Writer | Editor | Artist | Ordinand
I have developed a certain tendency to use the phrases "changing the world" or "taking over the world" when speaking with creative friends. I usually leave this without any particular explanation, a seeming little absurdity thrown into a comment or conversation, but I actually mean what I say. I fully intend a lifelong conspiracy with … Continue reading Changing the World
I'm beginning to think that if I don't have an identity crisis at least once a month, I'm simply not taking in enough good art.
We thin-souled moderns are so proud of our rejection of poems and stories and paintings. We lead half-lives and die with less.
"It is this attraction to loveliness that lies at the heart of nurturing soul. God has made us to be drawn to the beautiful. So often the divide between children who have full souls and those who don't lies here with the pursuit of beauty. The serious pursuit of beauty, for both children and adults, … Continue reading An Attraction to Loveliness
"For a Christian rhetoric, perspicuity is the foundation of all the canons of style. Clarity of thought must always be the preacher's aim. Clarity is the basic beauty of eloquent oratory and the driving power that persuades one's listeners. The beauty of teaching is making clear the truth, for it is in the truth itself, … Continue reading Beautiful Clarity
(This posts was originally written for my personal blog, The Sojourner's Journal, in November, 2008. It served as one of my first expressions of my discontent with the church's modern relationship with art and the desire to engage that relationship and motivate greater art from the Christian community. Thus, it is the forerunner of this … Continue reading The Catalyst: An Artistic Challenge to the Church
"This word–this idea of Art as creation is, I believe, the one important contribution that Christianity has made to aesthetics. Unfortunately, we are apt to use the words "creation" and "creativeness" very vaguely and loosely, because we do not relate them properly to our theology. But it is significant that the Greeks had not this … Continue reading Contributing “Art”
"What more, you may ask, do we want? ... We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough..."
I've been doing a decent bit of reading since the Spring semester ended. Particularly invigorating have been some writings on the subject of beauty. N.T. Wright, whatever the controversy regarding his views of justification notwithstanding, has a remarkably wonderful chapter on beauty in his much-celebrated volume Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. Earlier in the … Continue reading Beauty: An Echo of God’s Voice
Godawa, Brian. Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story & Imagination. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009. There seems to be a recent movement within the Protestant community to finally start talking about the arts and their role in the Christian life. Numerous publishers in the evangelical and mainline streams have released direct or indirect approaches to … Continue reading Review: Word Pictures
