The Rites and Wrongs of Liturgy: Why Good Liturgy Matters

by Thomas O'Loughlin

Publisher:

Liturgical Press

, 2018

Overview

We all want to celebrate the liturgy well, to experience good, uplifting, and meaningful worship. But what is the best route to follow? In The Rites and Wrongs of Liturgy, Thomas O’Loughlin offers a way forward that strengthens faith, builds up Christian community, and points toward a new direction based on liturgical principles that are rooted in our natures as ritual beings as well as in the gospel.

The Rites and Wrongs of Liturgy explains why good liturgy is important, how to recognize it, and how to assess liturgy in terms of a larger vision of the Christian life. O’Loughlin, a seasoned theologian and teacher, identifies ten principles that make for good liturgy. Such liturgy must be honest, open, joyful, inclusive, celebrative of community, facilitative of engagement, based in creation, attentive to the marginalized, free of clutter, and true to the pattern of the incarnation.

Since good celebrations build faith and bad liturgy weakens it, these principles promise to bring new life and meaning to every celebrating community.

Product Details

• Title: The Rites and Wrongs of Liturgy: Why Good Liturgy Matters
• Author: Thomas O'Loughlin
• Publisher: Liturgical Press
• Print Publication Date: 2018
• Logos Release Date: 2024
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subjects: Liturgics; Rites and ceremonies; Public worship
• ISBNs: 9780814645888, 9780814645635, 0814645887, 0814645631
• Resource ID: LLS:RTSWRNGSLTMTTRS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-08-28T21:16:39Z

About Thomas O'Loughlin

Thomas O'Loughlin, BA, Phil, PhD, STB, and DD, is a professor of historical theology at the University of Nottingham, Faculty of Arts, UK. But he started his teaching career at University College Dublin.

While researching his MPhil and, later, his PhD at Dublin, he held several positions, instructing in church history, traditional logic, the history of theology, and patristics. This experience gave him perspective on his research topics and pressed him to reflect on his personal theological method. In so doing, he recognized that while others might value his teaching as "the history of theology" or "the history of ideas," his desire to teach and research was rooted in what he calls "the discipline and perspective of historical theology."

He was offered a position in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Wales, Lampeter, in January 1997, which he says allowed him to develop "a distinctive style of historical theology focused on the dynamics of tradition within theology." His work there led to his appointment as Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Wales in February 2006 and being awarded a DD by Bangor University in 2010. He was later made scholar at the School of Religious Studies at the University of Wales—the school's first professor of historical theology.

He joined Nottingham in 2009. His research has focused on the early medieval period and the works of insular writers. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and the Royal Historical Society.

O'Loughlin is also a Catholic priest. In addition to The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians, O'Loughlin authored Saint Patrick: The Man and His Works, Missionary Monks: An Introduction to the History and Theology of Missionary Monasticism, and The Eucharist.