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Designed as a general introduction to Christian liturgy, this book explores the meaning, history, and practice of worship in Eastern and Western, Catholic and Protestant traditions. Its chapters cover the theology of worship, the historical development of Eucharist and the Prayer Offices, the lectionary and customs of the church year, other sacramental rites, and the use of music and the arts. As such, it is a perfect textbook for students seeking to understand the basics of liturgical worship, as well as a reliable guide for worship leaders.
Clergy today are faced with a profound shift in American attitudes about marriage that affects the role they play with each couple. Our society at large today has strikingly different attitudes from those of just fifty years ago. Couples today are more likely to have cohabited before marriage, more likely to have children born out of wedlock, more likely to be married outside of the church, and more likely to be previously divorced than were their counterparts of the mid-20th century. This new pastoral resource, grounded in real-life examples, will be an important new pastoral tool for clergy and seminarians in the Episcopal Church and other mainline Protestant churches. It is organized chronologically, beginning with how to engage the couple making a first-time contact with a member of the clergy. It next unpacks the marriage rite itself, within contemporary and traditional viewpoints. Finally, the book addresses the critically important application of long-term support for the couple throughout their married lives.
How do we hear our prayers? In the words of philosopher Gemma Corradi Fiumara, there can “be no saying without hearing, no speaking which is not an integral part of listening, no speech which is not somehow received.” Therefore, hearing should be considered an essential aspect of participation in Christian worship. However, although almost all studies of Christian worship attend to the words spoken and sung, almost none consider how worshippers hear in the liturgical event. In Hearing Our Prayers, Juliette Day draws upon insights from liturgical studies, philosophy, psychology, acoustical science, and architectural studies to investigate how acts of audition occur in Christian worship. The book discusses the different listening strategies worshippers use for speech, chant, and music, as well as for silence and noise: why paying attention in church can be so difficult and how what we hear is affected by the buildings in which worship takes place. Day concludes by identifying "liturgical listening" as a particular type of ritual participation and emphasizes that liturgical listening is foundational for the way in which we pray, and think about God, the church, and the world.
This premier work considers the development of the doctrine of baptism in the Reformed tradition. Riggs studies the major early Reformers, concentrating on Calvin's views, and then moves on to trace the trajectory of Reformed baptismal theology from the Reformed Confessions, through Schleiermacher and on to the present day. He analyses the rite in the contemporary Book of Common Worship and makes practical suggestions about its understandings and adequacy.
With its primary focus on the reformed Rite of Confirmation, this book surveys the historical development of the rite, discusses the modern reforms and analyzes present praxis with an eye to the future. Also discussed is the Rite of the Blessing of Oils and the Rite of Consecrating the Chrism.
A historical investigation into one of the unsolved mysteries of Christian liturgy.
Historic changes are occurring in the convergence of worship styles throughout the Christian church. Christians across the theological spectrum are seeking to learn from their own tradition's roots and from the liturgical expressions of believers in other times and places. Here worship expert Clayton Schmit examines worship in church settings around the globe and provides a practical manual for shaping liturgies that are informed by and relevant to contemporary missional contexts. The book broadens current ecumenical worship conversations, reveals insights drawn from the church at worship in the world, and argues for a common understanding of a theology of worship.
Infanticide is one of the most common, yet least understood of all human crimes. Although academic articles document isolated aspects of this problem, a single, unified analysis of infanticide has not been completed until now. In Hardness of Heart/Hardness of Life, Larry Milner provides the first exhaustive survey of infanticide, drawing on historical data from around the world. He then uses this survey as a basis for investigating why infanticide has been present in every form of human society throughout history. Both comprehensive and compelling, this important study will intrigue students of human psychology, social welfare, and child abuse, and will promote further research on this alarmingly overlooked atrocity
This liturgical resource will help guide pastors and other church workers as they help church members through the bereavement process. The Presbyterian Supplemental Liturgical Resource (SLT) series includes liturgies that were used on a trial basis in preparation for the development of the Book of Common Worship. Though superseded by the Book of Common Worship, SLR resources remain valuable, both for the variety of liturgical texts they contain and for the commentary on the text, which contains rich historical, theological, and practical background.
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.