Next week we begin a series of engagements with Bruce Ellis Benson’s terrific new book in the Church and Postmodern Culture Series, Liturgy as a Way of Life.
Benson’s unique position as a philosopher and a musician come together in this creative volume to explore how our lives can be a living liturgical way of being, a mode of improvisation which draws on all that has been given in the created world by the One who has created us. Bringing us into conversation with continental thinkers who don’t make their way on this blog very often–Chrétien, Marion, and Gadamer–Benson offers us a canon from which to improvise for ourselves a way to think theologically about what it means when we use the word “liturgy” and what it means when we think about worship, both those sacred moments when we are gathered as the people of God and those sanctified times of living as his people cast out into the world.
We have invited three unique reviewers to engage with Benson. As is our practice, Bruce will offer responses to each. Beginning on Monday, the first review will post. On the following Thursday, Benson’s response will post. These interactions will run for three weeks.
Each of the reviews raises remarkably different questions and engages Bruce’s work on different levels. Readers will enjoy not only the philosophical reflections, but the practical questions raised by our reviewers about just how Benson’s work can be applied to the lived practice of everyday churchgoers and those who seek to edify and shape the Christian lives of those whom they serve. We hope you will come back often. Be sure to grab a copy of the book and read along while checking in on the Symposium.