“The Neighbourhood Has Changed: Cosmological Implications for Christian Worship”

In 2016, by a strange turn of events, I was invited to present at the McGill University CREOR (Centre for Research on Religion) conference, an annual inter-disciplinary gathering called "Frontiers." The topic that year was right up my alley: "Cosmos, Curiosity, Creativity." All presentations -- some of them in the realm of astrophysics -- were riffs on the following statement: Human cultures approach religious questions in ways informed by their cosmologies and vice versa, in the imaginative work of public and private world-building.

Here's the abstract for my presentation:

“The Neighbourhood Has Changed: Cosmological Implications for Christian Worship”

In the introduction to his book Holy Ground: A Liturgical Cosmology, liturgical scholar Gordon Lathrop asks, "If we know that human ritual almost always carries cosmological implications . . . then what sort of 'cosmos' . . . does Christian liturgy imply?" What if ancient Christian liturgical practices such as baptism and Communion embraced the implications of contemporary discoveries within evolutionary biology, quantum physics and astrophysics? What might an updated liturgical cosmology look like? Could it be supported biblically? Sheryl Spencer believes that new understandings in science and theology demand an urgently needed cosmic re-orientation, a re-orientation that must be expressed in Christian worship and liturgical practices that emphasize relationality and interconnectedness, and, most importantly, express awe and wonder. Sheryl Spencer is a minister in the United Church of Canada. Her M.Div. thesis is entitled, "Worship for an Evolutionary Church."