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Sociology and Liturgy pp 258–287Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Action, Symbol, Text: Hermeneutics and Sociology

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Abstract

The fragments of rite, that formed the basis of the preceding analysis, present a small part of a mosaic whose reading represents an awkward transaction for the sociological gaze to decipher and to understand. Throughout the study, liturgy has been presented as a problem for sociologists, rather than for liturgists and theologians who conventionally deal with its interpretation. In more innocent times, a positivist glance at liturgical activities preserved the sociologist at a methodological distance, in a state of scientific anonymity, marking the objective contours of the surface of the rite. But the new fashion for engagement, moral commitment and involvement in the reflexive transactions of the actor, and the subjective meanings he produces in everyday life, have established a whole new agenda for sociological inquiry. Critical engagement gives an authenticity to the struggle to yield deeper insights.

Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?

(John 18:37–38)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bristol, UK

    Kieran Flanagan (Lecturer in Sociology)

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  1. Kieran Flanagan
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© 1991 Kieran Flanagan

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Flanagan, K. (1991). Action, Symbol, Text: Hermeneutics and Sociology. In: Sociology and Liturgy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375383_11

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