Liturgical Theology
2002 Reston, Virginia
2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002
Convener 2002
Dwight W. Vogel (Styberg Professor of Worship and Preaching, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois)
Seminar Participants 2002
Margaret Bick, J Fred Ball, Lorraine Brugh, Jill Crainshaw, Claudio Carvalhaes, Therese DeLisio, David Fagerberg, Theo Gill, Christopher Grundy, Kevin W. Irwin, Judith Kubicki, Dirk Lange, Gordon Lathrop, Kimberly Long, Jennifer Lord, Richard McCall, John McKenna, Martha Moore-Keish, Bruce Morrill, Eric T. Myers, Pat Parachini, Mary Pope, Thomas Rand, Ann Riggs, Philip Sandstrom, Don Saliers, Rhoda Schuler, Kevin Seasoltz, Gerard Sloyan, Jeffrey T. VanderWilt, Dwight Vogel, Robin Knowles Wallace, James Wilde
Seminar Report 2002
The 2002 seminar began with a substantive discussion of Louis-Marie Chauvet’s The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body which members of the seminar had read prior to the meeting. John McKenna and Dirk Lange had prepared perceptive responses raising seminal questions as a basis for the discussion. Kevin Seasoltz’s paper “The Relationship between Word and Sacrament” also made reference to Chauvet’s work, challenging his contention that the movement from the table of the Scriptures to the table of the sacraments is irreversible, a critique confirmed ecumenically in the ensuing discussion.
Jennifer Lord directed the attention of the seminar toward the development of a liturgical homiletic for the Reformed tradition with special attention to the assessment of preaching in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. That discussion was followed by Martha L. Moore-Keish’s paper on “Recovering the Sacraments as the Center of a Reformed Ecclesiology.” Together the two papers provoked a stimulating discussion of Calvin’s perspectives on homiletics, sacrament, and the Church. In his presentation “Constructing Sacrament: the Poetics of Liturgy” Richard D. McCall utilized a neo-Aristotelian approach for understanding liturgy as the anamnesis of the act of the triune God, using symbolic means to enact that Trinity in the lives of the enactors.
Philip Sandstrom began Saturday’s discussions with reflections on “Covenant Signs in the Narrative of the Institution of the Eucharist: Breaking the Bread,” proposing a “double covenant fulfillment” implicit in the narrative of the institution of the Eucharist and in the work of Christ.
Utilizing a content analysis approach to confirmation addresses or sermons, Rhoda Schuler led a fascinating and enlightening investigation in understandings of the rite of confirmation in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. At the invitation of the seminar veteran liturgical theologian Kevin Irwin shared his reflections on liturgical theology in the present and a stimulating discussion of the topic ensued.
The work of the seminar concluded with a session devoted to a discussion of works in progress, including Jeffrey VanderWilt’s perceptive work on eucharistic sharing, a content overview and sample section from Gordon Lathrop’s forthcoming third volume in his liturgical theology trilogy, “Holy Ground: What is Liturgical Cosmology?,” Bruce Morrill’s current writing project on “Divine Worship and Human Healing,” and Don Saliers’ continuing thinking on a liturgical aesthetic.
The participation of seasoned thinkers, junior scholars, and new participants in the seminar was heartily affirmed. The opening discussion for the 2003 seminar will focus on gender concerns in liturgical theology.