Inclusive Yet Discerning

Brown combines an abiding admiration of classical idioms with an appreciation of new possibilities for the arts in worship. Interacting with a wide range of religious thinkers and leaders -- from Augustine and John Calvin to Rick Warren, Marcus Borg, and the Pope -- he addresses questions concerning "good" art and "good" music for worship. --from publisher description.

Although numerous studies have examined biblical and theological rationales for using the visual arts in worship, this book by Lisa J. DeBoer fills in a piece of the picture missing so far — the social dimensions of both our churches and the various art worlds represented in our congregations. The first part of the book looks at Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism in turn — including case studies of specific congregations — showing how each tradition’s use of the visual arts reveals an underlying ecclesiology. DeBoer then focuses on six themes that emerge when Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant uses of the visual arts are examined together — the arts as expressions of the church’s local and universal character, the meanings attributed to particular styles of art for the church, the role of the arts in enculturating the gospel, and more. DeBoer’s Visual Arts in the Worshiping Church will focus and deepen the thinking of pastors, worship leaders, artists, students, and laypeople regarding what the arts might do in the midst of their congregations.

The primary purpose of Prophetic Liturgy is to inquire into the prophetic dimension of the liturgy. Some questions addressed in the book are: How can a liturgy be prophetic? How can liturgy form and transform individuals and communities? In which sense does the liturgy facilitate a living participation in socio-political-economic life? How does the sacramental practice challenge the church to mediate God's gifts of grace, love, justice, and mercy to the world? Possible answers for these questions begin to emerge as we develop an understanding of religious praxis as an active and dynamic prophetic action, in which the community of faith claims its identity, promotes an engaged faithful Christian life, and affirms the sacramental life of the church as a source of formation and inspiration for prophetic praxis, mediating God's gift for the life of the world. There is risk in presenting an option for prophetic praxis, in that it may go beyond the comfort zone of a community and engender spiritual and political alienation. The most challenging ethical hope of this book is to provide the worshiping community with prophetic awareness of socio-economic injustice, while at the same time preserving the community's historical-cultural identity, its religious values, and its sacramental spirituality.

"The conversation between music and theology, dormant for too long in recent years, is at last gathering pace. And rightly so. There will always be theologians who will regard music as a somewhat peripheral concern, too trivial to trouble the serious scholar, and in any case almost impossible to engage because of its notorious resistance to words and concepts. But an increasing number are discovering again what many of our forbears realized centuries ago, that the kinship between this pervasive feature of human life and the search for a Christian 'intelligence of faith' is intimate and ineradicable. Maeve Heaney's ambitious, wide-ranging, and energetic book pushes the conversation further forward still. Her approach is unapologetically theological, grounded in the passions and concerns of mainstream doctrinal theology. And yet she is insisting . . . that music must be given its due place in the ecology of theology. Although convinced that music should not be set up as a rival to linguistic or conceptual articulation, let alone swallow up 'traditional' modes of theological language and thought, she is equally convinced that music is an irreducible means of coming to terms with the world, a unique vehicle of world-disclosure, and as such, can generate a particular form of 'understanding': 'there are things which God may only be saying through music.' If this is so, it is incumbent on the theologian to listen." --Jeremy Begbie, from the Foreword

The church and the contemporary art world often find themselves in an uneasy relationship in which misunderstanding and mistrust abound. On one hand, the leaders of local congregations, seminaries, and other Christian ministries often don't know what to make of works by contemporary artists. Not only are these artists mostly unknown to church leaders, they and their work often lead them to regard the world of contemporary art with indifference, frustration, or even disdain. On the other hand, many artists lack any meaningful experience with the contemporary church and are mostly ignorant of its mission. Not infrequently, these artists regard religion as irrelevant to their work, are disinclined to trust the church and its leaders, and have experienced personal rejection from these communities. In response to this situation, the 2015 biennial conference of Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA) facilitated a conversation between these two worlds. This volume gathers together essays and reflections by artists, theologians, and church leaders as they sought to explore misperceptions, create a hospitable space to learn from each other, and imagine the possibility of a renewed and mutually fruitful relationship. Contemporary Art and the Church seeks common ground for the common good of both the church and the contemporary art world. The Studies in Theology and the Arts series encourages Christians to thoughtfully engage with the relationship between their faith and artistic expression, with contributions from both theologians and artists on a range of artistic media including visual art, music, poetry, literature, film, and more.

As an artist, Deborah Sokolove has often been surprised and dismayed by the unexamined attitudes and assumptions that the church holds about how artists think and how art functions in human life. By investigating these attitudes and tying them to concrete examples, Sokolove hopes to demystify art--to bring art down to earth, where theologians, pastors, and ordinary Christians can wrestle with its meanings, participate in its processes, and understand its uses. In showing the commonalities and distinctions among the various ways that artists themselves approach their work, Sanctifying Art can help the church talk about the arts in ways that artists will recognize. As a member of both the church and the art world, Sokolove is well-positioned to bridge the gap between the habits of thought that inform the discourse of the art world and those quite different ideas about art that are taken for granted by many Christians. When art is understood as intellectual, technical, and physical as well as ethereal, mysterious, and sacred, we will see it as an integral part of our life together in Christ, fully human and fully divine.

This book explores conflict through the discerning lens of Integral Theory, applying Ken Wilber's AQAL model to a real-life case study, the River Conflict. Coauthor Richard J. McGuigan was a mediator in this ongoing dispute over fishing rights on the Fraser River in British Columbia, a situation where commercial, recreational, and First Nations fishing interests clashed. Voices of the various stakeholders are featured prominently, giving a vivid sense of a seemingly intractable situation. McGuigan and Nancy Popp set the stage for their Integral analysis of the River Conflict, then move expertly through four chapters aimed at understanding the conflict from the four dimensions of human experience: individual, collective, interior, and exterior. The result is a powerful picture of just how "integral" conflict is. This quadrant-by-quadrant analysis is well-punctuated by sidebar observations, insights, and tips for conflict practitioners or students, giving readers new to Integral Theory additional support in understanding and applying the AQAL model to their work.

This text takes a novel approach to labor. Rather than examine the labor movement, labor unions, and labor organizing, Work, Protest, and Identity in Twentieth-Century Latin America sets work in the context of social history in Latin America. It combines a chronological approach with a topical one to clarify how work is related to other themes in daily Latin American life-themes such as gender, race, family life, ethnicity, immigration, politics, industrial and agricultural growth, and religion. The essays in this collection bring together original studies and published works that illustrate the tensions and conflicts between work, identity, and community that caused protest to take many different forms in Latin American countries. Designed to give students a better appreciation for the complexity of the lives of the wage-working sectors of society and the richness of their contributions to the cultures and nations of the region, Work, Protest, and Identity in Twentieth-Century Latin America is essential for courses on the social history of Latin America, state formation, labor and protest, and surveys of modern Latin America.