Course Description:
Christian worship has often been a remarkable and instructive window into
the culture of the communities which offer it, reflecting both a given
community's most cherished beliefs as well as unstated cultural dynamics.
In the latter part of the twentieth century, encouraged by the Vatican
II reforms in the Roman Catholic Church, most Western churches revised
and revolutionized their inherited forms of worship. In this liturgical
movement, the so-called classical period of the fourth and fifth centuries
has been regarded as a golden age, and scholarly reconstructions of the
texts of this period have become the basis for many of the revisions.
However, those revisions coincided with the rise of postmodernity, with
its criticisms of the "objective" scientific and historical
method of modernity that had formed the backdrop of many of those new
worship books. Are those worship forms, concentrating on texts and structures,
now just a monument to modernity? What are the challenges of postmodernism
to theology and worship? What are the ingredients for worship in a postmodern
culture?
This seminar will include studies of post-Vatican II liturgical reforms
in several traditions and the historical analysis on which many of these
reforms are based. This discussion will then be critiqued in light of
an analysis of postmodernism and postmodern theology. The overarching
goal of the seminar is both to understand the current status of liturgical
reform efforts as well as to raise broader questions about how we appropriate
Christian liturgical history in current discussions.
Program Description:
This seminar, the second in a series of three cosponsored by the Luce
Foundation and the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, enables faculty,
pastors, practioners, and advanced graduate students to participate in
high-level academic discussions of critical worship-related topics. The
seminar director and participants will devote four weeks to intensive
research and discussion geared toward producing publishable essays or
creative projects. A follow-up colloquium will be January 2004, in conjunction
with the Calvin Symposium on Worship and the Arts.
The deadline for applications was February 7, 2003.
For further information contact:
Seminars in Christian Scholarship
Calvin College
1855 Knollcrest Circle SE
Grand Rapids MI 49546-4402
616.526.8558
fax 616.526.6682
seminars@calvin.edu
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