Reviving Sacred Speech: The Meaning of Liturgical Language (Book)
Gail Ramshaw, Author.  Maryville, TN: OSL Publications, 2000.

Reviving Sacred Speech is a reissue of Gail Ramshaw's earlier book, Christ in Sacred Speech (1985); a section added at the end of each chapter discusses how the author's thoughts on that chapter's topic have evolved over the 15 intervening years.

Ramshaw's main focus is religious metaphor and how it colors our view of the sacred. Sacred speech and liturgical language become her conceptual starting points for a wide-ranging discussion of sacred names, texts, places, images, and objects. She uses metaphor as the unifying principle to explore the impact of sacred language and sacred speech on time, place, and physical objects as parts of the worship experience. Each chapter examines one aspect of worship and the words and metaphors used to engage it.

The book provides useful basic information about metaphor and liturgy. The ambiguity of metaphor is stressed, particularly in the words used to talk about God. Ramshaw notes that metaphor is powerful and enriching, but that not every metaphor can or should be taken literally. Since liturgy combines metaphor and theology, Ramshaw also notes the difficulty entailed in using metaphor to try to "express the inexpressible" while simultaneously confirming "our specific faith in the cross of Jesus." She recommends an approach to the study of liturgy that allows us to arrive at a confession of faith through grace.

This book will be appreciated by people of faith who love words and whose minds are open to new expressions of the sacred in our liturgies and our lives.

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