Mystagogy of the Unauthorized

The issue of Liturgy entitled “Future Renewals: Looking Toward the Next Fifty Years of Worship Scholarship and Practice,” was co-edited by Andrew Wymer, vice-president of the Liturgical Conference board and professor of worship at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and me. We solicited essays from a range of members of the North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL) looking at what has changed in liturgical scholarship and liturgical practice in the years since NAAL was founded in response to the Second Vatican Council.

Here is an excerpt from David Turnbloom’s essay focusing on teaching the mysteries of faith to undergraduate students rather than attempting to feed young people ideas to memorize. –– Melinda Quivik

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Mystagogy is no longer about converting students to Christianity; instead, it aims at recognizing and entering more deeply into one’s own faith and religious experience, while encountering the faith and experiences of others. As such, mystagogy is not accomplished by telling someone what they (should have) experienced. This would be more akin to an early Christian understanding of mystagogy as a process of initiation into an authorized faith. One could call such an approach a “mystagogy of the authorized.” In this process, students are told by an authority figure what rituals and narratives are important (or unimportant), and they are told how they should have experienced those rituals. . .

By way of illustration, consider what it is like to take a guided tour at an art museum. A trained guide who simply provides information about the artist and artwork imparts useful facts that help others experience the artwork in the way the guide experiences the artwork. However, simply being knowledgeable does not make someone a good guide. A good guide knows how to transform the tour group into a small college of co-educators. They take the time to ask the tour members about their experience of the artwork, encouraging the viewer to process their experience in dialogue with the entire group. Most importantly, a good tour guide does not inquire about the group’s experiences and insights simply to make the tour members feel engaged.

Engaging students should not be a tactic that is employed simply to help students better understand the information being provided. This is a common technique used by teachers who are trying to make the authorized course content more relatable to their students. While a common and understandable impulse, this pedagogy marginalizes the student by using their experiences as a means to an end. Rather, a good tour guide is genuinely curious because they stand to learn something new about a work of art that they have seen and discussed countless times. For these guides, the true mystery is not contained in the artwork. The true mystery of the art is always being played out in the relationship between the art and the diverse beholder(s). Just so, a teacher who practices mystagogy sees in their students inexhaustible perspectives that can only be reached through inquiry and dialogue. If a teacher is not trying to learn from their students, that teacher is not engaged in mystagogy.

In order to focus on the experiences of students, a teacher must develop (and encourage the students to develop) a curious attentiveness to the unique contexts of the students. Hence, a defining characteristic of mystagogy is the mindfulness it demands. Mystagogy requires a willingness to pay attention to one’s own experiences and the experiences of others. This is to say, mystagogy requires engaging the particularity of the present time and place. . . Precisely by attending to the particularity of each experience, mystagogical teaching becomes practical. Far from being egocentric navel-gazing, mystagogy allows students to better attend to the ethical issues that are always unfolding in the daily lives of their communities.

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The full essay including references is available now in the digital and print editions of Liturgy. All of the essays in Liturgy 38, no. 1 are available by personal subscription and through many libraries.

David Farina Turnbloom is an associate professor of theology at the University of Portland in Portland, OR. He is the author of Speaking with Aquinas: A Conversation about Grace, Virtues, and the Eucharist. He is also the founder of and faculty advisor for the Collaborative Humanities Investigating Religion and Power (CHIRP-Lab.com).

David Farina Turnbloom, “Mystagogy of the Unauthorized,” Liturgy 38, no. 1 (2023): 18–23.