ART 352 : Faith & Art

Glenn Hughes, author of A More Beautiful Question: The Spiritual in Poetry and Art, contends that despite the withering popularity of faith-based worldviews, our times do not evince a decline in spirituality. One need only consider the search for "alternative" religious symbolisms, as well as the growth of groups espousing fundamentalist religious viewpoints, to recognize that spiritual concerns remain a vibrant part of life in Western culture.

Luci Shaw proves that symbolism and metaphor provide ways for humans to experience God in new and powerful ways. Shaw offers a rich and thought-provoking exploration of art, creativity, and faith. Believing that art emanates from God, she shows how imagination and spirituality "work in tandem, each feeding on and nourishing the other." Faith informs art and art enhances faith. They both, for each other, are "breath for the bones." Provocative, enlightening, and above all, inspiring, Breath for the Bones will help readers discover the artist within, and bring them further along the path to God Himself.

'A mere metaphor', 'only symbolic', 'just a myth' - these tell tale phrases reveal how figurative language has been cheapened and devalued in our modern and postmodern culture. In God and the Creative Imagination, Paul Avis argues the contrary: we see that actually, metaphor, symbol and myth, are the key to a real knowledge of God and the sacred.

In Making Good, Trevor Hart argues that human creativity is always a matter of unfolding the possibilities already latent within the original creative event. Making Good contends that while humans must acknowledge the unique and incomparable dimensions of God's creative activity, the biblical theology of creation encourages rather than prohibits human creativity within a language of creation. Hart's basic contention is that the God known as the Father of Jesus Christ is no domineering deity who jealously seeks to protect his creative prerogatives, but one whose own creativity calls forth, inspires, and enables creative responses on the part of his human creatures.