No description available.

The Christian Church, speaking both to its members and to all humankind, proposes, commonly, that human beings are required to offer acts of prayer and worship to God. However much Christian theologians approach the place of prayer and worship in the life of human beings it is not evident that they commonly question the notion that human beings are required to offer prayer and worship to God. In this study I have examined directly, in a manner which is not explicitly and commonly evident within Christian theology, some of the ways in which we might approach the notion that human beings are required to offer acts of prayer and worship to God. The core of this study is an examination of a series of texts drawn from the thirteenth century to the present day which, I show, do offer elements of an answer to my question. I explore the answers I can derive from the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, from English and Scottish philosophers and from English devotional writings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, from Kant, from a series of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers, and from Christian resources of the twentieth and twenty first century. I examine the terms within which the notion of the requirement to offer prayer and worship to God is most commonly set and I explore the ways in which these terms are commonly approached among twentieth century philosophers. Finally, I offer elements of my own approach to the question' Are human beings required to offer acts of prayer and worship to God?'

A study of the comprehensive understanding of worship in the New Testament, according to which corporate worship is the center - not less than the center, but also only the center - of the whole worship Christians owe to God, while holiness, love and witness to Christ in all circumstances of life are the context both necessary to and dependent upon that center. This new and greater way of worship, ethical-missionary in character and ruled by the New Testament spirit of conscious and responsible freedom, replaced the cultic worship of the Old Testament law, thus being deprived of holy places, times, intermediating authorities and rites. The logic of service to God through service to people is explored. And a misunderstanding of the role of the old cultic order in God's pedagogy of revelation is alleged to be the reason why this worship pattern has long been ignored by the churches in general. / Sys Theology & Theol Ethics / MTH (SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY)

A study of the comprehensive understanding of worship in the New Testament, according to which corporate worship is the center - not less than the center, but also only the center - of the whole worship Christians owe to God, while holiness, love and witness to Christ in all circumstances of life are the context both necessary to and dependent upon that center. This new and greater way of worship, ethical-missionary in character and ruled by the New Testament spirit of conscious and responsible freedom, replaced the cultic worship of the Old Testament law, thus being deprived of holy places, times, intermediating authorities and rites. The logic of service to God through service to people is explored. And a misunderstanding of the role of the old cultic order in God's pedagogy of revelation is alleged to be the reason why this worship pattern has long been ignored by the churches in general. / Sys Theology and Theol Ethics / MTH (SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY)

The establishment of a new concept of intercessory prayer, from an activity sought of the individual holy man to an occupation characterizing an entire monastic community, has recently received much attention; historians have shown that the function of intercession had become, by the Carolingian period, the pre-eminent feature of early medieval monasticism. The role of early medieval monasteries as powerhouses of prayer has encouraged scholarly attention along two particular areas of interest: intercession within the system of medieval patronage and gift exchange, and monastic ritual elaboration. Missing in the main historiographical approaches is discussion concerning the place of intercessory prayer within the monastic ideal. This study therefore asks the central question, ‘What was the relationship between the intercessory function of monasticism and the ascetic concern for moral conversion in the time of the reforms of Benedict of Aniane, c. 750-820?’ The writings of Carolingian monastic reformers demonstrate that the chief concern of the monk was to seek and find perfection in God; it is the argument of this study that the elaborate liturgical intercession which characterized early medieval monasticism was coherent with this goal. The Introduction sets out to establish the continuity of the ascetic pursuit in the Carolingian monastic ideal with earlier monasticism. We then order our investigation by: i) proposing that monastic liturgical organization was meant to address the fundamental problem of human sin which impedes fruitful prayer, and that the additions of intercessory liturgy made by Benedict of Aniane should be seen as part of his pastoral concern for the holiness of monks (Chapter 1); ii) situating the specific intercessory performances of monastic communities – namely, the intercessory Mass and the Divine Office – within Carolingian monastic theology (Chapters 2 and 3); iii) examining how the prayer directed toward two groups of beneficiaries of intercession – fellow monks and rulers – was grounded on the the ascetic goals of moral conversion and pilgrimage toward the celestial kingdom (Chapters 4 and 5); and iv) addressing the question of what role Carolingian monastics meant for their intercessory prayers to play in society at large, and the extent to which general social concern was a priority in monastic intercession (Chapter 6). This study provides a detailed description of the ascetic ideal required for understanding the formalized ritual and patronized prayer of monasteries within its proper sphere of monastic spirituality. I conclude in particular that the increasing importance of monastic intercession was related to a heightened emphasis in Carolingian spiritual thought on the teleological theme of transformation both individual and cosmic. The intercessory function of early medieval monasticism suggests an incorporation of the spiritual pilgrimage of the wider world into the monk’s own individual discipline, and tied the monk’s ascesis to the larger story of the conversion of the world to God.