Liminal Space at [Praxis]
Monday, July 18th, 2005
Posted this morning on Victor Turner’s concept of ‘liminal space’ and its connection with Romans 8 - at [Praxis] , daily reflections on Scripture.
I first engaged with Victor Turner’s work on liminality while reading for a course on postmodernity and ritual at San Francisco Theological Seminary, back in 1999. I found Turner’s work liberating.
The concept of liminal space was developed in Turner’s book, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Emerging approaches to worship need to take seriously what Turner calls ‘liminal symbols’, symbols that have a common intellectual and emotional meaning for members of the group, qualiffied and enriched by the unique perspectives of each member of the community. These liminal symbols come to reflect the collective experience of the group.
Another aspect of liminality in shared worship is the slowing down of time - in which participants step outside the normal effectiveness-based tempo of life to re-engage with God in a mystical relational space.
In his book, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, Turner applies his thinking on liminality to the arts, exploring the ways in which community values are supported and challenged by cultural forms.
Turner introduces the concept of the ‘liminoid’ - idisonycratic, quirky forms generated by individuals or schools, competing with one another for recognition. These are often parts of social critiques, exposing injustices, inefficiencies, and immoralities of mainstream economic and political structures and organisations. Ironically the liminoid works best when it is treated like a commodity by the community, even as it challenges the values of that community.
Back in 1999 as I was reading this I explored the Bill Viola SFMOMA exhibition and The Matrix as examples of the liminoid - using familiar forms but challenging our perceptions of reality.
Victor Turner also introduces us to flow and communitas. Flow is the holistic sensation present when we act with total involvement, when action follows action according to an internal logic which seems to need no conscious intervention on our part. Communitas is that sense of flow experienced by a community.
It’s a good thing we’re not always consciously thinking about all this when planning or participating in worship! But I’m glad to have Turner’s insights available to me when developing environments for fresh experiences of the Divine.
Tags: alt worship, Postmodernity, Praxis, Reading, Victor Turner, Worship
