The two issues on Worship, Ritual and Theory represent the first pass by this journal on ritual practices (particularly those labeled “worship”) as refracted through the methodological and theoretical lenses of multiple fields. Our first two articles, “What in God’s
Download PDF: Alcantara, Fail Better Abstract In recent years, educational theorists have focused greater attention on the ways that improvisational performance theory can enhance pedagogical practice. As a result, values endemic to improvisational performance such as play, collaboration, and experimentation are
Download PDF: Thompson, Now that’s preaching Abstract Communal expectations of preaching can reinforce narratives that limit preaching to particular tropes of performance, and in so doing, link preaching to certain bodies while excluding others. This essay explores how bodies of difference
Download PDF: McCray, Sweating Spitting Cursing Abstract Holiness does not always manifest itself in pristine ways. Sometimes profane vehicles open us to the holy. This essay explores three such occasions that surface in preaching. First, I consider the sweating preacher. Drawing
Download PDF: McCormack, What in God’s Name is the Point Abstract This essay examines the relationship between worship and theory in African American religious thought and practice. It situates this inquiry within long-standing debates among black intellectuals concerning the contested relationships
Download PDF: RV Dennis The Good Funeral By Thomas G. Long and Thomas Lynch Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013. 252 pages. $25.00. In their extraordinary collaborative effort to “redeem the funeral” from its “failed and falling ways” (28), acclaimed funeral
Download PDF: RV Best A Living Tradition By David Pitt, Stefanos Alexopoulos, and Christian McConnell (editors) Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2012. 272 pages. $29.95. In A Living Tradition, David Pitt, Stefanos Alexopoulos, and Christian McConnell have brought together a diverse group of
Download PDF: Pape, Talking about money ABSTRACT The assumption has been that to preach on a given topic from the Synoptic Gospels, the preacher should locate a passage in which Jesus teaches prescriptively on the subject, or something like it. Preaching
Download PDF: RV Green, Redeeming a Prison Society By Amy Levad Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2014. 233 pages. $39.00. The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. Disproportionately incarcerating African Americans, Latinos, and the
Download PDF: Osinski, Archive Anemnesis Eucharistic Abstract The purpose and goal of the liturgy and of those participating in it is making space. Space for welcome, for hospitality, for movement, for freedom, for lament, for exultation. Space for absence, certainly; space
Download PDF: Myers, Beyond Border Raids In her recent book, Christian Theology in Practice: Discovering a Discipline, Bonnie Miller-McLemore presents a helpful and compelling case for a more inclusive theology that draws explicitly from the disciplines of practical theology. She argues
Download PDF: RV Yun, Caring Liturgies By Susan Marie Smith Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012. 151 pages. $18.00 I wish this volume had been published earlier. As a pastoral caregiver and careseeker, I have known the need to create rituals for moments
Download PDF: Liu, Music and the Generosity of God Abstract 4’33” by John Cage tacitly combines theory and practice to promote wide attention to music. Although theologically dismissed, the piece also provides an acoustical opening to recognize that all sounds