Posted on: June 15th, 2012 Liturgy & “the Linguistic Turn” of the 20th Century
In his Literary Criticism Terry Eagleton summarizes (as he alone can do) broad swaths of intellectual development by writing:
The hallmark of the “linguistic revolution” of the 20th century from Saussure to Wittgenstein to contemporary literary theory, is the recognition that “meaning” is not something that is simply “expressed” or “reflected” in language: it is actually produced by it.
For several years now I have been preaching that the same can be said, mutatis mutandis, for liturgy and doctrine or belief.
This epiphany, for me a kind of “liturgical turn,” is a preeminent reason why I needed to leave evangelicalism (in my case, conservative Presbyterianism, which certainly thinks that liturgy should express right belief instead of form or produce right belief) and move to a thoroughly liturgical, sacramental tradition.
