Richard Viladesau. Theological Aesthetics: God in Imagination, Beauty, and Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, xi + 294 pp. £17.99 A classic in the field, Viladesau’s Theological Aesthetics begins with the possibility of theological aesthetics, addressing approaches “from above” as well as “from…
A church service may look like a gathering of very ordinary people – with all our sins and weaknesses – but that is just what it looks like, not what it is. Wherever two or three are gathered in Christ’s…
I am a painter, designer, curator and creative strategist living and working in Philadelphia who trained in painting and design at The University of the Arts. As someone who has helped people find God and beauty in their lives through…
Even if beauty is hard to define and difficult to pinpoint, most people in contemporary culture seem compelled to engage with beauty in some way. We contemplate the awesome beauty of nature: in the bend of the river, the hues…
Amid the expanding bustle between theology and the arts, the topic of beauty seems to be ever more attractive. Among theologians it is proving especially popular. Many are questioning what Edward Farley calls the eighteenth century’s “relocation of beauty from…
The concept of beauty in relation to theology and the arts is a slippery one. While sometimes a definition eludes, at other times it can be disregarded or over-stated. And yet, I remember sitting in a performance of Handel’s Messiah…
Director Thom Stark has described his award-winning short film, Who Art in Heaven as simply a man praying. Indeed, it is no more than that. A man walks into a church repeatedly, sits in a pew, goes to the altar, stands…
Sara Anson Vaux. The Ethical Vision of Clint Eastwood. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012, v + 259 pp., £16.99 paper. In the Ethical Vision of Clint Eastwood, Sara Anson Vaux, Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University, presents…
As an actor and theatre producer, who is also a Christian, I’ve repeatedly gone over a dilemma in my head. Do I call myself a ‘Christian artist’? Or do I purposely demur, and refer to myself as ‘an artist who…