Towards Liturgies that Reconcile reflects upon Christian worship as it is shaped, and mis-shaped, by human prejudice, specifically by racism. African Americans and European Americans have lived together for 400 years on the continent of North America, but they have done so as slave and master, outsider and insider, oppressed and oppressor. Scott Haldeman traces the development of Protestant worship among whites and blacks, showing that the following exist in tension: African American and European American Protestant liturgical traditions are both interdependent and distinct; and that multicultural communities must both understand and celebrate the uniqueness of various member groups while also accepting the risk and possibility of praying themselves into an integrated body, one new culture.

Nationally recognized speaker and church leader Jay Augustine demonstrates that the church is called and equipped to model reconciliation, justice, diversity, and inclusion. This book develops three uses of the term "reconciliation": salvific, social, and civil. Augustine examines the intersection of the salvific and social forms of reconciliation through an engagement with Paul's letters and uses the Black church as an exemplar to connect the concept of salvation to social and political movements that seek justice for those marginalized by racism, class structures, and unjust legal systems. He then traces the reaction to racial progress in the form of white backlash as he explores the fate of civil reconciliation from the civil rights era to the Black Lives Matter movement. This book argues that the church's work in reconciliation can serve as a model for society at large and that secular diversity and inclusion practices can benefit the church. It offers a prophetic call to pastors, church leaders, and students to recover reconciliation as the heart of the church's message to a divided world. Foreword by William H. Willimon and afterword by Michael B. Curry.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation examines this sacrament in terms of its anthropological, scriptural, historical, and theological roots. The powerful message of God’s merciful love expressed through this sacrament is an essential way of knowing the “joy of the Gospel.”

This new book on worship by renowned hymn writer and professor Ruth C. Duck provides theological foundations for worship and explores the variety of ways Christians have adapted worship to various cultures to help them live faithfully and to communicate the Gospel to others. The author celebrates the many languages and cultural settings in which the Gospel has been, and is, preached, sung, and prayed. The goal of this volume is to support good pastoral and congregational reflection on what worship is and does. Consequently, Duck discusses many different forms of worship from several cultures (African-American, Asian, Euro-American) and offers advice on how to read a congregation and define its culture in order to plan culturally appropriate worship. Although the book does not offer prescriptive formulas or advise a single pattern of worship, it includes many practical suggestions for preparing and leading worship, including diverse ministries of music, movement, and visual arts that are becoming more popular today. From worship's theological underpinnings, the book turns to worship leadership, forms of prayer, preaching, the sacraments, ordination, and various liturgies. Because of its emphasis on Spirit-led worship, this comprehensive book on Christian worship will be used for years to come not only as a core textbook for seminarians and ministry students from a variety of cultures and traditions, but also as a resource for local church pastors and laity who are dedicated to the enlivening of Christian worship.

"If Christian hope is reduced to the salvation of the soul in a heaven beyond death," wrote Jürgen Moltmann, "it loses its power to renew life and change the world, and its flame is quenched." Thomas Rausch, SJ, agrees, arguing that too often the hoped-for eschaton has been replaced by an almost exclusive emphasis on the "four last things"-death and judgment, heaven and hell. But eschatology cannot be reduced to the individual salvation. In his new book, Rausch explores eschatology's intersections with Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and, perhaps most intriguingly, liturgy. With the early Christians, he sees God's future as a radically social reality, already present initially in Christian worship, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist. This fresh and insightful work of theology engages voices both ancient and contemporary.

In this book Allan Doig explores the interrelationship of liturgy and architecture from the early Church to the close of the Middle Ages, taking into account social, economic, technical, theological and artistic factors. These are crucial to a proper understanding of ecclesiastical architecture of all periods, and together their study illuminates the study of liturgy. Buildings and their archaeology are standing indices of human activity, and the whole matrix of meaning they present is highly revealing of the larger meaning of ritual performance within, and movement through, their space. The excavation of the mid-third-century church at Dura Europos in the Syrian desert, the grandeur of Constantine's Imperial basilicas, the influence of the great pilgrimage sites, and the marvels of soaring Gothic cathedrals, all come alive in a new way when the space is animated by the liturgy for which they were built. Reviewing the most recent research in the area, and moving the debate forward, this study will be enormously useful to the liturgist, clergy, theologians, art and architectural historians, and those interested in the conservation of ecclesiastical structures built for the liturgy.

Park asserts that one cannot grasp the full meaning of the sin and guilt of sinners until one has looked at the Korean concept of han--the relational consequence of sin--and shame of their victims. To reconcile with God and with other humans, one's sin must be repented, guilt must be forgiven, the han of those who have been wronged must be healed, and the shame which results from that wrong must be erased.

Fifty years after the promulgation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, a great moment has dawned in which a more dispassionate assessment of the reception of this important document has become imperative in order to enable the Church to undertake necessary steps in realizing the full potential of the renewal envisaged by the Council Fathers. The present study identifies peculiar and diverse challenges confronting the process of reception in the Nsukka Diocese/Nigerian Church today. However, the author acknowledges that the full reception of Sacrosanctum Concilium is still a work-in-progress. Uchenna Aba is a Catholic priest in Nsukka, Nigeria, and currently the Chaplain of St. Martin's Parish, Goch, Diocese of Muenster, Germany. Dissertation. [Subject: Religious Studies, African Studies]