing Ministry of the Church: For the Sick and for the Dying

Sickness, Healing, and the Human Person

The Breadth of Ecclesial Healing Ministry

Ministration to the Sick in the US Episcopal Church

Ecclesial Rites with the Dying – Roman Catholic Changes in the Twentieth Century

Conclusions

Section III: Liturgical Theology: Moving Forward

CHAPTER 21: Trauma, Liturgy, and Traumatic Liturgy

Ritual Repetition

Post‐traumatic Remaking

Post‐traumatic Remaking and Eucharistic Liturgy

Remembrance Sunday

Evensong

Compline

23

Liturgy After Reproductive Loss

Liturgy as Trauma: A Note of Caution

Post‐traumatic Remaking: A Community Effort

CHAPTER 22: Liturgical Aesthetics, Semiotics, and Desiring God: Methodological Horizons in Liturgical Theology

Liturgical Theology, Hermeneutics, and the Aesthetic

Catherine Pickstock and an Aesthetic Semiotics of Desire

Conclusion: Methodological Horizons for Liturgical Theology

CHAPTER 23: Decolonizing Preaching as a Liturgical Act

Introduction

Decolonizing Empire

Re‐narration – Telling a Different Story About Identity

Reconciliation: Repairing What has been Destroyed

Reorientation: Shaping a Postcolonial Identity

Conclusion

Bibliography

CHAPTER 24: Disabling Liturgical Theology

Introduction

Disability and Models of Disability

Disability and Human Difference in Worship

Worship and Disability Justice

Disability, Worship, and Eschatology

Conclusion

CHAPTER 25: Joy and Suffering in Liturgy

Introduction

Singing at the Rhythm of the Liturgical Year

The Place of Suffering and Lament in Liturgy

The Place of Joy and Praise in Liturgy

A Liturgical–Theological Interpretation of Suffering and Joy: New Life

Praise and Lament Revisited

Conclusion

CHAPTER 26: Liturgical Theology and the Liturgical Life of the Syro‐Malabar Church

Introduction

Liturgy as Enacted Faith Event and Experience of Mystery

Conclusion

CHAPTER 27: Liturgeography – The Law of the Land as the Law of Liturgeographical Theologies

Introduction

Liturgy as “Invisible Weapons” – Plantationocene

Anamnesis Through Plantationocene

Extractivisms and the Counter Work of Liturgeography Faith

Human Exceptionalism x Species

Law of the Land or First Law

Conclusion

CHAPTER 28: Liturgical Theology and Postcolonialism

Postcoloniality and Postcolonialism: Key Questions and Themes

Liturgical Theology and Postcolonialism: A Belated Conversation Among (Very) Different Marginalities?

Postcolonial Wounds and Questions Remain: Echoes of the Past and Glimmers of the Future

A Few Suggestions for Further Exploration (in the order of publication)

CHAPTER 29: In the Beginning Was Song …

Prologue

The Suppression of Singing

Inspiriting Our Singing for Liberation

The Liberating Spirit

Spirit/Song Liberating Liturgy

Reclaiming the Primacy of Singing in Liturgy – Implications

CHAPTER 30: Engraved Upon Our Hearts: The Creeds in Worship

CHAPTER 31: Encountering Christ: A Womanist Exploration of Chauvet’s Symbolic Exchange in Communion

Womanist Hermeneutic of Wholeness

Embodied Experiences of African American Women

Encountering Grace at the Table

A Womanist Evaluation of Chauvet’s Symbolic Exchange

CHAPTER 32: A Praise and Worship Theology of Music: The Tabernacle of David as Typological Prism

Core Latter Rain Theological Commitments: Encounter and Restoration

The International Worship Symposium and The Restoration of the Tabernacle of David

The Tabernacle of David and the Priestly Place of Music Leaders

Song of the Lord and Musical Encounter with God

Conclusion

Index

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover Page

Table of Contents

Series Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication Page

Notes on Contributors

Foreword

Introduction

Begin Reading

Index

Wiley End User License Agreement

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The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Liturgical Theology

Edited by

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Khalia J. Williams

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To my wife, Rebecca. Your wisdom, grace, and love have shaped my understanding of liturgical theology more than any textbook or class ever could. Whether in the daily rhythms of our home, the holy routines of our ministry, or the sacred moments in the life we've built together, your influence on my theology has been profound. You are the most important liturgical theologian in my life and this is for you.

Porter

To my beloved family – Damon, Thomas, and Ethan. It is in living the love out loud through marriage and motherhood that I am drawn more deeply into a knowledge of God that moves beyond words and rituals, into the very heart of grace and communion. Damon, my dear husband, you are wellspring of strength, care, love and support; and for this I am ever grateful. And to my precious children, your laughter and wonder reveal the sacred in the everyday, a divine gift that I will always cherish.

Khalia

This is for every Mrs. Murphy and Sis. Green in the pews. While some may be set aside either to teach or to lead, you make liturgical theology possible. As you pray and as you believe, this is for you.

Porter and Khalia

Notes on Contributors

Cláudio Carvalhaes is a Professor of Worship at the Union Theological Seminary, New York. Among other books he authored: Ritual at World’s End: Essays on Eco‐Liturgical Liberation Theology (The Barber’s Son, 2021), Liturgies from Below: Prayers from People at the Ends of the World (Abingdon Press, 2020), Praying with Every Heart (Cascade Books, 2021), and Liturgy in Postcolonial Perspectives: Only One Is Holy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

Jill Y. Crainshaw is a Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity.

Rev. Nicholas Denysenko is Emil and Elfriede Jochum University Professor and Chair and Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University in Indiana. He is a priest of the Orthodox Church in America.

James W. Farwell holds a dual appointment as a Professor of Theology and Liturgy at the Virginia Theological Seminary and H. Boone Porter Professor of Liturgics at the General Theological Seminary. He writes and teaches liturgical, sacramental, and comparative theology.

Joris Geldhof is a Professor of Liturgical Studies and Sacramental Theology at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium. He is a Vice‐Dean for Research and belongs to the Research Unit Pastoral and Empirical Theology. He also chairs the Liturgical Institute. In the latter capacity, he is also the editor‐in‐chief of the bilingual journal Questions Liturgiques.

Julie Gittoes is the Vicar of St Mary's and Christ Church Hendon and Area Dean of Barnet in the Diocese of London. Following postgraduate studies in Durham and Cambridge, she has published on anamnesis/the Eucharist, ecclesiology, marriage, theology, and the arts. She is a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the Church of England.

Steven Kepnes is a Professor of World Religions and Jewish Studies in the Religion Department at Colgate University.

The Rev. Canon Lizette Larson‐Miller, PhD, is currently a Professor of Liturgy and Sacramental Theology at the Bexley Seabury Seminary in Chicago, as well as the canon precentor for the Diocese of Huron (Anglican Church of Canada). She has just completed a term of serving as interim priest for the parish of St. Mark’s (Berkeley, CA). Her first degrees were in music, followed by an MA in liturgical studies (St. John’s, Collegeville), and a PhD in liturgical history and sacramental theology (GTU, Berkeley). She is the author of four books and numerous articles, including Sacramentality Renewed (2016), and has been president of both Societas Liturgica and IALC (a network of the Anglican Communion). She is active in giving talks on liturgy and sacramental theology and ecumenical issues in a variety of settings, including the address last January (2024) in Seattle when she received the Berakah Award at the North American Academy of Liturgy.

Gordon W. Lathrop is the Schieren Professor Emeritus of Liturgy at the United Lutheran Seminary (USA) and a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He has degrees from Occidental College (Los Angeles) and the Luther Theological Seminary (St. Paul), a doctorate in New Testament studies from Catholic University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Helsinki, the University of Iceland, the Virginia Theological Seminary, and the Wartburg Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books, including Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology (Fortress, 1993), The Four Gospels on Sunday: The New Testament and the Reform of Christian Worship (Fortress, 2012), Saving Images: The Presence of the Bible in Christian Liturgy (Fortress, 2017), and The Assembly: A Spirituality (Fortress, 2022). He is a past president of both Societas Liturgica and the North American Academy of Liturgy.

Sr. Maryann Madhavathu is a member of the Pala Jayamatha Province of the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel (CMC) and hails from Pala, Kerala, India. She has an MPhil in Physics and has been teaching physics in higher secondary schools for nine years in Kerala, India. She obtained her STB and STL from the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium. She finished her PhD (STD) in Liturgical Studies from the same university in 2016. She has attended many international conferences in different countries and has presented papers on liturgy. She has published articles and book reviews in various international journals. She functioned as the director of the Women's Forum of the Syro‐Malabar Eparchy of Great Britain. Currently, she serves the congregation as the Prefect of Studies of the theological institute, Carmel Jyothi Vidya Bhavan, Aluva, Kerala, and is the general PRO of CMC.

Bruce T. Morrill, SJ, holds the Edward A. Malloy Chair in Roman Catholic Studies at Vanderbilt University, where he is a Distinguished Professor of Theology in the Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion. In addition to some two hundred articles, chapters, and reviews, he has published 11 books, including Divine Worship and Human Healing (2009), Encountering Christ in the Eucharist (2012), and Practical Sacramental Theology (2021).

Bridget Nichols lectures in Anglicanism and Liturgy at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin. She is a past president of Societas Liturgica and co‐editor of two recent collections: (with Gordon Jeanes) Lively Oracles of God: Perspectives on the Bible and Liturgy (Liturgical Press, 2022); (with Nicholas Taylor) The End of the Church? Conversations with the Work of David Jasper (Sacristy Press, 2022).

Karen O’Donnell is the Academic Dean at Westcott House – an Anglican Theological College in Cambridge. She teaches liturgy, trauma theology, sacramental theology, and pedagogy. She also traces Gender and Christian Theology for the Divinity Faculty at Cambridge University. Her previous projects include an edited volume on pregnancy and theology entitled Theologies from the Inside Out: Critical Conceptions of Pregnancy and Theology with Claire Williams and a monograph titled Survival: Radical Spiritual Practices for Trauma Survivors. Both projects are with SCM Press.

Timothy P. O’Malley is the Academic Director of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy in the McGrath Institute for Church Life. He holds a concurrent appointment in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.

Adam A. Perez is an Assistant Professor of Worship Studies at Belmont University in Nashville, TN.

Catherine Pickstock is the Norris‐Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.

Neal D. Presa is an executive presbyter of the Presbytery of San Jose. He is an Affiliate Professor of Preaching at the Fuller Theological Seminary and a Fellow of the Center for Pastor Theologians. He is a past Moderator of the 220th General Assembly (2012) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He represents the denomination at both the WCC Central Committee and Executive Committee, where he leads the finance committee. He is the author/editor of over 100 published essays/book chapters and book reviews and nine books including the recent Worship, Justice, and Joy (Cascade, 2025). For more info: NealPresa.com

To connect on FB/X/IG/LI: @NealPresa.

Ronald Rienstra is the Professor of Preaching and Worship Arts, the Director of Worship Life at the Western Theological Seminary, and the Academic Director at the Bast Center for Christian Proclamation.

The Rev. Dr. Amy C. Schifrin, STS, is the President Emeritus of the North American Lutheran Seminary and an Associate Professor of Liturgy and Homiletics (ret.) at the Trinity School for Ministry.

Zoe Cordes Selbin is a Curate at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Austin, TX.

Dr. Rebecca F. Spurrier is an Associate Dean for Worship Life and an Assistant Professor of Worship at the Columbia Theological Seminary. She integrates a focus on disability studies and liturgical theology in the classroom with the formation of worship leaders through weekly chapel services. She is interested in a theology and practice of public worship that reflects the beauty and tension human difference brings to Christian liturgy.

Rev. Dr. Kristine Suna‐Koro is a Professor and Chair of the Theology Department at Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH, USA. She is a diasporic Latvian‐American theologian who works at the intersection of postcolonialism, sacramental and liturgical studies, and modern historical theology while engaging migration and diaspora discourses. She has authored the trailblazing study in postcolonial sacramental theology In Counterpoint: Diaspora, Postcoloniality, and Sacramental Theology (2017) and numerous articles and book chapters engaging postcolonial perspectives on sacraments, liturgy, migration, and theological aesthetics. Since her ordination in 1995, she has served as a pastor in the diasporic Latvian Evangelical Lutheran communities in Great Britain, Germany, and the United States.

The Rev. Dr. Porter C. Taylor (PhD, University of Aberdeen) serves as the rector of Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Augusta, GA. He is also an Affiliate Assistant Professor of Christian Worship at the Fuller Theological Seminary. Porter is the contributing editor of We Give Our Thanks Unto Thee: Essays in Honor of Fr. Alexander Schmemann (Pickwick, 2019) and the forthcoming monograph A Reintroduction to Liturgical Theology (Wiley Blackwell, 2025).

The Rev. Dr. Sarah Travis is the Ewart Chair in the Practice of Ministry and Faith Formation and an Associate Professor at Knox College.

Dr. Armand Léon van Ommen is a Senior Lecturer in Practical Theology and the Co‐Director of the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen. His research centers on liturgy and worship, disability, and autism.

Janet Walton, SNJM, is a Professor Emerita of Worship and the Arts, Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY.

Becca Whitla is a Professor of Practical Ministry and the Dr. Lydia E. Gruchy Chair in Pastoral Theology at St. Andrew’s College in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where she teaches worship and liturgy, preaching, religious education, and practical theology. In her book Liberation, (De)Coloniality, and Liturgical Practices: Flipping the Song Bird (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), she writes from her White Euro‐Canadian settler perspective and examines ways to liberate and decolonize liturgical practices, especially community singing. Prior to teaching in Saskatoon, she worked in Toronto as a church musician and community choir director and in the trade union movement developing leadership through choral singing.

Khalia J. Williams, PhD, is the Associate Dean of Worship and Spiritual Formation at Emory University, Candler School of Theology.

Nicholas Wolterstorff is the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia.

Susan K. Wood is a Professor of Systematic Theology at the Regis St. Michael’s Faculty of Theology of the Toronto School of Theology at the University of Toronto. She has served on the U.S. Lutheran‐Roman Catholic Dialogue (1994–present), the North American Roman Catholic‐Orthodox Theological Consultation (2005–2021), the International Lutheran‐Catholic Dialogue (2008–2019), and the conversation between the Baptist World Alliance and the Roman Catholic Church (2006–2010, 2017–2022). She serves on the editorial advisory board of the journals Ecclesiology and the Toronto Journal of Theology.

Foreword

Liturgical theology has, over the past 60 years, developed remarkably as a family of disciplines in both academic and ecclesial life. For those of us trained before and during the period of Vatican II – and the profound ecumenical sharing that resulted – the theological harvest has been rich and abundant. The sheer range of writers and sources in this volume is ample testimony. Early preoccupations with textual comparisons and the anatomy of forms and historical sources have given way to a wide diversity of voices, cultural contexts, and methodologies. Good theology requires good, formative practices. It has been my good fortune to have been a participant in these developments.

As a pastor, musician, and teacher of theology, I confess to living simultaneously in several cultural worlds. At times these are never fully congruent with one another. This is the glory and the travail of doing serious liturgical work. My question, inherited from the likes of Alexander Schmemann, Johannes Metz, and Geoffrey Wainwright, remains: Can the eschatological promises and the kenotic beauty of faithful liturgy reach into all our human habitations? Can our prayers and our music and our fidelity to God enact what has been promised in scripture and tradition? Can the poetry and prophecy of shared liturgical life contain the “deep down things” the poet Hopkins sang about? In my own work I continually confront the permanent tension between the “is” of the world and the “ought to be” of God‐with‐us.

The current state of things in our world inclines us toward lament. Much needs to be said about the “cultural captivity” of our religious institutions. The Psalms have always given us honest ways to weep and to rejoice. For the Christian community, these are held together in Christ. The worship of God is strenuously oriented to glory as well as to the mystery of death and life. To put the issue bluntly, anamnesis is not nostalgia, and liturgy is not mere entertainment. As these essays show, this awareness requires paying attention to cultural contexts, to critical reflection, to disorienting beauty, and to human maturity in God over time. Can we learn in our own time and place what the old Prayerbook language said: We are invited to be “partakers of the divine life.” This is the profound hope of liturgical integrity and faithful practice.

I have no doubt that the essays in this volume set an agenda for all who wish to study the theological and pastoral depth of the worship of church and synagogue. Knowledge of what's at stake in understanding the depth and breadth of the aesthetic/theological mystery and cultural force of liturgical life is a continuing task and responsibility of theological inquiry. We must always begin where and with whom we worship, and in the formed traditions of Word, sacrament, and common life. If the promises of God are taken seriously, we must become artists of what Joseph Gelineau once called the “paschal human in Christ.” Without dogmatism, cultural violence, or intellectual self‐aggrandizement, liturgical theology must aim at bringing the humanity of God out of our “arenas of human folly” to the “arena of God's glory.” The songs of Zion are to be remembered and learned again and again.

Don E. Saliers

Introduction

Porter C. Taylor and Khalia J. Williams

This volume is the literary encapsulation of the adage “necessity is the mother of invention.” As Porter waded through his doctoral research, it became abundantly clear that while edited volumes had been written honoring liturgical theologians1 or with contributions by liturgical theologians, there was nothing on the market which served as a truly comprehensive2 resource for the field. In the midst of his dissertating, he grew increasingly determined to create in the future the volume for which he had a necessity in the present. One of his primary goals was to assemble a group of the field's leading voices, emerging scholars, and prolific writers. In our earliest conversations as co‐editors, we set a common goal: to compile the volume that we wanted to read. The concept for this volume was thus born.

As we began our collaborative work of co‐editing, we started to envision a potential future for liturgical theology. This future was not pre‐determined by us as though we somehow had the power to shape an entire field, rather, it was the sort of aspirational future which emerges and erupts from the soil of the work performed by so many in the past and the ongoing contributions of scholars in the present. The potential future we were seeing, therefore, was one which took seriously our historic roots, acknowledged the vast diversity within the field, looked toward the horizon of further exploration within the field, and which embraced interdisciplinary opportunities.

This volume is drenched in the blood, sweat, and tears of the co‐editors and the contributors. We began our work in 2019 before Covid, we worked tireless during Covid, and we are releasing it into the wild of life after Covid. It has been a unique gift to see how practical ministry was transformed during the months and years most heavily influenced by the pandemic. Covid shaped and shifted the application and direction of many of the essays in this volume. As practitioners, professors, pastors, or priests, we have witnessed the strength and significance of embodied practices and liturgical formation in a Covid and post‐Covid world. Many, if not most, of the essays contained in this volume bear the implicit marks of leaders who sought to understand and guide their churches, dioceses, denominations, or classrooms through a global pandemic which changed the landscape of liturgical leadership and ministry in the local church.

Structure, Audience, and Contributors

We have organized the volume into three sections pertaining to distinct aspects of liturgical theology. In addition to describing the liturgical theological field, one could argue that these sections are simultaneously an attempt to assess where we have been, where we are, and where we are going as a field. They are:

Liturgical Theology: What it is

Liturgical Theology: What it does

Liturgical Theology: Moving forward

These sections provide the necessary structure to (I) outline the history and meaning of liturgical theology; (II) demonstrate the methods and methodology of the field; (III) explore the exciting horizon of innovative research and interdisciplinary opportunities. The decision to organize the volume this way was threefold. First, we intend for this collection of essays to be accessible for students of and newcomers to the field. To that end, this volume can and should be read by students, professors, practitioners, and Mrs. Murphy or Sis. Green in the pews. Second, we wanted to tether the envelope‐pushing exploration of liturgical theology performed in the present to the groundbreaking, foundational work done by previous generations of scholars. Finally, it is our hope that this volume will be revised and added to in years to come as the field continues to progress in research, method, application, and collaboration. As a field, we are moving further up and further in with our understanding of worship as both performance and reflection. The possible avenues for future work within liturgical theology are boundless; in fact, it is a dream of ours that the essays contained within these pages might serve as the catalyst and inspiration for innovative projects. Perhaps the next Evelyn Underhill, Louis‐Marie Chauvet, Jean Jacques von Allmen, or Howard Thurman will read these pages. The essays contained within have been conceived, written, edited, and compiled with these audiences firmly and intentionally in mind.

Regarding other volumes in print, Dwight Vogel's classic Primary Sources of Liturgical Theology: A Reader comes closest to providing an introductory text. Vogel did a masterful job of assembling a top‐notch group of scholars to both contribute and whose work he sought to highlight. Primary Sources has been a primary resource since its initial publication more than two decades ago. The difficulty with such a text, however, is that it is uniquely bound and therefore directly tied to the scholars presented within. Much has changed over the last 20 years, however; new scholars have emerged, the field has shifted toward an interdisciplinary and multiethnic perspective, and the topography of the land (as depicted by Vogel in his volume) is quite different. The volume is at once both evergreen and cemented to a specific point in time. This volume is comprehensive but not exhaustive. Rather than being a beginning or ending, this is a continuation of a conversation already in motion.

In assembling the Companion, we, as co‐editors, made a deliberate decision to engage a diverse and balanced group of contributors. This choice reflects our commitment to presenting a comprehensive and multifaceted exploration of liturgical theology that honors the rich plurality within the global Christian tradition. By drawing on voices from various cultural, theological, and ecclesial contexts, we ensure that the Companion offers readers a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how worship shapes, and is shaped by, different communities. A diversity of perspectives not only enriches the dialogue but also challenges any singular narrative, fostering a more inclusive and dynamic theological conversation that remains faithful to the universal and catholic nature of liturgical communities. We were both amazed when our “dream team” came together so seamlessly. As with most edited volumes, we experienced some attrition as the Covid years passed us by but miraculously the group of contributors you will find in these pages has remained largely intact since the beginning.

Acknowledgments

It has truly taken a village to see this volume from concept to manuscript and now into your hands. We are both grateful to Wiley Blackwell for the opportunity to collaborate on this project and for the grace extended (repeatedly) as Covid pushed deadlines further and further back. This volume has taken us so long that we have worked several editors, and we are grateful for each of them. Catriona was the first person to take us seriously and sign us up. We then worked with Marissa, Clelia, and Charlie for short seasons. We eventually received the gift of the wonderful team of Rachel, Ed, Madhurima, and Jamila who have seen this project through production to publishing. We are grateful for the contributors who have worked us tirelessly, demonstrating both a great deal of patience and a steadfast commitment to completing the work together. Finally, we are grateful to you, the reader, for taking the time to read these pages with us.

Porter – There are several people I must absolutely acknowledge for without them this volume would not be in your hands. Khalia, working with you has been a gift; I cannot believe we have finally seen this volume across the finish line and into reality! Cynthia and Ellis, your love and support remains one of the greatest gifts in my life. Jet, Case, and Ellis, we have been talking and doing liturgical theology for years together even if you did not know it. Thank you for asking questions, showing grace with my lame answers, and challenging me to be the best father and liturgical theologian I can be. Most importantly, Rebecca, this volume would not exist apart from your support, encouragement, and love. You are always the audience to whom I am writing and the conversation partner with whom I am sharpening and honing my thoughts. By the time this book is in your hands, we will have lived in five different houses and three states since we started working on it. Thank you for believing in me!

Khalia – At the heart of this volume is the imaginative fruit of shared conversations, classroom discussions, emails, text messages with many brilliant minds. For all who have been a part of the journey in one way or another, I am thankful. Porter, it has been a gift and joy to work with you. Through a lot of life happening, time passing, brainstorming, writing, and rewriting, we have made it! I could not think of a better person to do this work with, and I am grateful for the friendship that has evolved. To the woman whose living faith has been my primary textbook since childhood, my mother Mollie Jelks, your witness is a testament of God's continued activity in the world. To my W650 students, who have inspired me as we have journeyed through the depths of feminist and womanist spirituality and worship together. Your questions, ideas, and thoughtful reflections continue to teach me more than I could have ever expected. Damon, our lived experience of marriage and ministry partnership rests at the heart of my theological reflection and practice. Your support and encouragement fuel me to continue to do the work that rests deep in my soul, even when that soul is weary. To the women of the Feminist and Womanist Studies in Liturgy Seminar of the North American Academy of Liturgy, words cannot express how much you all have encouraged me. You all are the model of communal support and connection. Thank you for embracing me over the years and anchoring my liturgical scholarship journey in grace.

A Word on Reading

There are many ways one can digest these pages. You could opt to read through volume chronologically and in one sitting; this would be long and arduous but certainly possible if you have a lot of free time in front of you. You could cherry pick the essays which interest you most and/or which are assigned for the course(s) you are taking; this is logical, but you may lose the cohesiveness of the overall project that way. Lastly, and the format we suggest, you could read through this Companion as though it was a companion, a trusted conversation partner with whom you are in a meaningful dialogue. This type of reading would be done slowly, intentionally, and over a long period of time.

We encourage readers to take their time journeying through each essay in this volume, allowing the depth and breadth of the reflections to resonate fully. Liturgical theology is a rich and multilayered field that invites contemplation, and each contributor has offered nuanced insights that are best appreciated through thoughtful engagement. By slowing down and reflecting on the arguments presented, readers will not only gain a greater appreciation for the diversity of thought but will also encounter new perspectives that may challenge and enrich their own understanding. Each essay stands as a distinct offering to the larger conversation, and taking the time to sit with these writings will enable readers to experience the full scope of liturgical theology's impact on worship, faith, and community life.

Notes

1

Cf. the festschrifts honoring Nathan Mitchell, Aidan Kavanagh, and Maxwell Johnson.

2

The present volume is comprehensive though not exhaustive because to produce the latter would be, in our opinion, a truly impossible feat.

Section ILiturgical Theology: What It Is

CHAPTER 1What Is Liturgical Theology?: One North American Lutheran View1

Gordon W. Lathrop

There is a fascinating nineteenth‐century story known by most North American Lutheran liturgists that might be of some interest to other liturgists as well. From 1837 until his death in early 1872, Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe was the parish pastor in Neuendettelsau, a small village in Franconia within the Kingdom of Bavaria, who surprisingly mattered a great deal to the development of North American Lutheranism. Although he never traveled very widely and was frequently in serious trouble with both church and state authorities in his region of Germany, from this village Löhe established a center for the mission, sent missionaries to North America, Australia, New Guinea, and Brazil, founded a thriving deaconess community, oversaw the beginnings of what became a large network of diaconal institutions serving the sick and the poor, restored textile arts in the church, and wrote voluminously, while also attending to his pastoral duties with a fierce devotion. Through it all, he cared deeply about the liturgy. His was a sacramentally centered conception of mission and diakonia, a conception of church anchored in the congregation gathered around the eucharist. That conception spread to North America.2 Through his writings and, especially, his Agende or liturgical handbook intended for use in German‐speaking Lutheran congregations in diaspora, one important foundation was laid upon which the American framers of the Common Service – the recovered classic Lutheran shape of the mass – could build. That late nineteenth‐century liturgical recovery, formed then in an elegant English influenced by the prayer book tradition of the Anglicans, spread throughout the Lutheran synods of North America and became the basis upon which further Lutheran liturgical work was developed.3 The story of Löhe has encouraged Lutheran liturgists ever since: even without a powerful appointment, even against official hostility, significant work for renewal can be done; liturgy, mission, and response to social needs all go together; and the role of the parish pastor can be of great importance.

It has seemed to me that Lutherans might rightly think about liturgical theology again in dialogue with Löhe, and in so doing, I have wondered if their thoughts might then be useful to other Christians as well. I am quite aware that since the publication of Alexander Schmemann’s Introduction to Liturgical Theology4 and Aidan Kavanagh’s On Liturgical Theology,5 an extended conversation has been carried on among many liturgical scholars and others in North America and then beyond, inquiring if there is such a thing as “liturgical theology” and, when it is granted that there is, if its nature and method can be specified. Contributions to this conversation have included Dwight Vogel’s generous “conceptual geography” of the subject in his anthology of sources,6 Graham Hughes’s magisterial study of theories of meaning in relationship to Christian worship,7 David Fagerberg’s re‐worked monograph devoted to the idea of the liturgy itself as theologia prima,8 as well as the critical questions in the published dissertations of both Siobhán Garrigan9 and Melanie Ross.10 The present volume indicates that this continuing conversation has broadened and expanded. Still, Löhe might yet suggest to us another way that could be helpful in the discussion. In any case, I have long thought him to be an example of a liturgical theologian, working 175 years ago and yet worthy of attention today.11

Liturgy and Liturgical Theology in Three Books Concerning the Church

In 1845, Löhe published his important study Drei Bücher von der Kirche (Three Books Concerning the Church). In the long run, the book was so important to American Lutherans that it was translated twice, first in 1908 by Edward Traill Horn, one of the principal architects of the Common Service,12 and again in 1969 by James L. Schaaf, a professor at the Lutheran seminary in Columbus, Ohio.13 As an important part of the ecclesiology of that volume, Löhe wrote about the church’s liturgy, and one particular passage still retains something of his lyrical love of the subject:

The Church not only learns, she prays. She prays not only in her single members in their closets, but together in crowds [Haufen] in her houses of assembly. She prays in speech, she prays in song, and the Lord dwells amid her praises with his Sacraments. Her approach to him, his approach to her, the whole form of her approach and of his coming, we call the Liturgy. – These forms are free, few parts are commanded; but in spite of her freedom the Church from the beginning has decided with pleasure for certain forms. A holy manifoldness of singing and praying has developed itself, and a lovely course of thought [Gedankengang] in drawing near to and departing from the Lord of lords has made itself beloved. Just as the stars go about the sun, so the congregation in its services, full of loveliness and dignity, moves about her Lord. In holy childlike innocence, which only a childlike innocent heart rightly understands, the host of the redeemed sanctified children of God moves in celebration about the universal Father and the Lamb, and the Spirit of the Lord of lords leads their ring dance.14

I love this passage. But carefully. I am not a nineteenth‐century man, nor am I naïve. One rightly has serious questions about the nineteenth‐century tone and conceptions found here. Surely the church as feminine, as a she, and – for that matter – God as a male approaching the female in a dance: these images are not very helpful to us in the present time. Neither is the presumed innocence of children, that widespread nineteenth‐century theme that may have been extensively used but too often also hid an extensively unacknowledged abuse of children. And it is certainly not the stars that move about the sun!

Still, for me, the quote is nonetheless deeply true: there are those remarkable and still evocative phrases: the dance of the assembly around and in the holy Trinity; those crowds of people (Haufen is even more literally “heaps,” “swarms,” or “multitudes”) who nonetheless are in the wonderfully named “assembly houses” (Versammlungshäusern in the German) and are to be characterized by that remarkable “dignity” (Würde); those free yet long‐used and long‐beloved and manifold forms of singing and speaking, for which the church has over time declared itself with pleasure; the ambiguity of whether it is God or the assembly or both that approach and withdraw; and especially that “course of thought,” that Gedankengang! In Löhe’s German: Eine heilige Manchfaltigkeit des Singens und Betens hat sich gebildet und ein lieblicher Gedankengang des Nahens und Fernens von dem Herrn Herrn hat sich beliebt gemacht (“A holy manifoldness of singing and praying has developed itself, and a lovely course of thought in drawing near to and departing from the Lord of lords has made itself beloved”).

Gedankengang. That is an important word choice. From that word, one might say that for Löhe, the beloved classical liturgy has – in its experience of God’s presence and God’s distance, of the assembly’s Nahen and God’s Kommen, of the liturgy’s drawing near to God and distancing from God, of Nahen und Fernen von dem Herrn Herrn – established a train or pattern of thought, a conceptual field, a way to think and talk about who God is and what we are before God. I want to say that such a Gedankengang is already what I would call “liturgical theology.” That is – here is my definition – liturgical theology is a way of thinking of God and before God that arises from the liturgy itself, is found first in the liturgy, and yet outside of the liturgy can also form ways that are used to elucidate the meaning of our liturgical practice. Explicitly, liturgical theology seeks to speak about who God is as this God is encountered in liturgy. And such speaking has an important and reforming goal. As Alexander Schmemann said, such theology seeks “to make the liturgical experience of the church again one of the life‐giving sources of the knowledge of God.”15

Löhe was already such a theologian, not just a practical liturgist. Not only did he make liturgies available – in his own congregation and especially in the Agende he proposed for the churches in North America – but he also wrote about liturgical meaning and, to say the matter in Schmemann’s terms, he did so with the intention of making the liturgy again a place to know God in a life‐giving way.

It is fascinating to note that nineteenth‐century liturgical theology was frequently exactly a reflection upon the Nahen und Fernen of Löhe’s Gedankengang. One classic theme for nineteenth‐century writing on liturgical meaning, especially among Lutherans, was the role of the distinctions and the interchanges between the “sacrificial” – our praise of God and our gifts to God – and the “sacramental” – God’s approach in self‐giving to us. As Löhe says poetically: “the Lord dwells amid her praises with his Sacraments.” Löhe’s own thought made extensive use of these distinctions. So did the late nineteenth‐century American reflections of a group of pastors and scholars known as the Lutheran Liturgical Association,16 a group especially important to the development and spread of the Common Service. And over the years, many Lutheran pastors have been taught both liturgical meaning and liturgical practice by learning which parts of the service were to be understood as “sacrificial” and which parts as “sacramental,” sometimes using these distinctions to decide which direction they should face as they led the assembly. Here was one classic expression of the “lovely” and “beloved” Gedankengang, the Nahen und Fernen as nineteenth and early twentieth‐century theologians brought it to expression.

These distinctions are no longer so easy for us: a sermon, for example, is not only a word from God but also an act of praise; a hymn or a eucharistic prayer may indeed be praise, but may also be especially a proclamation of God’s gift. Indeed, today, we often now do much of the liturgy face‐to‐face with each other – in a circle or in facing choirs or facing each other across the holy table – and yet, on, in and under our actions, as Löhe himself says, the triune God remains the primary actor: astonishingly, it is primarily God who comes near to serve in Gottesdienst, in “the Service,” as passages like Luke 12:37 and 22:27 assert. Still, the very attempt to talk about liturgical meaning by talking about who God is in the liturgical Nahen und Fernen – and learning that talk from the liturgy itself – may give us one model for doing liturgical theology.

There were yet other ways in which Pastor Löhe was a liturgical theologian, at least in nuce. That