Collision of Worlds Counter – Formation Through Interactivity with Scripture in Deuteronomy and the Daily Office

Cameron David Mack

Braemor Series: Number 17

Collision of Worlds: Counter–Formation Through Interactivity with Scripture in Deuteronomy and the Daily Office 

This study looks to Deuteronomy for a model of interactivity with the Scriptures, which it is argued is profoundly relevant to a Church subject to potent formative forces in 21st–century  society.

A methodological approach to Deuteronomy is outlined by  isolating two literary techniques (inscription and repetition) instrumental to its formative effect upon its audiences, and by comparing their use both in the Book of Deuteronomy (particularly chapter 6,  and in the Anglican Daily Office (centred in the Ministry of the Word).

The study begins with an examination of Deuteronomy’s use of inscription, arguing that it creates for its readers vivid experiences of the narrative past and the immediate future (from within its framing narrative), allowing them to participate (imaginatively and vicariously) in these events, and placing their present moment in continuity with its narrative.

The Daily Office is next examined, and its solicitation of imaginative participation in the Scriptures by the act of proclaiming them aloud to 21st–century worshippers. More specifically the responsorial appropriation of canticles, which requires worshippers to inscribe themselves into personal continuity with the broad narrative of the Scriptures is focused upon.

Deuteronomy’s use of repetition enacts and mandates continual, active contact with its past and its future, effecting the formation of its audiences’ imaginations towards a devotion to God based on their experience of God’s works is also explored and the study concludes by focusing on the Daily Office, especially in its use of canticles, can accomplish a similar kind of formation through repetition: memorising inscriptive texts becomes a means by which the worshipper’s every moment can be pulled into continuity with the narrative world of the Scriptures. A counter–formational potential of the Daily Office offers a gift to the Church of our time.

• Publisher

  Church of Ireland Publishing

• Year

  2025

• Pages

  57

• ISBN

  978-1-904884-98-9