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524 - Worship as Theology: Foretaste of Glory Divine |
Worship as Theology: Foretaste of Glory Divine
By Don E. Saliers
Nashville, Abingdon, 1994. 255 pp. $15.95.
The process of liturgical revision, recently completed in many denominations, is logically preceded by careful historical and textual scholarship. If the church is fortunate, it is succeeded by lucid interpretations that reveal the conscious theological underpinning of the new rites and that also set forth meanings those rites themselves newly bring to our awareness. We are, indeed, fortunate to have a variety of such works, of which Worship as Theology is an important representative. This volume is not a commentary on any one set of rites and, so, will be a resource for a broad spectrum of Christians.
As the subtitle suggests, Saliers approaches worship from an eschatological perspective; liturgy that is effective has to do with the future of God and our openness to the profound implications of that future for present living. Far from implying the escapism that so often is associated with eschatology, this approach implies a realism about life that confronts pain and anguish squarely but does not pronounce them to be victorious. Indeed, it is Saliers' conviction that, only by sharing in human agony, can God have the last word over it.
Following a preface and introduction, the book has three divisions: Liturgy and Theology, Liturgy as Prayer, and Liturgy in Context. Closing the book is an ample set of notes, many quite substantive rather than merely consisting of citations; a select bibliography; and an index of two parts: authors and subjects.
Saliers, who teaches theology and worship at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, begins his first division by presenting a theological approach that characterizes the whole work: the use of contrasting elements that stand in tension. First, human pathos and divine ethos are considered, then dogma and doxa. All such contrasts are seen to cohere in the incarnation-the paradox of the glory of God made known in the cross. In the third chapter, Saliers confronts directly the nature and role of eschatology. The final chapter of this section wrestles with the relationship of liturgy and theology, particularly in response to the thinking of Karl Barth.
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525 - Worship as Theology: Foretaste of Glory Divine |
The second division begins with a very helpful consideration of gratitude in relation to our human understanding of God. "As communal prayer and ritual action [liturgy] forms human capacities to receive the world as gift and to live thankfully within it." Nor is gratitude interpreted as frothy joy oblivious to suffering and pain. Rather, "it is an act of hope and resistance to what is evil." Subsequent chapters in this division discuss invoking and beseeching, lamenting and confessing, and interceding-forms of prayer that are aware of and responsive to the deepest needs of the world.
In a final division, the author begins by focusing more closely on what is ever a concern in this volume: anthropological dimensions of the practice of worship. Working both from theoretical studies, such as those of Victor Turner, and from case studies of recent worship reforms in specific parishes, Saliers discusses the "symbolic languages" of liturgy and the physical context of worship. A subsequent chapter on liturgy and ethics is not an isolated treatment of something deferred until late in the book but an intensification of what has been present from the first page. Treatments of mystery and suffering and of the beautiful and the holy follow. The final chapter gives particular attention to the season of the liturgical year that is, usually, most badly mangled in its observance and, yet, utterly crucial from an eschatological perspective: Advent. This concrete discussion of four particular Sundays brings Saliers' thought full circle and, in itself, is reason to own the book.
All who plan and evaluate worship will benefit from a work that gives few clues as to which hymns or prayers to select for next Sunday but challenges the reader to confront deep assumptions about the nature and function of the work of God's people at prayer. Worship as Theology will reward reading more than once; richer insights from its multilevel approach will spring forth as initial comprehension is savored and pondered. And, always, the full complexity and possibility of human existence in the presence of God is the central focus.
Laurence Hull Stookey
Wesley Theological Seminary
Washington, DC