A General Theological Symbolic Structure of Textless Music in Christian Worship

When textless music is performed as a stand-alone act in Christian worship, it can function as a Christian symbol through which meaning can be generated at experiential, reflective, and transformative levels. This article proposes a four-dimensional theological symbolic structure for conceptualizing and heightening the effectiveness of textless music as a Christian symbol in worship. A piece of textless music can take on Christian symbolic capacity in worship by virtue of its specific musical properties and structures interpreted through the lens of human subjectivity formed within a Christian context (incorporating Christian worship), a locus of divine communication. Relevant aspects of the theology of Paul Tillich, Karl Rahner, and Louis-Marie Chauvet, particularly pertaining to symbols, are applied, fitted together, extended, and supplemented to construct and explicate this structure. Deriving from the structure, elements of praxis regarding the selection, contextualization, performance, and reception of pieces are presented for ongoing reflection and development.

Feminist Translation Matters: Reading Fashion, Materiality, and Revolution in the English-Language Translations of Marie Chauvet’s La danse sur le volcan

Al igual que la traductología feminista, los estudios recientes en las intersecciones de las teorías feministas y de la moda ofrecen nuevas formas de pensar la historia de la modernidad, el cuerpo y la comunicación en ámbitos interpersonales y transnacionales. La moda y la traducción comparten atributos similares en el imaginario popular: ambas son ubicuas y muchas veces se perciben como superficiales. Ambas suelen quedar relegadas al ámbito de lo femenino, en el que las labores de self-fashioning, o construcción de la propia imagen pública, y la traducción se consideran derivaciones, triviales o desligadas de lo intelectual. Uniendo el conocimiento feminista de la traducción y los estudios sobre moda para conformar un marco transdisciplinario, este artículo explora el rol del vestido (su producción, materialidad e historia) en el contexto de dos traducciones al inglés de la novela La danse sur le volcan (1957), de la autora haitiana Marie Chauvet (1916-1973). En su análisis de la historia de la traducción de La danse al inglés, este artículo señala que una praxis de traducción literaria feminista transnacional requiere un relacionamiento sostenido con las vidas materiales e imaginadas de los objetos en la longue durée, en particular con artículos de la moda, como bufandas y vestidos.

The Sacrament of Revelation: Toward a Hermeneutics of Nuptial Encounter

This article addresses the notion of sacramentality in relation to revelation, framing revelation as a divine-human discursive encounter facilitated through semantic media. In doing so, it suggests disciplines for theological reflection that would preserve the import of human submission to the Holy Spirit’s guidance in interpreting God’s Word while also envisioning a positive place for subjective construction along that Spirit-led way. The article locates the basic tenets of such a methodological paradigm in the works of Sarah Coakley, Louis-Marie Chauvet, and Rowan Williams. Coakley’s work provides the groundwork for a vision of ecstatic encounter with God as integral to the Spirit-led process of revelation. Next, engagement with Chauvet establishes how mediated revelation may be conceived as a sacramental and dialogical reality, which fundamentally evokes and includes human self-expression. The article closes by drawing upon Williams’ theological reflection on sexuality as a resource for embracing subjective construction, as integral to our Spirit-guided, “nuptial” incorporation into the life of Christ. The results afforded by this analysis warrant spiritual-hermeneutic commitments from communities who desire to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in acts of theological interpretation.

Formation in Christian Worship

In conversation with Oswald Bayer, Bernd Wannenwetsch, and Louis-Marie Chauvet, this chapter explains comprehensively the power of Christian worship ethically to form Christians in union with Christ. Language and ritual theories explain the power of speech and ritual to institute forms or orders of life. Christians who have been united to Christ through God’s justifying word are inaugurated into the ecclesial form of life. In this communion, they are formed by the Holy Spirit to act in accordance with the speech of God and the institution of the Church. Furthermore, as grace-filled speech, preaching and the sacraments form Christians also by the supernatural “inscription” of the Holy Spirit. The particular power of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper to unite Christians to Christ and to each other, and to form Christians ethically, is explored in Luther’s and Philip Melancthon’s writings.

Praying in the Breach: Worshiping through the End of Metaphysics

In recent years, discussion has raged within theologies inspired by Continental philosophy of religion regarding the supposed “overcoming” of ontotheology. In this article, I will consider the theological methodology of Louis-Marie Chauvet, a sacramental theologian whose work has been highly influenced by these discussions. For Chauvet, it is the liturgy that provides human beings with the necessary means, not for overcoming ontotheology, but for learning to livewithit in a healthy way. Through the liturgy, we learn towork throughontotheology, and thus to hear the call of Being to appropriation and thankful response. This is, however, quite a bit to ask of our liturgies, and I suggest that the only way that Chauvet's method can function is if it is placed in a framework of dialogue. I adopt this framework from Chauvet and expand upon it, which results in an innovativerelectureof Chauvet's theology.