Grimes, “Ethnographic Studies in Christian Ritual”
Excerpt: It makes good sense then that scholars of Christianity are now studying contemporary ritual practices, using participant observation and interview as methods. Unlike biblical scholars, who must infer or imagine the rituals they study, ethnographers of Christianity can study actual rituals. This set of essays, “Ritual Risk and Emergent Efficacy: Ethnographic Studies in Christian Ritual,” focuses specifically on infelicitous aspects of observed contemporary rituals.