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Say the words "evangelical worship" to anyone in the United States -- even if they are not particularly religious -- and a picture will likely spring to mind unbidden: a mass of white middle-class worshippers with eyes closed, faces tilted upward, and hands raised to the sky. Weaving together insights from American religious history and liturgical studies, and drawing on extensive fieldwork in seven congregations, Melanie C. Ross brings contemporary evangelical worship to life. Critics have underestimated evangelical worship, seeing it as little more than a manipulative effort to arouse devotional exhilaration. This book will irrevocably change that interpretation, revealing worship to be the site where congregations forge, argue over, and enact their unique contributions to the American mosaic known as evangelicalism.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: The Significance of Evangelical Worship
- Part I: Constancy versus Change
- Chapter 1: "My Worship Has Been Hijacked": Forty Years of Worship Wars
- Chapter 2: "Stately and Set Apart": Upholding Tradition in Boston
- Chapter 3: "Suddenly We're in a Different Era": Navigating Transition in Chicago
- Chapter 4: "Something Better Has Come Along": Championing Innovation in Atlanta
- Part II: Consensus versus Contestation
- Chapter 5: "How Can We Catch Fire?": Prophecy and Activism in the Vineyard
- Chapter 6: "You Can't Make Me Sing": Resisting Authority in Portland
- Chapter 7: "Not to Sing is to Disobey": Submitting to Paradox in Nashville
- Part III: Sameness versus Difference
- Chapter 8: "One Voice in Many Languages": Pentecostal Praises in the American Southwest
- Chapter 9: "Navigating the Beautiful Tension": New Frontiers in Evangelical Worship
- Appendix A: Research Methods
- Appendix B: Demographic Information
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Melanie C. Ross is Associate Professor of Liturgical Studies at Yale Divinity School and Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Her research lies at the intersection of ecumenical liturgical theology, North American evangelicalism, and the worship practices of contemporary congregations.
Summary
Say the words
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Ross's book also does something that almost no scholarly work on the history of evangelicalism ever does: discuss what happens in actual church services.... I am only scratching the surface here regarding the rich detail that Ross's book reveals about evangelical worship culture in the U.S.... Read Professor Ross's outstanding book.
