Philosophies of Liturgy

Echoing Tertullian’s “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?,” we might ask, “What has philosophy to do with liturgy?” In a word, everything. Whether you agree that everything is liturgical, or, very narrowly, that liturgy is a very scripted and repetitive religious practice, liturgy is a phenomenon of human life that involves beliefs, words, and actions, and so is a relevant topic for philosophy to turn its gaze toward. And this is exactly what has been happening. Alongside the material turn in religious studies over the past four decades, there has been increasing philosophical interest in liturgy in the past five to ten years. Philosophies of Liturgy: Explorations of Embodied Religious Practice, edited by J. Aaron Simmons, Bruce Ellis Benson, and Neal DeRoo, is thus a timely addition to the growing literature on the philosophy of liturgy.

The volume contains seventeen essays in four different sections. Part 1, “On Spiritual Practice,” contains essays that focus on the “practice” aspect of liturgy, and the necessarily embodied nature of this. Christina Gschwandtner’s piece—“Why Philosophy Should Concern Itself with Liturgy”—is exemplary, in that it engages with both analytic (Nicholas Wolterstorff) and continental (Jean-Luc Marion) philosophy. She is critical of both representative figures because when they analyze religion and religious experience, including liturgy, from their respective approaches, “both remain predominately preoccupied with such epistemic questions of rationality or language” (28). She argues that to properly understand religion, one should devote more attention to the lived reality of it, and thus to the “corporeal, affective, and communal dimensions of religious practice” (28). John Sanders’ piece, “Liturgical Jellyfish,” argues that human liturgies are based on the specificity of human embodiment, and that if other creatures were to have liturgies, theirs would be based on their specific bodies. As a (slightly humorous) test case, he re-writes the Nicene Creed for jellyfish.

The essays in part 2, “Liturgy and Social Existence,” describe what liturgy actually looks like as enacted practices, and not just as theorized. In his contribution “Religion as a Way of Life: On Being a Believer,” Bruce Ellis Benson distinguishes between different types of belief: the most basic beliefs of lived existence (B1), belief or trust in a person or group (B2), and doctrinal or propositional beliefs (B3). Looking primarily at early Christianity, but also at a variety of contemporary examples, he concludes that B2 beliefs are the ones that are most fundamental and motivational for people in terms of religiosity, and that B3 beliefs build on these. As such, we should come to understand religion as primarily connected to action and “a way of life”—and thus more “liturgical”—and only secondarily as doctrinal.

Part 3, “Materiality and Religiosity,” seeks to reorient philosophy of religion’s interest from belief and propositional truth to practice and embodiment. Neal DeRoo’s essay, “Material Spirituality and the Expressive Nature of Liturgy,” draws on the phenomenological notions of expression and spirit in Edmund Husserl to demonstrate that “every phenomenon is the expression of the material-spiritual background in which it takes place” (160). Thus, every action and practice is liturgical because it is a spiritually, or religiously, expressive phenomena. While DeRoo is rightly wary of the “if everything’s liturgy, then nothing’s liturgy” trap, he still holds that all phenomena are expressions of spirit as an active and vital force.

Part 4, “Knowledge, Sound, and Hope,” is a bit of a grab bag, containing essays on a wide variety of topics that can all be examined via a philosophy of liturgy. J. Aaron Simmons and Eli Simmons argue that there are different kinds of liturgies and different kinds of hope, and that distinctly religious liturgies offer eschatological hope. And in separate essays, Brian A. Butcher analyzes the significance of singing in liturgy and Joshua Cockayne the significance of silence in liturgy, which together show that both elements are required in liturgy—they are moments when participants address and are addressed by God.

The key strength of this collection is that it brings together essays by philosophers working in both the analytic and continental philosophical traditions. Having these two main approaches brought together on this topic provides readers with a more robust and holistic analysis of what liturgy is and does. Since each approach is focussed on different aspects of liturgy, or thinks it matters for different reasons (rightly or wrongly), more perspectives are presented, allowing us to better understand what happens when people perform liturgy.

The main weakness of the volume relates to the authors and their content: all the authors are Caucasian and either confessionally Christian themselves (some of them are priests) or write about liturgy related to Christianity. The Christian theologian John Sanders has the only piece that notably mentions other religious traditions and practices: Nirvana, the Hindu puja, and the Qur’an. The editors address this briefly, stating that “in order to achieve thematic unity, this book intentionally focuses on Christian liturgy” (3). Much of what these authors say about what liturgy is and does philosophically applies universally; however, I want to be cautious in saying that how Western and (ostensibly, if not in actual fact) Christian scholars using terms that have originated and developed in the Latin West (philosophy, liturgy, religion) would apply to peoples in other places and times. As such, it would have been beneficial to include either (1) the descriptor “Christian” in the title or subtitle of the text, since this is the stated “thematic unity;” or (2) philosophers who belong to or who write about (or both) other religious traditions.

Overall, Philosophies of Liturgy is, as the editors acknowledge, an initial step and not the final word on the topic. It is part of the young and growing examination of liturgy by philosophers, and by including voices from both analytic and continental philosophy, the book does a service not only to the topic of liturgy, but also to philosophy in general, showing that these two approaches benefit each other and readers when they are more in conversation with one another.

Mark Novak is a sessional instructor in philosophy at St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta

Mark Novak

Date Of Review:

February 29, 2024