Political Worship Ethics for Christian Citizens [Hardcover]

How does Christian ethics begin? This pioneering study explores the grammar of the Christian life as it is embodied and learned in worship as the formative experience of Christian communities. In a careful analysis of biblical and traditional conceptions of worship, Wannenwetsch demonstrates how worship challenges the deepest antagonisms in political thought and social practice. Particular worship practices (confession, preaching, praising, intercession, observance of holy days) are examined and their ethical and political significance is explored.

I. Worship as the Beginning of Christian Ethics
1. Political Worship: Overcoming the Functional Approach
2. Worship as a Form of Life: The Grammar of Christian Life
3. Absorptions
4. Worship and Ethics: Their Traditional Correlation
II. Worship as the Critical Power of Christian Ethics: Christian Citizens in a Torn and Divided World
i. Worship as the Praxis of Reconciliation
1. The Political Dimension of the Church: Modern and Postmodern
2. The Surmounting of Political Antinomies in Worship
ii. Worship Identity in (Post)modern Society
1. The Total Claim of Society
2. The Worshipping Congregation as a True Public
III. Worship as Formative Power in Christian Ethics
1. Hearing in Community: The Political Power of the Word
2. Consensus and Forgiveness
3. Homiletics as Political Propadeutics
4. Life out of Abundance

The text is carefully researched, using a wide variety of classic and contemporary sources to advance its claims. Extensive notes, bibliography, and index make it a useful reference tool for further study. --Anglican Theological Review

Bernd Wannenwetschis University Lecturer in Ethics in the Theology Faculty, University of Oxford.