Kenneth Stevenson is one of the UK’s leading liturgical scholars with an international reputation. Much of his work is in the borderlands of theology, worship and history. The essays in this book are worked examples of the importance of interpretation and liturgy, particularly in the light of the growing impact in recent years of reception-history, and how this interacts not only with biblical scholarship but with worship and doctrine as well. Interpretation and Liturgy is a big subject, and one that is unlikely ever to go away. It is part of the twofold movement of divine initiative and human aspiration – or to put it yet more directly, what some would immediately call the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, others would call the religious imagination, and others again would call both.
Kenneth Stevenson was until autumn 2009 Bishop of Portsmouth in the Church of England. He died in January 2011.