Worship in the Network Culture

Liturgical Ritual Studies. Fields and Methods, Concepts and Metaphors

by J. Cilliers, C. Wepener and M. Barnard

Book cover: Worship in the Network Culture

Extent: 421 pages

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Subjects: Religious Studies

Series: Liturgia Condenda

Series volume number: 28

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(May 2014)

ISBN: 9789042930698

Price: $80.00

In stock

The first part of this book maps and explores the field of liturgical ritual studies. The second part of the book takes a first step in the process of conceptualization and elaborates on the sensitizing concept of liminality. In part three various aspects of the field are elaborated on in six double perspectives.


Worship signifies a wide field of liturgical ritual practices that extend from the Sunday morning service in a mainline church through a worship service in an African Independent Church to Christian ritual on the internet and cultural ritual-symbolic practices. Solid and solidified concepts are no longer sufficient for the study of this liquid field. This book approaches liturgical ritual from a different perspective. The first part of this book maps and explores the field of liturgical ritual studies. The second part of the book takes a first step in the process of conceptualisation and elaborates on the sensitising concept of liminality. In part three various aspects of the field are elaborated on in six double perspectives: bricolage/particularity, language/silence, image/sound, embodiment/performance, play/function, time/space. Part four reviews the road that the book has covered to this point from the two theological perspectives that characterise Protestant worship: Sacrament/Word and Prayer/Worship.

  • By (author) M Barnard
  • By (author) J Cilliers
  • By (author) C Wepener

"...Barnard, Cilliers and Wepener explore key concepts in liturgical ritual studies, and engage with important debates. Ten years of research has yielded rich fruit... This book should be a staple in the diet of anyone who studies liturgical ritual." A.L. van Ommen, Journal of Empirical Theology, 28 (2015)
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