Browsing by Subject "Liturgy"
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Item Open Access Becoming the Baptized Body: Disability, Baptism, and the Practice of Christian Community(2019) Barton, Sarah JeanThis dissertation takes up questions of how theologies and practices of baptism shape visions of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and a participant in Christian ecclesial communities. In particular, the dissertation investigates how baptism as the paradigmatic initiatory practice of the Church might transform communities to cultivate radical belonging for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
In order to address these questions, the dissertation engages a variety of methods, including historical and thematic analysis of theological texts (particularly in the field of disability theology), theological engagement of New Testament texts and biblical scholarship on the Pauline epistles, as well as an analysis of qualitative research conducted by the dissertation’s author (in-depth, semi-structured interviews) among adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, their families and key support persons, as well as clergy and lay leaders in Christian denominations across the ecumenical spectrum. An integrative analysis of theological texts, biblical texts, and narratives arising from the qualitative research analysis provides a foundation for constructive theological suggestions, in a practical and pastoral register, at the conclusion of the dissertation.
This dissertation concludes that a baptismal hermeneutic provides a critical lens to faithfully reflect on disability, as well as transformative practices to support the flourishing, belonging, and witness of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Christian faith communities. Baptismal theologies and practices suggest the centrality of communal, Jesus-centered, and participatory accounts of Christian identity in the Church – the community this dissertation names as the baptized Body. In particular, the dissertation commends practices of baptismal preparation, testimony, and reaffirmation as key avenues for participation of all people in ecclesial spaces (robustly inclusive of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities). These practices constitute transformative pathways to affirm the centrality of baptismal identity and baptismal vocation to discipleship for an ongoing, radical transformation of ecclesial life, empowered and sustained by the Holy Spirit. In addition, the baptismal hermeneutic and baptismal practices explored throughout the dissertation critically expand discourse on intellectual and developmental disabilities in the field of Christian theology.
Item Open Access Facing Our Flesh: A Theological Analysis of Body Formation in Lent and Easter(2016) Belcher, JodiIn this dissertation, I develop a theological account of human embodiment by exploring the relationship between the liturgical practices of an Episcopal parish during Lent and Easter and church members’ bodies. My objective was to analyze the normative constructions of saved bodies at work in seasons that call attention to the body while also emphasizing sin, repentance, and salvation. I conducted qualitative research at a church in the American South using ethnographic methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviews, and I analyzed the body postures, gestures, movements, sensory experiences, and corporeal interactions that constituted the community’s liturgical practices as well as members’ personal experiences of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter in 2014. By examining the philosophical, theological, and social layers of how the church inhabited these seasons, I discovered that church members’ participation entailed implicit conceptions of bodies as malleable, as journeys, and as sensorially interactive, which are conceptions that tend to conflict with modern Western ideals of bodies as solid, whole, and independent from one another as well as from their surroundings. Yet rather than seeking to suppress these dimensions of embodiment, the church’s practices made bodily malleability, journeying, and sensory interaction normative for the bodily shape of salvation.
Item Open Access "I Believe": The Credo in Music, 1300 to 1500(2021) Russin, Harrison BasilThe Credo is a liturgical and musical outlier among the movements of the mass ordinary. It is the longest text of the ordinary, was the latest addition to the mass, and is the locus of several odd musical phenomena, such as the proliferation of dozens of new monophonic settings of the creed between the years 1300 and 1500. These musical and liturgical phenomena have been noted but little studied; furthermore, the reasons underlying these changes have not been explained or studied. This dissertation analyzes the musical features of the Credo in monophony and polyphony, and sets the music within a broader late medieval cultural background.The research herein is multidisciplinary, using the primary sources of the music—much of which remains unedited in manuscripts—as well as the works of medieval writers, theologians, liturgists, clergy, canon lawyers, and laypeople. The overarching goal is to contextualize the musical Credo by examining the Credo’s place in late medieval religious and devotional culture. The argument and conclusion of this dissertation is that the odd musical phenomena surrounding the late medieval Credo can be illuminated and explained by placing it within its context. Specifically, the Credo is a major aspect of catechism, devotion, and liturgy, and musical, literary, and theological treatments of the Credo text within each of those categories help to explain its musical status.
Item Open Access Worship On Earth As It Is On Earth: Discovering the Liturgical History of Pentecostal-Charismatic Worship(2022) Ottaway, Jonathan MarkSince the 1990s, the Pentecostal theological guild has emerged with the aim of re-envisioning all the theological subdisciplines through the distinctive Pentecostal experience. Alongside this increase in Pentecostal theological scholarship, there has been a corollary increase in Pentecostal liturgical scholarship. Reflecting the aims and ethos of its broader context in Pentecostal theology, Pentecostal liturgical scholarship has re-envisioned Pentecostal worship by retrieving the distinctive practices and theologies of the first five-ten years of Pentecostalism (ressourcement) and reconceptualizing that history through dialogue with systematic theology and other liturgical traditions (aggiornamento). However, this approach has left a critical lacuna in the scholarship: consideration of the lived reality of Pentecostal worship either in the intervening century since early Pentecostalism or in its current expression. Little of the scholarship has tried to understand the relationship between the pentecostal-charismatic rule of belief (lex credendi) and their rule of prayer (lex orandi) as actually lived by Pentecostals across time. This lacuna constitutes a grave absence of liturgical history for Pentecostalism.In response to this lacuna, the dissertation presents two historical case studies on the worship of pentecostal-charismatic organizations that emerged after the early Pentecostal period. Both organizations—the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (IHOPKC) and 24-7 Prayer—are prominent leaders in the 24/7 worship movement that emerged at the end of the twentieth century. In both case studies, the history starts by describing the theology of worship that each organization has held and how this theology shaped their respective practice of worship. Despite emerging in a similar timeframe and from a similar historical tradition, not only have both organizations appealed to different biblical motifs in understanding Christian worship but they have also approached the task of theologizing about worship in different ways. The dissertation, therefore, proceeds to uncover the deeper theological influences that placed these organizations’ worship upon different trajectories. IHOPKC’s theology of worship was built on an early Pentecostal theological method that has also incorporated later biblical ideas that arose within the 1948 Latter Rain revival. By contrast, 24-7 Prayer’s theology of worship reflected the biblical and methodological consensus that emerged in the wake of the Third Wave movement of the 1980s and its transformation of British Evangelical and Charismatic Christianity. Together, the case studies demonstrate both the diversity of pentecostal-charismatic worship and the explicit and implicit ways in which distinct theological and historical ecosystems have given shape to pentecostal-charismatic worship. The dissertation concludes that such liturgical history as was outlined in the case studies is indispensable for the work of Pentecostal liturgical theology. With particular reference to Pentecostal theologian Simon Chan, the dissertation argues how liturgical history should shape and inform Pentecostal liturgical scholarship. Ultimately, liturgical history describes the actual lived context this scholarship should serve. Thus, to theologize for this ecclesial context should necessitate its consideration as a methodological starting place.