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Formation for Worship

The Christian faith does not terminate in propositions about God. This conviction comes through loud and clear in James K. A. Smith’s recently completed three-volume work, Cultural Liturgies. Smith’s trilogy may be read as a friendly yet firm word of ­caution to his Reformed . . . . Continue Reading »

Pro-Life Liturgy

An icon of the Annunciation appears on the central altar doors of every Orthodox Christian church. The “royal doors” are double doors, so the icon is a diptych, with Gabriel on the left and Mary on the right. As a young child, I found the movement of this icon mesmerizing as the doors opened and . . . . Continue Reading »

Liturgy and Laity

Una Voce:  The History of the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce by leo darroch  gracewing, 504 pages, $35 In 1965, Evelyn Waugh wrote to the archbishop of Westminster of the growing tide of liturgical changes: “Every attendance at Mass leaves me without comfort or edification. I shall . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

PROTESTANT PARANOIA? R. R. Reno confirms Samuel Gregg’s suspicion that First Things is tempering its embrace of free markets (“Building Bridges, Not Walls,” November). Perhaps he can confirm—or deny—whether the journal is also rethinking its commitment to the free exercise of . . . . Continue Reading »

Thus Saith the Lord

One Sunday in high school, we went to the Anglo-Catholic parish where my headmaster served as an assistant priest. Catechized by evangelical Episcopalians and Presbyterians, I believed that the Bible was divinely inspired by God. But I had never seen it treated as such in a physical or ritual way. . . . . Continue Reading »

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