Pentecostal Liturgical Theology: On the Altar, Willed to Pentecost

by Monte Lee Rice, Wolfgang Vondey (Editor), Daniela C. Augustine (Editor)

Overview

This book explores how Pentecostal meaning-full worship frees people into a cosmic liturgy that wills humanity to Pentecost. A liturgical turn has marked recent Pentecostal studies, producing a growing body of liturgical theologies. This cutting edge work analyses four theologians at its forefront: Tanya Riches, Daniela Augustine, Chris E.W. Green, and Wolfgang Vondey. It does so through a "liturgy as primary theology" approach, which defines liturgy as "the church at prayer”. Here, Rice shows how Pentecostal experience clarifies liturgy as the church at prayer on the altar.

Drawing from critical discourse analysis, continental philosophy, and Aristotelian wisdom, this incisive book proceeds by narrating a healing soteriology that makes humanity willed to the common good signified by Pentecost. Working from Walter Hollenweger's insights on the ecumenical promise of Pentecostal liturgy, Rice identifies inclusivity, liberative spirituality, Majority World epistemology, gift-sharing community, and scholarly re-oralization as apt benchmarks for Pentecostal liturgical theology. This inclusive multi-faceted form reveals how Occidental voices dominate the Pentecostal discourse, yet conversely offers augmenting pathways toward a more globally representative theology, summoning the Pentecostal academy to the altar.

The foremost pathway this book presents is its theology of Pentecostal meaning-full worship. Through the lens of liturgy as a cosmic gift economy, Rice shows how Pentecostal meaning-full worship frees people into a cosmic liturgy that wills humanity to Pentecost. Through engaging Ricoeurean/Aristotelian narrative theory, this eye-opening work thus climaxes with a briefly constructed Pentecostal theology of the altar. It shows how Pentecostal meaning-full worship fosters moral formation as worshippers place themselves on the altar of sacrifice, becoming priestly partners with God; fuelling the gift economy that flourishes his household, till all creation be willed to Pentecost.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780567717405
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/20/2025
Series:	T&T Clark Systematic Pentecostal and Charismatic Theology
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Monte Lee Rice is an independent scholar anda Pastor in Pentecostal Christian Community, Assemblies of God, Singapore

Wolfgang Vondey is Professor of Christian Theology and Pentecostal Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK and Director at the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies.

Daniela C. Augustine (DTh, University of South Africa) is a member of the faculty of the University of Birmingham, UK. She has published with focus on public theology, theological ethics, interdisciplinary studies in social transformation, postmodernity, and globalization, theology of economics, and the intersection of religion and culture from Pentecostal and Eastern European perspective. She currently serves as associate editor of the Journal of Pentecostal Theology.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Promise and Problem of World Pentecostal Liturgical Theology

1. Summoning Pathways Toward a World Liturgical Theology Willed to Pentecost

2. What Says the Spirit?: Charting the Liturgical Turn within Pentecostal Studies

3. Mapping the Terrain: Forefront Voices in Pentecostal Liturgical Theology

4. Moving forward through the Hollenwegerian Vision

5. "On the Altar, Catching Fire!" Toward a Pentecostal Theology of the Altar

Conclusion: Becoming The Church at Prayer on the Altar

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

This is a Pentecostal critical theology at its best, opening up new vistas of thought and situating Pentecostal liturgical theology as vocationally empowering both to people worshiping at the altar and those studying what happens at the worship altar in Pentecostal assemblies. Dr. Rice in this book offers the global Pentecostal academy a succinct, searing, sustained, and incisive inquiry into the nature and logics of Pentecostal liturgical theology.” —Nimi Wariboko, Boston University, USA

“Rice makes a convincing case for Liturgical theology as the new frontier of Pentecostal thought. He offers us a compelling vision of ecclesial practices as inviting an increasingly inclusive community of the Spirit to "will itself to Pentecost.” This is an exciting read, creative and filled with insight.” —Frank D. Macchia, Vanguard University, USA and Bangor University, UK

From the Publisher