Evangelicals, Worship and Participation Taking a Twenty-First Century Reading [Hardcover]

In discussions of worship, the term participation covers a lot of ground. It refers not only to concrete acts in gathered liturgy, but also to some of the loftiest claims of Christian theology. In this book, Alan Rathe probes the ways in which North American evangelicals have in recent years regarded the landscape of participation. Rathe presents a broad review of evangelical worship literature through a lens borrowed from medieval theology. This brings into surprising focus not only evangelical understandings but also evangelical identities and the historical traditions they reflect, and offers fresh perspectives on such current theological concerns as Gods triunity, missio Dei, and the practical theology of participation. Offering a fresh contribution to a young but important discipline, the liturgically-informed study of evangelical worship practice, this book reconnects the evangelical tradition to the Great Tradition and in the process re-appropriates classic concepts that are full of promise for contemporary ecumenical dialogue.Contents: Foreword, John D. Witvliet; Introduction; The landscape: what exactly is an evangelical?; The literature: which books to consider?; The lens: 'what language shall I borrow?'; The all-of-life emphasis; The gathered devotion emphasis; The sacramental recovery emphasis; The evangelistic worship emphasis; The organically missional emphasis; Summarizing and analyzing; Reflections (part 1): the enduring past, the surprising present; Reflections (part 2): the (un)foreseeable future; Appendices; Select bibliography; Index.Alan Rathe earned his PhD in Liturgical Studies from Drew University (Madison, New Jersey, USA). The recipient of numerous academic awards, he has taught seminary worship studies for the past decade, currently at Asbury Theological Seminary (Wilmore, KY). During that time he has also served as worship pastor for a multicultural, evangelical urban church in Flushing, New York. He seeks to bridge his traininlÈ