This loosely-argued manifesto contains some suggestions regarding what the philosophy of religion might become in the 21st century. It was written for a brainstorming workshop over a decade ago, and some of the recommendations and predictions it contains have already been partly actualized (that’s why it is now a bit "untimely"). The goal is to sketch three aspects of a salutary “liturgical turn” in philosophy of religion. (Note: “liturgy” here refers very broadly to communal religious service and experience generally, not (...) anything specifically “high church.”) The first involves the attitudes that characterize what I call the “liturgical stance" towards various doctrines. The second focuses on the “vested” propositional objects of those attitudes. The third looks at how those doctrines are represented, evoked, and embodied in liturgical contexts. My untimely rallying-cry is that younger philosophers of religion might do well to set aside debates regarding knowledge and justified belief, just as their elders set aside debates regarding religious language. When we set aside knowledge in this way, we make room for discussions of faith that in turn shed light on neglected but philosophically-interesting aspects of lived religious practice. (shrink)

In this article, I summarize recent work on the philosophy of liturgy. In part 2 of this article, I consider how liturgy can provide a way of knowing God personally. I outline accounts of acquiring phenomenal knowledge, practical knowledge, and propositional knowledge by participating in liturgy.

In a concert hall, the attitude of the audience focusses on the formalistic aspects of music. In religious rituals, music is a means of leading the hearer to a spiritual experience. What happens when music, meant originally for a liturgical purpose, is played in a concert setting? Gadamer shows, with his conception of Verwandlung ins Gebilde, that an art work is never static, but carries a depth in itself, which is connected to an artistic ingenuity throughout centuries. In this ‘depth’ (...) lies the connection to the listener, which is broader than a mere aesthetical one. On the other hand, music in itself has a strong ‘theatrical’ side, which can easily surpass its contemplative aspect in consumer culture. It appears that this aspect, in combination with the formalistic-aesthetic approach of modern museum culture, of which concert culture is a part, made the hearer become almost ‘deaf ’ to the religious content; because a concert practice focusses primarily on entertaining the hearer, s/he is not able to engage in the music as a source of spiritual edification of the soul. Nevertheless, Gadamer’s conception of play makes us be aware that there will always be new, unexpected ways in which the truth comes into being in the interaction of a piece of music and its hearer. In order to create such a reality, it is necessary to turn to new and renewing hearing practices, where the play between music and the hearer has a wider range of musical experience than the mere formalistic aspect. (shrink)

This essay addresses the question of virtual church, particularly on whether or not liturgy can be done virtually. We will approach our subject from a somewhat unusual perspective by looking to types of aesthetic experiences which we have been doing “virtually” for a long time. By exploring how we experience art in virtual and physical contexts, we gain insight into the corresponding experiences in liturgical practices. Drawing on Mikel Dufrenne, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gabriel Marcel, I first examine the importance of (...) the body when we experience “presence” in aesthetic environments. Next, I consider the weight of the body in experiences of presence in liturgical practices, both in person and virtual, guided again by Gabriel Marcel as well as Bruce Ellis Benson, Emmanuel Falque, Christina Gschwandtner and Éric Palazzo. Through these reflections, I argue that what art teaches us about the significance of the physical closeness of the human applies to the practice of liturgy and that, while unexpected benefits will surface in virtual settings, nothing replaces the powerful experiences that arise when the body is physically present. (shrink)