Memory as Re-Vision: The Religious Significance of Ritual, Liturgy, Rhetoric, and Modern Literature

While much wrk has been done n the significance of the ritual acts themselves (concerning identity,freedom from bondage, return from exile, new covenants, and sacrificial cleansing), the important role of remembering as a religiously beneficial process deserves more attention. The act of remembering is inextricably connected to Judeo-Christian ritual and to religious ritual more generally. It is no less a part of the liturgy and rhetoric of these traditions. The mediation of memory through remembrance functions as the key to the connection between the divine and these three aspects of worship employed by practitioners. The recognizable importance of remembering for religious practitioners and scholars interested in religious processes necessarily develops my questions, They move beyond the static, sometimes unanswerable \u27Why?\u27 that a practitioner can address to God alone, and shift to the perhaps more useful \u27How?\u27 - a question that draws on an infusion of experience and research that both roles can address with valuable perspectives. While it is usual for scholars and general readers to consider the thematic work of religious and secular texts as separate enterprises, asking questions about the importance of remembering can trouble this segregation