Abstract

Paul Shockley's Worship as Experience: An Inquiry into John Dewey's Aesthetics, the Community and the Local Church serves as an exploration into how aesthetics affects a church and its community. Using the aesthetic principles of John Dewey, Shockley gives insight into what aesthetic deficiencies churches face, and how these churches can engage with people to provide a richer, deeper, and more fulfilling worship experience. This work offers a description of local church types, and what challenges these particular church communities face. Worship as Experience goes beyond merely offering acute insights into the aesthetic lives of the local church, and gives prescriptive measures to ensure the fullness of a meaningful worship experience. By examining with philosophic rigor the accounts of religious leaders and aestheticians, Shockley offers us a rational evaluation of aesthetic experience, an eye opening account of the challenges a church faces, and a powerful message for overcoming these challenges.