Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals
Weaving Together the Human and the Divine
- Church Leadership & Ministry
- Publisher: Fortress Press (Augsburg Fortress)
- Published: 2019
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Publisher's Description
Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley reveal how when stories and rituals work together, they have the potential to be both mighty and dangerous—mighty in their ability to lift us up and help us make these connections beyond ourselves and dangerous in challenging us to learn to live with complexity and contradiction. Ministers, worship leaders, and pastoral caregivers can use this approach to show how much more meaningful a baptism, wedding, or funeral can be when liturgy is made to include and recognize the personal stories of those involved.
Endorsements (8)
“This rare and provocative book, by two of North America’s foremost scholars in the fields of liturgy and pastoral care, brilliantly and accessibly engages in a much-needed conversation between these disciplines.”
“Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals is a benchmark text for communities of faith and the academy. Already a classic, this masterful wedding of liturgical sensibilities and pastoral practices continues to speak to the needs of people today. Ministry students as well as religious leaders consistently rank this tender yet profound text as a most valuable resource. It will continue to be foundational in my classes.”
“This book conveys a mighty vision! It offers a way of conceptualizing the relationship between ritual and pastoral care that is vital and integrated, as well as concrete strategies for helping persons connect the narratives of their lives with the divine narrative. Both challenging and accessible, accessible, it could be use fruitfully in the congregation as well as in the seminary classroom.”
“An extraordinarily compassionate and accessible book that forges practical and conceptual links between storytelling and ritualizing. This is a work that encourages and enables Christians to reflect more profoundly on the big, obvious transitions such as birth, coming of age, marriages, and death, as well as other little-recognized passages such as divorce, adoption, and leaving home.”
“This explosive mixture of narrative and liturgy has ignited many fires in seminary, church, and community over the years. The book infuses ancient ritual practices with living testimonies and stories, thereby enabling the transformation of personal as well as communal experience. A most enlivening encounter awaits whoever dares enter the creative and imaginative spaces portrayed in these pages.”
“Bonnie Miller-McLemore, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture”
“Joyce Ann Mercer, Horace Bushnell Professor of Christian Nurture Yale Divinity School “For two decades, this book has been a must-read in theological education, and it remains so. Anderson and Foley open a discerning, accessible door into narrative and ritual that remains as welcoming as ever to a new generation of students who care about the way communities creatively sustain a faith heritage that is genuinely responsive to life events, so that everyone’s story has a place.”
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