Christian Symbol and Ritual

Author: Bernard Cooke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198035071
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Book Description
In Christian Symbol and Ritual, Bernard Cooke and Gary Macy offer an accessible and engaging introduction to the topic written from a non-denominational perspective. Cooke and Macy demonstrate that celebration, ritual, and symbol are already central to our lives, even though most do not see their actions as symbolic or ritualistic. They connect central Christian symbols to the symbols and rituals already present in everyday life and place Christian theology in a familiar context. After discussing the characteristics and functions of rituals, they explore different kinds of ritual, including those of friendship, worship, and healing. The authors also examine such questions as how rituals establish and maintain power relationships, how "official" rituals are different from "popular" Christian rituals and devotions, and how Christian rituals function in the process of human salvation. Christian Symbol and Ritual is an invaluable resource for students, teachers, and lay readers.

Signs and Symbols of the Liturgy

Author: Michael Ruzicki
Publisher: LiturgyTrainingPublications
ISBN: 1616714379
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 82

Book Description
This resource helps you prepare a reverent, artful, and interactive experience of the symbols of the liturgy followed by reflection on their meaning for groups of adults or teens.

Christianity

Author: Linda Woodhead
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199687749
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Book Description
This is a short, accessible analysis of Christianity that focuses on its social and cultural diversity as well as its historical dimensions.

Myth and Ritual In Christianity

Author: Alan Watts
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 9780807013755
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
“Our main object will be to describe one of the most incomparably beautiful myths that has ever flowered from the mind of man, or from the unconscious processes which shape it and which are in some sense more than man.… This is, furthermore, to be a description and not a history of Christian Mythology.… After description, we shall attempt an interpretation of the myth along the general lines of the philosophia perennis, in order to bring out the truly catholic or universal character of the symbols, and to share the delight of discovering a fountain of wisdom in a realm where so many have long ceased to expect anything but a desert of platitudes.” —from the Prologue

Christian Worship

Author: Gail Ramshaw
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780800662332
Category : Christian art and symbolism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This unique textbook not only lays out the religious-studies framework of a contemporary understanding of Christian worship. It also offers keys to the experience of Christian worship in each historical period, including the American experience. Ramshaw's novel and creative approach -- which shows the roots of Christian worship in symbol, ritual, myth, and sacred place -- bridges the great cultural divide between today's student and the chief Christian rites rooted in the ancient world. In light of this history of experiences, Ramshaw also illuminates and addresses ongoing issues in worship (gender, authority, ethics, skepticism) and places them into an exlicitly cross-religious framework with Islam, Judaism, and other traditions. -- Book jacket flap.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology

Author: David K. Pettegrew
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0199369046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 724

Book Description
"This handbook brings together work by leading scholars of the archaeology of early Christianity in the Mediterranean and surrounding regions. The 34 essays to this volume ground the history, culture, and society of the first seven centuries of Christianity in the latest currents of archaeological method, theory, and research."--

Liturgical Music as Ritual Symbol

Author: Judith Marie Kubicki
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042907409
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
In this book, Sister Kubicki uses Jacques Berthier's Taize music to explore the nature of liturgical music as ritual symbol. She carries out a hermeneutical analysis of Berthier's chants and examines biographical and historical data related to the creator's of Taize music and the founding of the Taize community. The author draws on five areas of study to interpret the Taize chants as ritual symbol - symbol theory, semiotics, theologies of symbol, ritual theory, and perfomative language theory. The final chapter explores potential ecclesial meanings which may be mediated in the Taize liturgy and the role of Berthier's chants in mediating that meaning. The study concludes that it is music's symbolic property that enables it to be both ministerial and integral to the liturgy. As symbolic activity, music-making evokes participation, negotiates relationships, and enables the assembly to orient themselves and to find their identity and place within their world. Furthermore, music-making provides the illocutionary force to "do something" in the act of singing. Thus it is that as part of a complexus of ritual symbols, music interacts with other symbols, in mediating the liturgy's meaning.

Symbol and Sacrament

Author: Louis-Marie Chauvet
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 9780814661246
Category : Sacraments
Languages : en
Pages : 592

Book Description
This work comes at an opportune hour: a time in which many complain that contemporary theology lacks a general theory of sacraments. Chauvet charts a reorientation in sacramental theology from the scholastic treatments, which appropriated the metaphysical categories of causality and substance to develop an essentially instrumentalist appreciation of grace, in favor of an approach through the category of symbol." In this approach the subject is as much "grasped" (and transformed) by the symbolic representation as is the object being interpreted. Chauvet commands a wealth of scholarship which he deploys to powerful effect. His work in developing a foundational theology of sacramentality will remain the standard for years to come. "

The Cambridge Companion to Christian Philosophical Theology

Author: Charles Taliaferro
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521514339
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Book Description
This Companion offers an up-to-date overview of the beliefs, doctrines, and practices of the key philosophical concepts at the heart of Christian theology. The sixteen chapters, commissioned specially for this volume, are written by an internationally recognized team of scholars and examine topics such as the Trinity, God's necessary existence, simplicity, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, goodness, eternity and providence, the incarnation, resurrection, atonement, sin and salvation, the problem of evil, church rites, revelation and miracles, prayer, and the afterlife. Written in non-technical, accessible language, they not only offer a synthesis of scholarship on these topics but also suggest questions and topics for further investigation.

Warfare, Ritual, and Symbol in Biblical and Modern Contexts

Author: Brad E. Kelle
Publisher: Society of Biblical Literature
ISBN: 9781589839601
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
New perspectives on Israelite warfare for biblical studies, military studies, and social theory Contributors investigate what constituted a symbol in war, what rituals were performed and their purpose, how symbols and rituals functioned in and between wars and battles, what effects symbols and rituals had on insiders and outsiders, what ways symbols and rituals functioned as instruments of war, and what roles rituals and symbols played in the production and use of texts. Features: Thirteen essays examine war in textual, historical, and social contexts Texts from the Hebrew Bible are read in light of ancient Near Eastern texts and archaeology Interdisciplinary studies make use of contemporary ritual and social theory