Liturgy with a Difference: Beyond Inclusion in the Christian Assembly

Christian churches in recent decades have taken some steps in their practices of liturgy and worship toward acknowledging the graced dignity of human variety. But who is still excluded? What pernicious norms still govern below the surface, and how might they be revealed? How do texts, gestures, and space abet and enforce such norms? How might Christian assemblies gather multiple expressions of human difference to propose through Christian liturgy patterns of graced interaction in the world around them?

Stephen Burns is a presbyter in the Church of England and teaches liturgical and practical theology at the University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia, as well as an international research consultant at the Queen's Foundation, Birmingham. His publications include Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives, co-authored with Michael N. Jagessar (2011) and Postcolonial Practice of Ministry, co-edited with Kwok Pui-lan (2016). He is currently co-authoring Riting the Body: Feminist Liturgy--Theology and Practice with Nicola Slee.

Bryan Cones is a presbyter in the Episcopal Church, a former book editor at Liturgy Training Publications, and was managing editor and columnist at U.S. Catholic magazine. He has served as adjunct faculty at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is a doctoral candidate in liturgy and practical theology at the University of Divinity. His most recent publication, "On Not Playing Jesus: The Gendered Liturgical Theology of Presiding," appears in the June 2017 issue of Pacifica, and he is currently co-editing According to All: Catholicity in Postcolonial Perspective.