God and Mistery in words

In God and Mystery in Words , David Brown uses the way in which poetry and drama have in the past opened people to the possibility of religious experience as a launch pad for advocating less wooden approaches to Christian worship today. So far, from encouraging imagination and exploration, hymns and sermons now more commonly merely consolidate belief. Again, contemporary liturgy in both its music and its ceremonial fails to take seriously either current dramatic theory or the sociology of ritual. Yet this was not always so. Poetry and drama, Brown suggests, grew out of religion, and therefore that creative potential needs to be rediscovered by religion.

Table of Contents
Introduction
I. Experience through Metaphor
1. Logos and Mystery
2. Metaphor and Disclosure
3. Hymns and Psalms
4. Verbal and Visual Image
II. Experience through Drama
5. Drama and Religion
6. Enactment in Music
7. Performance, Costume, Staging
Conclusion