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Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives
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Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 August 2019) | Viewed by 43348

Printed Edition Available!
A printed edition of this Special Issue is available here.

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Bruce T. Morrill

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Edward A. Malloy Chair of Catholic Studies; Professor of Theological Studies, Divinity School, Vanderbilt University, South Nashville, TN 37240-1121, USA
Interests: sacraments; liturgy; pneumatology; political theology

Special Issue Information

In the second half of the twentieth century, sacrament emerged as a vital topic within the ressourcement movements of Western European Catholic theology. Scholarship attentive to multiple sources in early Christianity—philosophical, homiletic, liturgical, pastoral—rescued sacramental symbol and ritual from merely being the object of clerical ministration, passive lay reception, and canonical regulation to becoming a key to understanding divine-human encounter in the mission of the church and the lives of its members. Recovering the ancient, as well as best of medieval, theology of sacramental rites as sacred mysteries, European and North American theologians enlisted contemporary phenomenological and hermeneutical philosophies to explain and promote sacraments not as clerically delivered objects but, rather, as profound human symbolic events of divine revelation. By the turn of the twenty-first century the need for attention to the actual performance of specific rites (and thus, the need for historical, social-scientific, and other human disciplines in addition to philosophy) had become well established. This now makes the work of sacramental theology an ongoing attention to multi-or-cross-disciplinary theories attentive to actual contexts (historical and contemporary) of sacramental-liturgical practices. Insofar as Christian sacraments only exist in symbolic-ritual performances, the field of liturgical studies (itself multidisciplinary, including ritual and performance theories) has proven increasingly integral to sacramental-theological work. Attention to historical and actual practices of Christian symbol and ritual (liturgy and sacraments) nonetheless returns continuously to philosophical-theological theories that meet the intellectual need to reflect upon divine presence and absence, personal and communal experiences of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, scripture and tradition, the ecclesial or communal dimension of sacramental celebrations, types of power at work in the rites, liturgical participation, etc. Thus, sacramental theology proves expansive in the range of Christian existence it addresses, even as the bodily nature of the subject matter requires constant theoretical reconsiderations attentive to historical, social, and cultural contexts.

Dear Colleagues,

From the second half of the twentieth century sacramental theology has continued to evolve as a discipline advancing both comprehensive theories (theologies) of sacraments and sacramentality as integral to the nature and practice of Christianity and studies of particular rites in their historical, social, cultural, and embodied contexts. By the turn of the twenty-first century the need for attention to the actual performance of specific rites (and thus, the need for historical, social-scientific, and other human disciplines in addition to philosophy) had become well established. This now makes the work of sacramental theology an ongoing attention to multi-or-cross-disciplinary theories attentive to actual contexts (historical and contemporary) of sacramental-liturgical practices. Insofar as Christian sacraments only exist in symbolic-ritual performances, the field of liturgical studies (itself multidisciplinary, including ritual and performance theories) has proven increasingly integral to sacramental-theological work. Attention to historical and actual practices of Christian symbol and ritual (liturgy and sacraments) nonetheless returns continuously to philosophical-theological theories that meet the intellectual need to reflect upon the divine-human encounter both within ecclesial rites themselves and across the range of bodily (physical, cultural, traditional) ways Christians practice their faith in the world. This special issue of Religions invites scholars to contribute further to the sacramental theology by any of the above, ever-evolving, disciplinary approaches (or combinations thereof). Articles may address the concept of sacrament comprehensively or through focus on particular rites (in historical or contemporary contexts, or combinations thereof).

Prof. Dr. Bruce Morrill
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sacraments
  • sacramentality
  • liturgy
  • phenomenology
  • symbols
  • ritual
  • Christianity

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 243 KiB  
Article
Between the Center and the Margins: Young Catholics, “Sorta-Catholics,” and Baptismal Identity
by Rhodora Beaton
Religions 2019, 10(9), 512; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10090512 - 3 Sep 2019
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2712
Abstract
Increased pastoral and theological attention to the vocational implications of baptism is sorely needed. As a small contribution to this conversation, this article will examine the insights of young Catholics and their self-described “former Catholic” peers (ages 15–29) regarding key aspects of the [...] Read more.
Increased pastoral and theological attention to the vocational implications of baptism is sorely needed. As a small contribution to this conversation, this article will examine the insights of young Catholics and their self-described “former Catholic” peers (ages 15–29) regarding key aspects of the Christian life. These insights offer a foundation for evolving understandings of baptismal identity at both the center and the margins of the church. Two recent efforts to formally solicit the opinions of young people will be examined. They are the Pre-Synodal preparations for the 2018 Synod on Young People and the recent study, published by Saint Mary’s Press in collaboration with the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) under the title Going, Going Gone: The Dynamics of Disaffiliation in Young Catholics. The responses from these young people, placed in conversation with recent theological work on baptism and the lay vocation, offer possibilities for consideration as Catholics ponder the changing demographics of the Church. The conclusion will argue for the urgent necessity of listening to these voices and will suggest that a mystagogical approach offers one helpful path towards a deeper understanding and practice of the baptismal vocation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives)
11 pages, 193 KiB  
Article
Creaturely Communal Ontology in Practice: John Zizioulas in Dialogue with Ritual Theory
by John W. Compton IV
Religions 2019, 10(9), 506; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10090506 - 28 Aug 2019
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3243
Abstract
This article is born out of a deep concern for our current ecological crisis and serves as a beginning foundational work for how the Christian tradition can address global climate change. Our current way of being gives precedence to the autonomous individual, whose [...] Read more.
This article is born out of a deep concern for our current ecological crisis and serves as a beginning foundational work for how the Christian tradition can address global climate change. Our current way of being gives precedence to the autonomous individual, whose freedom is characterized by disregard for other creatures. John Zizioulas’ communal ontology demonstrates that as the world was created out of God’s loving will, it is comprised of relationship. Living into individuation and division is a refusal of this communion with other creatures and God, but the Eucharist serves as the ritual that brings Christians into communion through the remembrance of Christ. Ian McFarland’s work on the theology of creation provides the helpful nuance that creaturely movement in communion must include the full diversity of creatures. I then turn to Bruce Morrill’s work to demonstrate that the Eucharistic practice must have bearing beyond the walls of the church. It leads practitioners to live into eschatological hope and kenotic service to the world. John Seligman’s ritual theory demonstrates that ritual practice can accomplish these goals because it creates a subjunctive ‘as-if’ world in the face of the world that is perceived as chaotic. Through the continuous practice of the ritual, participants are then formed to live into this subjunctive ‘as-if’ world without ritual precedence. In this way, the Eucharistic practice can prepare practitioners to live into the kenotic service to a world broken by individuation that has led to global climate change and creaturely destruction. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives)
13 pages, 233 KiB  
Article
The Sacrament of Revelation: Toward a Hermeneutics of Nuptial Encounter
by Lauren Smelser White
Religions 2019, 10(9), 495; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10090495 - 22 Aug 2019
Viewed by 2826
Abstract
This article addresses the notion of sacramentality in relation to revelation, framing revelation as a divine-human discursive encounter facilitated through semantic media. In doing so, it suggests disciplines for theological reflection that would preserve the import of human submission to the Holy Spirit’s [...] Read more.
This article addresses the notion of sacramentality in relation to revelation, framing revelation as a divine-human discursive encounter facilitated through semantic media. In doing so, it suggests disciplines for theological reflection that would preserve the import of human submission to the Holy Spirit’s guidance in interpreting God’s Word while also envisioning a positive place for subjective construction along that Spirit-led way. The article locates the basic tenets of such a methodological paradigm in the works of Sarah Coakley, Louis-Marie Chauvet, and Rowan Williams. Coakley’s work provides the groundwork for a vision of ecstatic encounter with God as integral to the Spirit-led process of revelation. Next, engagement with Chauvet establishes how mediated revelation may be conceived as a sacramental and dialogical reality, which fundamentally evokes and includes human self-expression. The article closes by drawing upon Williams’ theological reflection on sexuality as a resource for embracing subjective construction, as integral to our Spirit-guided, “nuptial” incorporation into the life of Christ. The results afforded by this analysis warrant spiritual-hermeneutic commitments from communities who desire to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in acts of theological interpretation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives)
10 pages, 315 KiB  
Article
Sacramentality, Chaos Theory and Decoloniality
by Edward Foley
Religions 2019, 10(7), 418; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10070418 - 5 Jul 2019
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3738
Abstract
This essay considers how an expanded understanding of sacramentality is enhanced by engagement with chaos theory and decolonial theory. These unique lenses enlarge traditional Roman Catholic frameworks for considering God’s self-communication through sacramental action as well as the agency of ordinary believers and [...] Read more.
This essay considers how an expanded understanding of sacramentality is enhanced by engagement with chaos theory and decolonial theory. These unique lenses enlarge traditional Roman Catholic frameworks for considering God’s self-communication through sacramental action as well as the agency of ordinary believers and even non-believers in the sacramental enterprise. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives)
15 pages, 5054 KiB  
Article
Pansacramentalism, Interreligious Theology, and Lived Religion
by Hans Gustafson
Religions 2019, 10(7), 408; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10070408 - 28 Jun 2019
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4800
Abstract
Opening with a philosophical definition of sacrament(ality) as a mediator (mediation) of the sacred in the concrete world, this article offers pansacramentalism as a promising worldview—especially for those rooted in or emerging from the Christian traditions (since, for them, the language of sacramentality [...] Read more.
Opening with a philosophical definition of sacrament(ality) as a mediator (mediation) of the sacred in the concrete world, this article offers pansacramentalism as a promising worldview—especially for those rooted in or emerging from the Christian traditions (since, for them, the language of sacramentality may have a stronger resonance)—for bringing together interreligious theology and data mined by Lived Religion approaches to the study of religion. After articulating the concept of pansacramentalism and emphasizing interreligious theology as an emerging model for doing theology, growing trends and changing sensibilities among young people’s religious and spiritual lives (e.g., the “Nones”) is considered insofar as such trends remain relevant for making contemporary theology accessible to the next generation. The article then considers the intersection of pansacramentalism and interreligious theology, especially the issue of determining sacramental authenticity. To explain how this challenge might be met, Abraham Heschel’s theology of theomorphism is offered as but one example as a nuanced means for determining sacramental authenticity of the sacred in the world. Turning to “Lived Religion” approaches, rationale is offered for why pansacramentalism and interreligious theology ought to be taken seriously in the contemporary world, especially considering recent data about the nature of contemporary religious identities among young people living in the West. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives)
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11 pages, 215 KiB  
Article
Drones and Eucharist
by Jason M. Smith
Religions 2019, 10(7), 407; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10070407 - 28 Jun 2019
Viewed by 3452
Abstract
In the post-9/11 world, the use of drone strikes has become a critical aspect of U.S. Military strategy in the War on Terror. While the ethics of drones have been argued from a theological perspective, this essay argues that a deeper, more theoretical [...] Read more.
In the post-9/11 world, the use of drone strikes has become a critical aspect of U.S. Military strategy in the War on Terror. While the ethics of drones have been argued from a theological perspective, this essay argues that a deeper, more theoretical understanding of drones is necessary in order to mount an adequate theological response. The author argues that the particular epistemological foundations by which drone strikes are justified must be given a theological corrective and that the Eucharist is the site for such a correction. This essay ultimately argues that the Eucharist shows the epistemology that undergirds the use of drones to be severely lacking and that under the judgment of the Eucharist the use of such technology is incompatible with the identity of the Church. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives)
20 pages, 300 KiB  
Article
Obedience as Belonging: Catholic Guilt and Frequent Confession in America
by Jonathan Stotts
Religions 2019, 10(6), 370; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10060370 - 5 Jun 2019
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 8652
Abstract
From the late 19th to the mid-20th century, the practice of private confession to a priest was a mainstay of Catholic parish life in the United States. By the 1970s, Catholics had largely abandoned the practice of private confession. One dominant narrative among [...] Read more.
From the late 19th to the mid-20th century, the practice of private confession to a priest was a mainstay of Catholic parish life in the United States. By the 1970s, Catholics had largely abandoned the practice of private confession. One dominant narrative among Catholic theologians and clergy, identified chiefly with the papacy of John Paul II, attributes the decline in confession to the loss of healthy guilt that took place during the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. In conversation with the work of psychologist and philosopher Antoine Vergote, the present article challenges this narrative, arguing that a collective and unhealthy Catholic guilt existed among American Catholics well before the 1960s and in fact characterized the period in which private confession was practiced most frequently. I contend that obedience to moral prescriptions was not, for ordinary Catholics, part of an ethical program of self-reform but the condition for belonging to a church body that emphasized obedience. Finally, examining the relationship between weekly reception of communion and confession, I suggest that private confession emerged to support frequent communion, persisting only until the latter became standard practice among Catholics in the United States. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives)
13 pages, 204 KiB  
Article
Converting Consumerism: A Liturgical-Ethical Application of Critical Realism
by Benjamin Durheim
Religions 2019, 10(5), 338; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10050338 - 24 May 2019
Viewed by 3093
Abstract
Critical realism as a lens of thought is not new to theological inquiry, but recently a growing number of theologians have been using its conceptual frameworks to guide their thought on how social structures function theologically, and how ethics might function in light [...] Read more.
Critical realism as a lens of thought is not new to theological inquiry, but recently a growing number of theologians have been using its conceptual frameworks to guide their thought on how social structures function theologically, and how ethics might function in light of its insights. This article pulls these developments into the nexus of liturgy and ethics, applying critical realist categories to contemporary understandings of how liturgical celebration (and the structures thereof) form, inform, and/or malform Christian ethical imaginations and practices. The article begins with a brief survey of the main tenets of critical realism and their histories in theological inquiry, and argues that a main gift critical realism can offer liturgical and sacramental theology is a structural understanding of liturgical narrative- and value-building. Having described this gift, the article moves to a concrete application of this method in liturgical theology and its implications for ethics: addressing consumerism as a culture that can be both validated and challenged by liturgical and sacramental structures. The article ends with some brief suggestions for using and shifting liturgical structures to better facilitate the Christian conversion of consumerism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives)
18 pages, 279 KiB  
Article
Mystery Manifested: Toward a Phenomenology of the Eucharist in Its Liturgical Context
by Christina M. Gschwandtner
Religions 2019, 10(5), 315; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10050315 - 9 May 2019
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4662
Abstract
This article explores three contemporary phenomenological analyses of the Eucharist by the French phenomenologists Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Yves Lacoste, and Emmanuel Falque, arguing that their descriptions are too excessive and individual, failing to take into account the broader liturgical context for eucharistic experience. The [...] Read more.
This article explores three contemporary phenomenological analyses of the Eucharist by the French phenomenologists Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Yves Lacoste, and Emmanuel Falque, arguing that their descriptions are too excessive and individual, failing to take into account the broader liturgical context for eucharistic experience. The second part of the discussion seeks to develop an alternate phenomenological account of eucharistic experience that takes Eucharist seriously as a corporeal and communal phenomenon that is encountered within a liturgical horizon and which requires a liturgical intentionality to be prepared for and directed toward it. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives)
14 pages, 236 KiB  
Article
The Epic of Evolution and a Theology of Sacramental Ecology
by David C. McDuffie
Religions 2019, 10(4), 244; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10040244 - 1 Apr 2019
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4034
Abstract
The ‘Epic of Evolution’ is the scientific story that reveals that we live in an approximately 14-billion-year-old universe on a planet that is approximately 4.6 billion years old and that we are a part of the ongoing process of life that has existed [...] Read more.
The ‘Epic of Evolution’ is the scientific story that reveals that we live in an approximately 14-billion-year-old universe on a planet that is approximately 4.6 billion years old and that we are a part of the ongoing process of life that has existed on Earth for 3.5–4 billion years. This article focuses on the religious and ecological significance of the evolutionary epic in an effort to seamlessly connect the ecological value attributed as a part of an understanding of the evolutionary connectedness of life on earth with the Divine grace understood to be present in Christian sacramental worship. With a particular emphasis on the Eucharist, I argue that the sacramental perspective of grace being conveyed through material reality provides the potential for Christian sacramental tradition to make a significant contribution to protecting the threatened ecological communities of our planet. By incorporating William Temple’s concept of a ‘sacramental universe,’ I propose that the grace that is understood to be present in the substances of the bread and wine of the Eucharist points outward so that it can also be witnessed in all of God’s ongoing Creation. When the Eucharist is understood as taking place in a sacramental universe from which ecological grace flows; the incarnation can be recognized not as a one-time event but as an ongoing sacramental process through which God is revealed through the perpetual emergence of life. Consequently, as the primary form of sacramental worship in Christian tradition, the Eucharistic witness to the incarnation of God in Jesus and thanksgiving for life overcoming death provide Christians with a ritual orientation for recognizing the incarnational presence of God as an ever-present reality potentially witnessed in all that is. Therefore, the formal sacrament of the Eucharist is a part of a broader sacramental ecology of earthly life in which the presence of Divine grace can be witnessed in all aspects of the natural order. As a result, connecting Eucharistic grace with the value associated with an awareness of the ecological and genetic connectedness of all forms of life serves as a mutual enrichment of sacramental tradition and contemporary efforts to protect life on Earth. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacramental Theology: Theory and Practice from Multiple Perspectives)
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