How can celebrating the “holy days” of American culture help us to understand what it means to be both Christian and American? In timely essays on Super Bowl Sunday, Mother’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and other holidays of the secular calendar, James Calvin Davis explores the wisdom that Christian tradition brings to our sense of American identity, as well as the ways in which American culture might prompt us to discern the imperatives of faith in new ways. Rather than demonizing culture or naively baptizing it, Davis models a bidirectional mode of reflection, where faith convictions and cultural values converse with and critique one another. Focusing on topics like politics, race, parenting, music, and sports, these essays remind us that culture is as much human accomplishment and gift as it is a challenge to Christian values, and there is insight to be discovered in a theologically astute investment in America’s “holy days.”

Authenticity is a value difficult to define but impossible to ignore in contemporary life. The desire for authentic experience pervades art, music, food, dating, marketing, and politics. Worship is no exception: Vatican documents, megachurch websites, pastors, and liturgy planners all make competing claims to offer the genuine article. But what makes liturgy authentic? What distinguishes real celebration from artificial spectacle, heartfelt prayer from empty ritualism, a living tradition from both stagnation and gimmickry? Can today's Christians perform the liturgy so that it is not a mere performance but a sincere offering of their whole selves? In this book, Nathaniel Marx argues that the defining characteristic of authentic liturgy is harmony. Authentic liturgy happens when the minds of participants are in tune with their voices. The call for worshipers to harmonize their inward and outward offerings of prayer is discernible in the Bible, in the history of Christian prayer, and in diverse efforts to invigorate communal worship today. Marx's argument unfolds the meaning of this call to authentic worship through a provocative and wide-ranging study incorporating scriptural exegesis, liturgical history, anthropology of ritual, and philosophy of action. He argues that authenticity is not a modern buzzword but an ancient virtue essential to worshiping in a spirit of communion.

Liturgy, which tries to foster the unity of the body of Christ, can be a countercultural experience since trends in modern American society emphasize individualism.

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A classic and accessible guide in the field of Episcopal liturgy. Originally published in 1979, Liturgy for Living remains a time-tested classic exploration of history, theology, and spirituality that shapes Anglican liturgy and specifically The Book of Common Prayer. Writing for all Episcopalians—pastors, seminarians, and laity—Professor Charles Price and Louise Weil uncover the riches of various liturgy, including Holy Baptism, Confirmation, the Daily Office, the Holy Eucharist, and the various pastoral offices. This edition contains an extensive and updated bibliography, a glossary of liturgical terms, and a list of internet website addresses that contain documents, further bibliographic information, and links to other websites—all related to liturgical studies. “The worship of the Christian community, properly understood and done, leads worshipers to act out in their lives the love of God, which is at the heart of our worship. Worship also provides the power and the sustenance which makes this style of living possible. This Christian style of living, moreover, drives those who are committed to it back to the worship of God, to find forgiveness and strength...When this interdependent relationship is understood, the power of worship is illuminated and the power to live increased.”—From the Preface

Liturgy migrates. That is, liturgical practices, forms, and materials have migrated and continue to migrate across geographic, ethnic, ecclesial, and chronological boundaries. Liturgy in Migration offers the contributions of scholars who took part in the Yale Institute of Sacred Music's 2011 international liturgy conference on this topic. Presenters explored the nature of liturgical migrations and flows, their patterns, directions, and characteristics. Such migrations are always wrapped in their social and cultural contexts. With this in mind, these essays recalibrate, for the twenty-first century, older work on liturgical inculturation. They allow readers to better understand contemporary liturgical flows in the light of important and fascinating migrations of the past.

How has the Orthodox liturgy come to have the shape it has? How different is it from the eucharistic rites of the Western churches? Hugh Wybrew's authoritative but splendidly readable book traces the development of the Orthodox liturgy from the Last Supper to the present day.

A penetrating study of the impact of culture on the Catholic Church in the U.S., and the importance of the Church to the culture."Emmaus," writes the author, "is not only the name of a town in the gospel of Luke. It is also a state of mind." He portrays the American Emmaus as an ongoing conversion walk of twentieth-century Christians who attempt to recognize the crucified and risen Christ within the complex and pluralistic cultures of the United States. He focuses on the connections between being Catholic and American at this point in history, challenges the Church to give witness to the gospel message, and shows how it is through liturgy (the gathered American community) that the Church once again takes the walk to Emmaus. Here are insights not only for Catholics but for Christians of every denomination.

Liturgy with a Difference gathers a broad range of international theologians and scholars to interrogate current practices of liturgy and worship in order to unmask ways in which dehumanizing majoritarianisms and presumed norms of gender, culture, ethnicity, and body, among others, remain at work in congregations.