Political Worship: Ethics for Christian Citizens
Bernd Wannenwetsch
Oxford University Press, 2004-08-12 - 402 pages
How
does Christian ethics begin? This pioneering study explores the grammar
of the Christian life as it is embodied and learned in worship as the
formative experience of the 'fellow citizens of God's people'. The book
presents the first in-depth theological investigation of the phenomenon
of'political worship' by exposing the political nature of worship and
the worship dimension of politics. In a careful analysis of biblical and
traditional conceptions of worship, Wannenwetsch demonstrates how the
genuine political character of worship neutralizes attempts to
politicize or de-politicize it. In the imprinting of the experience of
divine reconciliation on the Christian body, worshipchallenges the
deepest antagonisms of political theory and practice: antagonisms of
'private and public', 'freedom and necessity', and 'action and
contemplation'. At the same time, the 'spill over' of worship into every
sphere of life instils a healthy suspicion of post-liberal
conceptualizations ofrole-mobility. In the experience of 'hearing in
communion', an encounter with a word that does not deceive announces the
end of the rule of the hermeneutics of suspicion.Further questions
discussed include the conditions of true consensus, forgiveness as a
political virtue, 'political rhetoric' between accountability and
self-justification, how 'reversible role-taking' can avoid losing the
otherness of the other, and how the rhetoric of 'responsibility' can be
savedfrom hubris or depression. Particular practices or dimensions of
worship (confession, preaching, praising, intercession, observance of
holy days) are examined and their heuristic and formative potentials
explored in relation to these topics. A special feature of the study is a
strong ecumenical andinternational focus. The book brings into
conversation a variety of traditions (including Lutheran, Catholic,
Anglican, and Orthodox) and contemporary voices. An original
contribution to Christian ethics, the book addresses systematic and
practical theology as well as political theory, while indicating the
essentialinterpenetration of these disciplines.
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