Worship As Theology

by Saliers, Don E.

• ISBN13: 9780687146932
• ISBN10: 0687146933
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-10-01
• Publisher: Abingdon Pr

Summary

In Worship As Theology , Don Saliers discusses how worship is both theological (God-centered) and anthropological (embodied and embedded in specific human and cultural contexts). He illuminates worship as a theology "prayed, sung, and enacted." At the same time--by focusing upon specific dimensions of liturgical action such as praising, thanking, invoking, confessing, proclaiming, interceding, and blessing--he addresses the differences between the liturgical/sacramental and the "free-church"/evangelical church traditions.Underlying Saliers' approach is his basic conviction that Christian liturgy is an eschatological art. Theological integrity in worship, he asserts, calls for a permanent tension in the forms and patterns which reflect the "already" and "not yet" of Christian life in the world for the sake of the world. Worship As Theology , therefore, begins and ends with the eschatology of the divine promise, that the church's cry is still "Come, Lord Jesus!" and that God's will be done on earth "as in heaven."

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 9
Introduction	p. 13
Human Pathos and Divine Ethos	p. 21
Dogma and Doxa	p. 39
The Eschatological Character of Worship	p. 49
Liturgy and Theology: Conversation with Barth	p. 69
Praising, Thanking, Blessing - Gratitude as Knowledge of God	p. 85
Invoking and Beseeching	p. 106
Lamenting and Confessing: Truthful Prayer	p. 118
Interceding: Remembering the World to God	p. 126
Beyond the Text: The Symbolic Languages of Liturgy	p. 139
The Liturgical "Canon" in Context	p. 154
For the Sake of the World: Liturgy and Ethics	p. 171
Mystery, Suffering, and the Assembly's Art	p. 191
The Beautiful and the Holy	p. 203
Advent and Eschaton	p. 217
Notes	p. 231
Select Bibliography	p. 248
Index	p. 252
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