Worship as meaning a liturgical theology for late modernity / [electronic resource] :
Graham Hughes.
- Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2003.
- 1 online resource (vii, 330 p.)
- Cambridge studies in Christian doctrine ; 10 .
- Cambridge studies in Christian doctrine ; 10. .
Description based on print version record.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-320) and index.
Meaning in worship -- Meaning and modernity -- Comprehending meaning -- The liturgical sign (i) -- The liturgical sign (ii) -- Sign-production, sign-reception -- Liturgical theology -- At the edge of the known.
How, in this Christian age of belief, can we draw sense from the ritual acts of Christians assembled in worship? Convinced that people shape their meanings from the meanings available to them, Graham Hughes inquires into liturgical constructions of meaning within the larger cultural context of late twentieth-century meaning theory. Major theories of meaning are examined in terms of their contribution or hindrance to this meaning making: analytic philosophy, phenomenology, structuralism and deconstruction. Drawing particularly upon the work of Charles Peirce, Hughes turns to semiotic theory to analyse the construction, transmission and apprehension of meaning within an actual worship service. Finally the book analyses the ways in which various worshipping styles of western Christianity undertake this meaning making.