Liturgy’s Ethical Dilemma

Abstract

We should take enormous pride in the liturgical revolution that has characterized the last half century. I count myself blessed to have been born into such a period and to have chanced upon a time and calling that put me in the revolution’s center. Think just of the most obvious signs of ferment we have lived through: the demise of ethnically Catholic or Lutheran or Jewish or even Episcopalian cultures; the very possibility of prayer in the shadow of the Holocaust; the feminist critique of an androcentric liturgy and entire religious cultures that men alone control; the emergence of LGBTQþ from the closet and the realization of gender’s fluidity; the steady advance of secularism and all those Pew reports on millennials and the “nones”; not to mention deconstructionism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, and (by now) everyday ordinary globalism—too many “isms” to count. Among my happiest moments are the many interchanges across faith lines with my Christian liturgical colleagues, as, together, we have defined, faced, or furthered these challenges. Two such moments stand out in my mind as examples of the path we have taken. Together, they illustrate an underlying ethical dilemma that still infects our liturgical project and beckons for our attention if the project is to reach fulfillment.