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Status Inconsistency and the Politics of Worship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

Michael Downey
Michael Downey*
Affiliation:
Loyola Marymount University
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Abstract

After an explanation of salient points of Wayne Meeks's construction of a social history of Pauline Christianity, this essay explores his concept of ritual efficacy with attention to what it might lend to a fuller understanding of ritual/sacramental efficacy in the contemporary churches. Because the communities of l'Arche of Jean Vanier are constituted by a great diversity of persons who are vastly unequal, at least in terms of intelligence, they provide a contemporary reference for investigating Meeks's claim that the function of Christian ritual is to socialize persons of various strata into a communitas in Christ. No definitive resting point is reached, the conclusion being that in light of various social factors facing the churches, Christian ritual needs to socialize persons into communitas more effectively than it usually manages to do. Suggestions for doing so are offered.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , Spring 1988 , pp. 64 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1988

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References

1 The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

2 Haughey, John C., “Eucharist at Corinth: You are the Christ” in Clarke, Thomas E., ed., Above Every Name (New York: Paulist, 1980), pp. 107–33, p. 112Google Scholar.

3 Elsewhere I have maintained that the nature of the relationship between liturgy and spirituality is one of reciprocity and critical correlation. See Downey, Michael, “Liturgie et Spiritualité: Une rélation réciproque et critique,” Liturgie 52 (1985), 3–19Google Scholar.

4 Meeks, pp. 190-92.

5 Ibid.

6 Vanier, Jean, “Lifelong Homes for the Adult Mentally Retarded.” Mimeographed (unpublished), 1966Google Scholar.

7 Vanier, Thérèse, “A Struggle for Unity” in The Challenge of I'Arche, introd. and conclusion by Vanier, Jean (Ottawa: Novalis, 1981), pp. 135–48Google Scholar.

8 For an analysis of the spirituality of l'Arche see Downey, Michael, A Blessed Weakness: The Spirit of Jean Vanier and l'Arche (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986)Google Scholar.

9 See Meeks, pp. 142ff.

10 “Worship Between the Holocausts,” Theology Today 43 (1986), 75–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Wilder, Amos N., Jesus' Parables and the War of Myths, ed. with preface by Breech, J. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), p. 167Google Scholar.

12 For an appreciation of the critical function of liturgy and sacrament see Power, David N., Unsearchable Riches: The Symbolic Nature of Liturgy (New York: Pueblo, 1984)Google Scholar.

13 Metz, Johann-Baptist, “Facing the Jews: Christian Theology after Auschwitz” in Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler and Tracy, David, eds., The Holocaust as Interruption, Concilium 175 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1984), pp. 26–33, n. 28Google Scholar.

14 For more on lamentation, see Brueggemann, Walter, “The Costly Loss of Lament,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 36 (1986), 57–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.