Issue 40.2 of Liturgy is entitled “Worship and Formation” and is guest-edited by E. Byron Anderson What follows is an excerpt from Anderson’s introduction to the issue.

Issue 40.1 of Liturgy is entitled “How the Pandemic Has Changed Worship” and is guest-edited by Taylor Burton-Edwards. What follows is an excerpt from Burton-Edwards’ introduction to the issue.

Issue 39.3-4 of Liturgy is entitled “Worship in a Divided World” and is guest-edited by Benjamin Durheim. What follows is an excerpt from Durheim’s introduction to the issue.

Issue 39.2 of Liturgy is entitled “Rites for Wounded Communities” and is guest-edited by David Hogue. What follows is an excerpt from Hogue’s introduction to the issue.

Issue 39.1 of Liturgy is entitled “The US and Us: To See Ourselves as Others See Us” and is guest-edited by Stephen Burns and Andrew Wymer.

Issue 38.4 of Liturgy is entitled “Market Dynamics and Worship Technology” and is guest-edited by Nicholas Zork.

Issue 38.2-3 of Liturgy is entitled “Branded Worship” and is guest-edited by Nelson Cowan.

Issue 38.1 of Liturgy is entitled “Future Renewals: Looking toward the Next 50 Years of Worship Scholarship and Practice” and is guest-edited by Andrew Wymer and Melinda Quivik.

Issue 37.4 of Liturgy is entitled “Renewals in Retrospect: Fifty Years of Worship Scholarship amidst the Changing Worlds of Worship” and is guest-edited by Andrew Wymer and Melinda Quivik.

Issue 37.3 of Liturgy is entitled “Pentecostalism and Historic Churches” and is guest-edited by Matthew Sigler.

The essays in this issue of Liturgy focus on worship as a tool for negotiating individual and collective identity. Ethicist Kwame Appiah has several salient observations about identity that are germane to the theme of this issue of Liturgy. He writes that “identities come, first, with labels and ideas about why and to whom they should be applied. Second, your identity shapes your thoughts about how you should behave; and third, it affects the way other people treat you. Finally, all these dimensions of identity are contestable, always up for dispute: who’s in, what they’re like, how they should behave and be treated.”

As the board of The Liturgical Conference gathered together for our annual meeting in February 2017 soon after the inauguration of the president of the United States who campaigned on a provocative and divisive political agenda, we recognized the need for an upcoming issue of Liturgy to explore the interconnectedness of liturgy and politics. We hoped to bring together the voices of scholars and practitioners who could provide a timely, liturgical engagement with the powers that divide and demean. This issue means to show how communities of faith might liturgically engage matters of power during the 2020 election cycle in the U.S.