‘Off the hook?’ Toward an improved account of liturgical participation

Abstract Faced with the puzzle of what nonbelievers are doing when they participate in liturgical rites, Nicholas Wolterstorff argues that in order for a participant to count as worshiping, she must lack the intention not to worship—this we call the Negative Intention (NI) principle. Wolterstorff prefers this principle over a competing one that holds that worshiping requires a positive intention to worship (PI). He does so on the grounds that many liturgical participants, such as infants or the mentally impaired, lack positive intentions to worship. Here we raise several objections to Wolterstorff’s view. We argue that it fails to cohere with intuitions regarding the religious affiliation of casual yoga enthusiasts on the one hand, and potential religious martyrs on the other. Wolterstorff’s view makes it difficult for the former to not count as participants in religions that they do not avow, while risking the trivialization of religious martyrdom in the process. We conclude by canvassing two potential alternatives: one on which conventions determine the success (or failure) of a given ritual act, and another on which ritual significance is inherited via imitation.