Towards Liturgies that Reconcile reflects upon Christian worship as it is shaped, and mis-shaped, by human prejudice, specifically by racism. African Americans and European Americans have lived together for 400 years on the continent of North America, but they have done so as slave and master, outsider and insider, oppressed and oppressor. Scott Haldeman traces the development of Protestant worship among whites and blacks, showing that the following exist in tension: African American and European American Protestant liturgical traditions are both interdependent and distinct; and that multicultural communities must both understand and celebrate the uniqueness of various member groups while also accepting the risk and possibility of praying themselves into an integrated body, one new culture.

Towards Liturgies that Reconcile reflects upon Christian worship as it is shaped, and mis-shaped, by human prejudice, specifically by racism. African Americans and European Americans have lived together for 400 years on the continent of North America, but they have done so as slave and master, outsider and insider, oppressed and oppressor. Scott Haldeman traces the development of Protestant worship among whites and blacks, showing that the following exist in tension: African American and European American Protestant liturgical traditions are both interdependent and distinct; and that multicultural communities must both understand and celebrate the uniqueness of various member groups while also accepting the risk and possibility of praying themselves into an integrated body, one new culture.

In 2006, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church called upon the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to develop and revise Reconciliation Rites for the new century. Before the task of drafting liturgical materials for new rites begins, the Commission felt it would be helpful to gather wisdom from the wider Church. This volume is a beginning for this new work in progress. The editor asked a variety of people (lay and ordained and bishops, religious, academics, penitents, developers of new models, people in institutional ministries, people from various cultural and church backgrounds) to address questions, including: In the current rites and practices of reconciliation, what works and what doesn’t? What’s missing? How have the needs for such rites changed? What new sorts of rites might we need? What sort of rites might serve churches in their ethnic diversity?

"How do we think about sacramental reconciliation at this time in history? How do we minister to alienated and inactive Catholics who wish to be reconciled to the church? To begin to answer these questions, ....... [from back cover]

Has sacramental reconciliation disappeared from the horizon of Catholic practice? Has "confession" been extinguished from your practice of the faith? Have you noticed a marked change in the way in which you have become reconciled to God and the Church community over the course of time? These questions and others are addressed in Julia Upton's study of sacramental reconciliation. Her concern is that the sacrament of reconciliation - through which the darkness of sin is illumined by the healing light of Christ's forgiveness - is an endangered species. In sacramental reconciliation the sinner experiences the tender, healing, welcoming embrace of God, which is what Upton regards as endangered. Upton's is a holistic approach to sacramental reconciliation that involves studying data from anthropology, psychology, and sociology, and integrating that with data from Scripture, history, and theology.

A call to rethink the way the church reconciles.

In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the encounter of the penitent with the mercy of God is one of the most transforming moments in the spiritual life of a Catholic. The ritual itself has changed throughout history, but the purpose of the sacrament has remained the same: to seek the forgiveness of the Lord and to renew one’s efforts to live as a faithful and loving disciple of Jesus Christ. This resource provides pastoral insights for celebrating individual confession, communal Reconciliation services, and non-sacramental penance services with attention given to liturgical ministries, liturgical environment, and evangelization