The drama of salvation /

Mrs. Haughton latches onto the common device of adopting one theme as the passkey to the central mysteries of revelation. The succession of theological fads hinges on the shifts in just such governing motifs, and Mrs. Haughton has hit on an especially fertile one--salvation as drama--in this freewheeling essay. In both dramatic and religious experience, she explains, participants can be transported by the ritual to a new level of being, but this personal transformation is effective only when it climaxes specific preparation and receives structure from a script or tradition. From this germinal insight, the book explores the wide range of potential analogies between the world of the stage and the process of salvation. The major implication that emerges is that gospel proclamation and sacramental rites like the theater, must constantly confront their audiences, jolt it out of its inveterate security, and catch it up in the salvific cycle of death and rebirth. An original idea with new implications. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.