The study of liturgy used to mean studying what Christians did in the past and how worship traditions developed over the centuries. The focus was especially on liturgical texts. Now the spotlight is on liturgical actions--what people do in worship, how they do it, and what their actions mean. And a comparative dimension is added: no longer looking only at the Christian past, scholars now look at the global present and compare what Christians say and do in worship with analogous actions in various religious and cultural settings.

New perspectives require new methods. Enter ritual studies, a discipline built on methods and insights developed by anthropologists. "Foundations in Ritual Studies" offers an anthropological and theological approach to the study of Christian liturgy, providing key essays for an orientation to this fruitful new approach.

Contributors

Romano Guardini, Mark Searle, and John D. Witvliet on the application of ritual studies to Christian liturgies

Mary Douglas and Victor Turner on the anthropological basis for ritual studies

Nathan D. Mitchell, Ronald L. Grimes, and Catherine Bell on ritual

Margaret Mary Kelleher on liturgical theology