Saving Images: The Presence of the Bible in Christian Liturgy

by Gordon W. Lathrop

The Protestant Reformation emphasized the centrality of scripture to Christian life; the twentieth-century liturgical movement emphasized the Bible's place at the heart of liturgy. But we have not yet explored the place of the Bible as the subject of critical exegesis in contemporary liturgy, argues Gordon W. Lathrop. He seeks to remedy that lack because it is critical historical scholarship that has shown us the grounding of the text in the life of the assembly and the role of intertextuality in its creation. "Saving" and revitalizing images of the past are at the heart of scripture and are the work of the gathered community. Lathrop finds patterns in biblical narratives that suggest revising our models of the "shape" of liturgy (Dix and Schmemann) and our understanding of baptism, preaching, Eucharist, and congregational prayer. He lifts up the visual imagery at the Dura Europos house church and elsewhere as a corrective to the supersessionist impulse in much Christian typology. He identifies the liturgical imperative as seriousness about the present rather than an effort to dwell in an imagined past. Saving Images is a call for a new, reconceived biblical-liturgical movement that takes seriously both biblical scholarship and the mystery at the heart of worship.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2017

About the author

Gordon W. Lathrop is a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and a retired professor of liturgy. Born in 1939 and educated in Los Angeles, CA (Occidental College), St. Paul, MN (Luther Seminary), and Nijmegen, the Netherlands (the Catholic University of Nijmegen), from 1969-1984 he was parish pastor in Darlington, WI, campus pastor at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, and seminary chaplain at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, IA. After teaching at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia from 1984 until 2004, he was named Professor of Liturgy Emeritus there. From 2006-2012 he was Visiting Professor of Liturgical Studies in Yale Divinity School and the Institute of Sacred Music. In recent years he has taught courses at the St. Thomas Aquinas University in Rome, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark., and here at the Virginia Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books, including Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology (Fortress 1993), Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology (Fortress 1999), Holy Ground: A Liturgical Cosmology (Fortress 2003), The Pastor: A Spirituality (Fortress 2006), and The Four Gospels on Sunday: The New Testament and the Reform of Christian Worship (Fortress 2012). In 1985 he was the President of the North American Academy of Liturgy. In 1994, 1995 and 1997, he was a participant in international Faith and Order meetings on Worship and Christian Unity. In 2011 he received an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Helsinki, Finland. From 2011 until 2013 he was President of Societas Liturgica, the international society of scholars in liturgy. He lives now in Arlington, VA, with his wife. Their children and grandchildren live all over the United States.

He continues to write and teach. His research interests are especially focussed on Bible and liturgy, liturgical theology, and liturgy and ecumenism.