Justin Ariel Bailey, Interpreting Your World: Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture

Abstract

eucharistic prayer is rarely said aloud in most Eastern Christian traditions, and thus the theology the prayers express remains largely inaccessible to the faithful. Chapter 3 contains a truly staggering amount of information about the liturgy of the hours and the liturgical year, areas in which we see great diversity among the Eastern rites. The liturgical year in particular is an aspect of worship that is always enculturated. Feasts and fasts are shaped by local customs, foods, and ecologies. Only so many examples could be included in a book this size, but the authors leave plenty of tantalizing breadcrumbs to be picked up, hopefully, by enterprising liturgical scholars. I was especially intrigued by the short discussion of the Coptic calendar’s organization around the annual flooding of the Nile (pp. 149–150). Also, by laying out the various, complicated systems of daily liturgical prayer, the chapter comprises a valuable starting point both for the scholar and also, perhaps, for the practitioner seeking to reclaim these practices, which are rarely celebrated today in their full form. Chapter 4 is on marriage and holy orders. The section on marriage documents the history of nuptial rites and the changes wrought by modern needs and challenges. The section on holy orders is largely a reproduction (with permission) of portions of the book Rites of Ordination: Their History and Theology (Collegeville, 2013) by liturgical scholar Paul Bradshaw, with updates on the topic of the ordination of women deacons, a rite that is historically found in several Eastern traditions. Chapter 5, on anointing of the sick and burial, demonstrates again the great variety of liturgical practices among the Eastern Christian traditions. The authors conclude, “All Eastern Christian traditions are highly liturgical, for, indeed, liturgy is at the heart of the life of these churches and their faithful”(p. 355). What these churches also share is a brutal modern history of persecution, which has threatened the very survival of many of them. Eastern Christian liturgies possess immense riches, which is amply proven by the generous quotations of prayers featured in this volume. In order for these riches not to be lost, they need to be celebrated and shared. This book, in providing a skillful presentation of the common ethos of these traditions amid all their variety, and in amassing a superb bibliography that will be the standard reference point for future study in the field, has set a course for doing just that.