Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory explores the political theology of Johann Baptist Metz to discover how Christian memory is prophetic both in its revelation of extraordinary circumstances of injustice and the challenge and hope it poses to those who join in solidarity with the oppressed. Liturgical theologian Alexander Schmemann then elaborates how the liturgy reveals the kingdom of God and empowers believers to witness to it. The meeting of these theologies results in a rich eschatology, a life shaped y the vision of a future that fulfills the promises of the past.
Why do major historical events such as the Holocaust occupy the forefront of the collective consciousness, while profound moments such as the Armenian genocide, the McCarthy era, and France's role in North Africa stand distantly behind? Is it possible that history "overly remembers" some events at the expense of others? A landmark work in philosophy, Paul Ricoeur's Memory, History, Forgetting examines this reciprocal relationship between remembering and forgetting, showing how it affects both the perception of historical experience and the production of historical narrative. Memory, History, Forgetting, like its title, is divided into three major sections. Ricoeur first takes a phenomenological approach to memory and mnemonical devices. The underlying question here is how a memory of present can be of something absent, the past. The second section addresses recent work by historians by reopening the question of the nature and truth of historical knowledge. Ricoeur explores whether historians, who can write a history of memory, can truly break with all dependence on memory, including memories that resist representation. The third and final section is a profound meditation on the necessity of forgetting as a condition for the possibility of remembering, and whether there can be something like happy forgetting in parallel to happy memory. Throughout the book there are careful and close readings of the texts of Aristotle and Plato, of Descartes and Kant, and of Halbwachs and Pierre Nora. A momentous achievement in the career of one of the most significant philosophers of our age, Memory, History, Forgetting provides the crucial link between Ricoeur's Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another and his recent reflections on ethics and the problems of responsibility and representation. “His success in revealing the internal relations between recalling and forgetting, and how this dynamic becomes problematic in light of events once present but now past, will inspire academic dialogue and response but also holds great appeal to educated general readers in search of both method for and insight from considering the ethical ramifications of modern events. . . . It is indeed a master work, not only in Ricoeur’s own vita but also in contemporary European philosophy.”—Library Journal “Ricoeur writes the best kind of philosophy—critical, economical, and clear.”— New York Times Book Review
Can one forget atrocities? Should one forgive abusers? Ought we not hope for the final reconciliation of all the wronged and all wrongdoers alike, even if it means spending eternity with perpetrators of evil? We live in an age when it is generally accepted that past wrongs -- genocides, terrorist attacks, bald personal injustices -- should be constantly remembered. But Miroslav Volf here proposes the radical idea that "letting go" of such memories -- after a certain point and under certain conditions -- may actually be the appropriate course of action. While agreeing with the claim that to remember a wrongdoing is to struggle against it, Volf notes that there are too many ways to remember wrongly, perpetuating the evil committed rather than guarding against it. In this way, the just sword of memory often severs the very good it seeks to defend. He argues that remembering rightly has implications not only for the individual but also for the wrongdoer and for the larger community. Volfs personal stories of persecution offer a compelling backdrop for his search for theological resources to make memories a wellspring of healing rather than a source of deepening pain and animosity. Controversial, thoughtful, and incisively reasoned, "The End of Memory" begins a conversation hard to ignore.
This volume is a first-ever companion to the intellectually and pastorally stimulating work of Louis-Marie Chauvet, one of the most important systematic theologians of liturgy and sacraments in recent times. In this trans-Atlantic venture, pairs of leading thinkers continue the development of sacramental-liturgical theology along six lines of Chauvet's thought: fundamental theology, Scripture and sacrament, ecclesiology, liturgy and ethics, theology and the social sciences, and the theological anthropology of symbolism. Embracing his constant attention to faith is actual practice in history, these francophone and anglophone authors test numerous of Chauvet's insights in the face of new challenges for the church and world, the ongoing mediation of the humanity of God" revealed in the crucified and risen Christ. Louis-Marie Chauvet retired in 2008 from the faculty of theology at the Institute Catholique de Paris, while continuing his work as pastor of Saint-Leu-la-Foret in the Diocese of Pontoise, just outside Paris. He is author of Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence and The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body, both published by Liturgical Press. Philippe Bordeyne is professor of theological ethics and dean of the faculty of theology at the Institut Catholique de Paris. Bruce T. Morrill, SJ, holds the Edward A. Maloy Chair of Catholic Studies in the divinity school at Vanderbilt University where he is also Professor of Theological Studies. In addition to numerous journal articles, book chapters, and reviews, he has published several books, most recently Encountering Christ in the Eucharist: The Paschal Mystery in People, Word, and Sacrament (Paulist Press, 2012). His most recent book with liturgical Press is Divine Worship and Human Healing: Liturgical Theology at the Margins of Life and Death Pueblo/Liturgical Press, 2009). "
Augustine of Hippo, indisputably one of the most important figures for the study of memory, is credited with establishing memory as the inner source of selfhood and locus of the search for God. Yet, those who study memory in Augustine have never before taken into account his preaching. His sermons are the sources of memory's greatest development for Augustine. In Augustine's preaching, especially on the Psalms, the interior gives way to communal exterior. Both the self and search for God are re-established in a shared Christological identity and the communal labors of remembering and forgetting. This book opens with Augustine's early works and Confessions as the beginning of memory and concludes with Augustine's Trinity and preaching on Psalm 50 as the end of memory. The heart of the book, the work of memory, sets forth how ongoing remembering and forgetting in Christ are for Augustine are foundational to the life of grace. To that end, Augustine and his congregants go leaping in memory together, keep festival with abiding traces, and become forgetful runners like St. Paul. Remembering and forgetting in Christ, the ongoing work of memory, prove for Augustine to be actions of reconciliation of the distended experiences of human life-of praising and groaning, labouring and resting, solitude and communion. Augustine on Memory presents this new communal and Christological paradigm not only for Augustinian studies, but also for theologians, philosophers, ethicists, and interdisciplinary scholars of memory.
Liturgical theologian Don Saliers published an essay in 1979 challenging both the Church's and the theological academy's understanding of the relationship of liturgy and ethics. "Liturgy and the Moral Self" features Saliers' provocative essay, an introductory chapter, and sections on liturgical theology, the formation of character, and words and music--each with a single-page introduction to the chapters that follow.
In A Sacramental-Prophetic Vision: The Praxis of Christian Spirituality in a Suffering World Matthew Eggemeier argues that the sacramental and prophetic traditions of Christian spirituality possesses critical resources for responding to the contemporary social crises of widespread ecological degradation and the innocent suffering of a crucified people. Eggemeier maintains that the vital key for cultivating these sacramental and prophetic traditions in the present is to situate these spiritualities in the context of spiritual exercsises or ascetical practices that enable Christians to live more deeply coram Deo and in turn to make this presence visible in a suffering world.
How does the universal experience of suffering relate to the experience of worship? Questioning how Anglican liturgy welcomes people who are suffering, Suffering in Worship uniquely applies a narrative–ritual model for the analysis of both the liturgical text and worship services themselves. In this book, van Ommen draws on interviews with participants in worship as well as clergy. Highlighting several elements in the liturgy which address suffering, including the Eucharist, songs, sermons and prayers of intercession, he shows the significance of a warm and safe liturgical community as a necessary context for suffering people to find consolation. This book also uses the concept of remembrance to plead for liturgy that attends to the suffering of both God and people. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of pastoral theology as well as clergy.
Why go to church? What happens in church and why does it matter? The Empty Church presents fresh answers to these questions by creating an interdisciplinary conversation among performance studies, theater directors, and Christian theologians. The result is a compelling depiction of church as a performative relationship with Jesus Christ, mediated by Scripture, in hope of the Holy Spirit.
