Event Title
Touch Me and See: A Resurrection of the Body in the Church?
Location
Ballrooms B & C, Harre Union, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN
Start Date
9-4-2013 10:00 AM
End Date
9-4-2013 10:50 AM
Description
Christians can be tempted to speak of ritual, liturgy, or worship in the highly spiritualized language of ultimacy, "giving God glory," mystery, Holy Communion, or sacredness. And yet that practice we call "liturgy" begins not in the church or the home but in the human body, in a variety of ordinary actions too frequently overlooked by church leaders. In this presentation, Institute participants will be invited to consider the gnostic temptations within a disembodied worship practice, expand their ritual practices of the body beyond "word," "bath," and "meal," and ask if such rituals can, indeed, embody a theologia crucis seemingly absent from our cultural discourse and practice.
Touch Me and See: A Resurrection of the Body in the Church?
Ballrooms B & C, Harre Union, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN
Christians can be tempted to speak of ritual, liturgy, or worship in the highly spiritualized language of ultimacy, "giving God glory," mystery, Holy Communion, or sacredness. And yet that practice we call "liturgy" begins not in the church or the home but in the human body, in a variety of ordinary actions too frequently overlooked by church leaders. In this presentation, Institute participants will be invited to consider the gnostic temptations within a disembodied worship practice, expand their ritual practices of the body beyond "word," "bath," and "meal," and ask if such rituals can, indeed, embody a theologia crucis seemingly absent from our cultural discourse and practice.
About the Presenter
Samuel Torvend is Professor of Religion and holds the University Chair in Lutheran Studies at Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, Washington). He also serves as the Director of Vocational Reflection at PLU's Center for Vocation and the Director of the Center for Religion and Culture in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of the forthcoming Still Hungry at the Feast: Preaching the Eucharist (Liturgical Press), Flowing Water, Uncommon Birth: Christian Baptism in a Post-Christian Culture (Augsburg Fortress, 2011), Luther and the Hungry Poor (Fortress Press, 2008 - now included in its core library of Luther texts), and Daily Bread, Holy Meal: Opening the Gifts of Holy Communion (Augsburg Fortress in 2004). Ordained in 1986, he now serves as associate for adult formation at St. Paul's Church in Seattle, Washington.