Playing church: understanding ritual and religious experience resourced by Gadamer's concept of play
This article uses Gadamer's concept of play as a common lens through which both traditional church liturgy and imaginative evangelical practices of engaging with God can be understood. The category of play encompasses processes which exhibit a back-and-forth motion and functions in Gadamer'...
| Published in: | International journal of philosophy and theology |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
[2018]
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| In: |
International journal of philosophy and theology
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Evangelical movement
/ Liturgy
/ Gadamer, Hans-Georg 1900-2002
/ Game
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| RelBib Classification: | KDG Free church NBE Anthropology RC Liturgy VA Philosophy |
| Further subjects: | B
Play
B Ritual B Liturgy B Aesthetics B Hans-Georg Gadamer B Evangelicalism |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | This article uses Gadamer's concept of play as a common lens through which both traditional church liturgy and imaginative evangelical practices of engaging with God can be understood. The category of play encompasses processes which exhibit a back-and-forth motion and functions in Gadamer's aesthetics to describe the relationship between artwork and viewer. Through an aesthetics of play, Gadamer accounts for the presence of truth in art. As I demonstrate in this paper, liturgy displays the playful characteristics of artwork, allowing for a theologically realist interpretation of divine presence. The final part of this paper considers the imaginative evangelical practices described by anthropologist T. M. Luhrmann, which I refer to as God-play. I argue that there is an unexpected commonality between God-play and traditional liturgy in the form of a functional similarity between the two and propose that God-play may be regarded as liturgy-like practice that has not been traditionalised. My evaluation is that this is a positive development, which opens the opportunity for divine encounter to those alienated from traditional liturgies. However, caution must be taken to avoid inappropriately trivial imaginings of God, and I conclude by offering suggestions for the church and academy in cautiously welcoming these practices. |
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| ISSN: | 2169-2335 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: International journal of philosophy and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2017.1406817 |