The Feast of Our Lives:Re-Imaging Communion

June Christine Goudey presents a masterful critique of sacrificial imagery in the Eucharist. She introduces a significant new framework in which worship leaders and participants experience the Eucharist as a more celebratory event. She "imagines" a feast of personal and communal joy while downplaying the somber motifs of cross and death.

The constructive insights of the book rest on the premise that imagination is central to human becoming, since imagination relates to our openness to the new and our receptivity to embracing God's realm. Goudey envisions a realm of radical inclusivity, openness, and generosity, where well-being and abundant life reside.

Goudey endorses tenets and liturgies that undergird what she terms a "redemptionist" theology of Holy Communion -- honoring God's creation of women in God's own image, the diversity of women's experience, and the worthiness of every woman's life.

The Feast of Our Lives also examines the links between traditional understandings of the Eucharist, the development of atonement theologies, and apocalyptic influences on Eucharist and penance.