On Earth as in Heaven?

Melanie C. Ross is associate professor of liturgical studies at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School.

"Liturgy is where religion becomes a matter of seeing, touching, and tasting. It is the divine in the tangible creation—with all its messiness and practical demands on us—witnessing to the centrality of our understanding of being the creation within Christian faith. What these fourteen contributions offer us are glimpses into just how material our worship has been, is, and, indeed, must be. This collection is an important antidote to the siren voices of many in our culture who want to imagine worship as some perfect 'otherness' and in doing so only promote a disembodied gnosticism."Thomas O'Loughlin, professor emeritus of historical theology, The University of Nottingham

• ContentsList of Contributors   xiIntroduction   1Melanie C. RossPart One: Bread, Oil, Water, WasteChapter OneTrue Bread: Medieval Patriarchs, Ancient Rabbis, and the Modern Magisterium on Leavening, Fermentation, and Gluten   21Andrew McGowanChapter TwoOleoculture: The Production, Ritual Use, and Reservation of “the Fruit of the Olive” in the Early Church   47Nathan P. ChaseChapter ThreeHydrocapitalist Transubstantiations: Water, Wealth, and the Rite of Christian Baptism   99Adam Vander TuigChapter FourOn Trash and Other Liturgical Things   123Andrew J. M. Irving Part Two: ManuscriptsChapter FiveExpensive Blessings in the Syriac Liturgical Tradition   153Ephrem Aboud IshacChapter SixBeyond the Deluxe: Early Medieval Liturgical Production in “Modest” Manuscripts   181Tyler D. SampsonChapter Seven“To What Purpose Is This Waste?” Luxury Illumination and Utilitarian Decoration in Medieval Mass Books   205Innocent Smith, OPPart Three: Reformation and Early Modern EconomiesChapter EightThe Cost of Practicing Religion   241Esther Chung-KimChapter NineA Clock of Capitalism? The Afterlife of Monastic Time in Reformation Geneva   265Jenny SmithChapter TenChristian Ritual in British Slave Societies, 1650–1780   287Nicholas M. BeasleyChapter ElevenThe Price of Praise: The Musical Environment of the Parishes of Ath, in Hainaut, in the Eighteenth Century   301Brigitte Van Wymeersch Part Four: Contemporary ExplorationsChapter TwelveEnslavement Museums: Pilgrimage, Dark Tourism, and Social Reconciliation   333Kimberly Hope BelcherChapter ThirteenSpotify Thy Name, or Worshipping in the Age of Playlists   355Joshua Kalin BusmanChapter FourteenMass Appeal: Music, Materiality, and the Market in the Postconciliar U.S. Catholic Church   381Antonio Eduardo Alonso