Political Worship: Ethics for Christian Citizens

Book reviewed:
Political Worship: Ethics for Christian Citizens by Bernd Wannenwetsch, translated by Margaret Kohl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) xiv + 402 pp. Reviewed by M. Therese Lysaught Department of Religious Studies 300 College Park University of Dayton Dayton, OH 45469-1530 USA     

I Surrender All: Subverting the Cruelty of Capitalist Optimism with Affective Expressions of Worship

This paper explores the experience of an affectively charged healing worship service comprised of mostly working-class parishioners. It suggests that they seek healing from a feeling of being worn out by the precarity of daily life and by their efforts to reach the “American dream.” The ensuing discussion is framed by Lauren Berlant’s (2011) cruel optimism: we are attached to ideals that both define our identities as productive members of a capitalist society and at the same time necessitate our failures at reaching those ideals. The work of relational psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell is utilized to describe how affective worship builds a co-created relational space of vulnerability and care that subverts this dominant ideal. The paper concludes with Emmanuel Ghent’s suggestion that religious surrender leads to an expansion of the self.     

Finding a Language for Faith: Liturgy and Worship

The sacramental and liturgical texts in The Annotated Luther series (volumes 1 and 3) reflect Luther's ongoing concern for the faith life of the people. They also give us an insight into Luther's own struggle to find words (and, of course, practices) that reflect the fundamental insight of the Reformation: justification by faith alone. Luther refused to abandon ritual or a strict liturgical order even though it can so easily become, in the minds and hearts of believers, a work they must do. The freedom of the gospel does not dispense us from a liturgical order or from participation; in fact, for Luther, that freedom compels us to worship! This tension can be found within these writings as Luther searches for new words and redefines and/or reorients other words to express a spirituality of justification.     

Assembling an army: considerations for just war theory

The aim of this paper is to draw attention to an issue which has been largely overlooked in contemporary just war theory – namely the impact that the conditions under which an army is assembled are liable to have on the judgments that are made with respect to traditional principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. I argue that the way in which an army is assembled can significantly alter judgments regarding the justice of a war. In doing so, I present and defend a principle of ‘just assembly’ and argue that satisfying this principle is an essential part of any deliberation regarding the justice of a particular conflict.     

Finding Their Place: Women and the Environment for Worship

Abstract

The history of the intersection between women and their worship-spaces is both simple and complex. This article begins to identify ways in which women have responded to restrictions on them in liturgical space and how they have interpreted that space. This task poses serious methodological challenges, identified here, and raises questions about ways in which women have found a place in and around church buildings during a history characterized by their restriction and exclusion. Using a variety of primary and secondary sources, women's action through patronage, fundraising and benefaction, in disobedience and disorder, is explored, together with ways in which women have exercised the natural authority of their religious gifts and experience, when their temporal authority wis limited and indeed have reinterpreted the meaning of the term ‘liturgical space’.     

在哈佛听诺齐克讲课

诺齐克 (ＲｏｂｅｒｔＮｏｚｉｃｋ)的不幸去世 ,对我来说极感突然 ,也很悲痛。我于 2 0世纪89— 90年间在哈佛作访问学者 ,到哈佛哲学系 ,听诺齐克讲课的时间最多。那时诺齐克显得年轻 ,很有精神 ,充满活力。我于 90年离开哈佛以后 ,没有与他再有过联系 ,不曾想到 ,他比我要小