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Robert Louis Wilken has a very fine piece on the "church's way of speaking" in the Aug/Sept issue of First Things. He points out that the church's faith is not merely "doctrinal propositions, creedal affirmations, and moral codes" but "a world of discourse that comes to us in language of a particular sort." Further, "Christian speech is not primarily the technical vocabulary of Christian doctrine" but "the language of the Psalms, the stories of the patriarchs, the parables of the gospels, the moral vocabulary of St Paul's epistles." When we employ the church's speech, drawn from Scripture, "we learn to live together as a community, to breathe in harmony. We learn to think the Church's thoughts, share its loves, and live by its precepts." As a city, the church has its own language that marks it from other cities: "And, like a city, the Church draws its citizens into a shared public life, one marked by its central cultic activity, the Eucharist, and by other rituals, such as Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, and Corpus Christi. The Christian society has its own calendar that sets the rhythms of the community's life, offices, institutions, laws, architecture, art, and music, its own customs and mores, history and memory." (OK, I was with him except for Corpus Christi.)
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 14, 2005 at 10:00 PM
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Brazos Theological Commentary
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From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
