Sanctifying Art

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.

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.

Worship is not a trite act. It is the life of the Christian. When the Christian hears God in his word, or from the mouth of the biblical minister, and is pressed to obey him in all things as exemplified in his word, such obedience is for his very life. “For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life,” (Deut. 32:47). In this obedience, God has not left his ordinances of worship to the inventions of men. God has set down certain specific requirements which are to be followed. It was a hallmark of the Reformation that God alone determines the manner in which sinners approach him. God’s will, in this way, has reference to the regulative principle of life as well as to the Laws which God has made known and prescribed to man in order that his walk might be regulated accordingly. So, God regulates his worship with the intention of allowing fallen, sinful people to come before him and sanctify his name in a manner that God requires: in holiness. This is the substance of Burroughs’ treatise Gospel Worship. Worship is for God, not for us. Sadly, that simple statement is foreign to our day. Yet God is as clear today as He was to Nadab and Abihu in the Old Testament: He will be treated as holy by those who come into His presence (Lev. 10:1-3). In this treasured work, Jeremiah Burroughs masterfully provides guidelines to facilitate the reader to move closer to God in worship. Through 14 sermons, Burroughs carefully explains the right manner of worshipping God in general, and the three great ordinances of hearing the Word, receiving the Lord’s Supper, and prayer. Burroughs demonstrates that true worship is reverent, focused on the holiness of God. This work is not a scan or facsimile, has been carefully transcribed by hand being made easy to read in modern English, and has an active table of contents for electronic versions.

Imaginatio et Ratio (www.imaginatioetratio.org) is a peer reviewed journal primarily focusing on the intersection between the arts and theology, hoping to allow imagination and reason to be seen as intimately intertwined-as different expressions of the same divine truth. Imaginatio et Ratio was started in the hopes that it could serve a growing community of artists and thinkers and strives to present accessible but high quality art, literary fiction, creative non-fiction, and theology/philosophy-as well as interviews and book, film, art and music reviews. The journal is published twice a year and is available in print and digital formats.

Throughout its history, the Christian church has had a troubled relationship with the arts, whether literature, poetry, music, visual arts, or other forms of artistic expression. This volume is not designed to resolve the issues, but it is designed to present a number of different statements about various dimensions of the arts in their relationship to the Bible. The Bible is the document that stands behind the Christian church as an inspiration to it and to its arts. As a result, we have divided this volume into six parts: perspectives on the arts, culture and art, visual enactments, contemporary interpretations, music, and the Bible and literature. Many of the issues that the history of the interaction of the arts and the Bible within the Christian church has uncovered are insightfully and artfully addressed by this book. The wide range of contributors runs the gamut from practicing artists of various media to scholars within varied academic fields.

Sanctification is not merely a “practical” and isolated doctrine but should permeate the whole horizon of theology: dogmatics, ethics, practics, as well as the sciences and the arts. The essays are collected under the twin convictions that theology can be sanctified and sanctifying. The whole of theology is inflected by holiness, and so theology should aim to share in God’s sanctifying work. Sanctifying Theology contributes new possibilities in Wesleyan-holiness theology and explores their contribution to various Christian doctrines and contemporary issues. Written in honor of the work of Thomas Arthur Noble, the essays in this book are attentive to the streams of theology that have most influenced him: the fathers, the Wesleys, and the Torrances. Both constructive and exploratory, the topic of the essays cover, among other things, (1) consideration of how Wesleyan-holiness theologies contribute to ecumenical theological discussions, (2) readings of Wesleyan-holiness theology through the lens of the church fathers and the Torrances, and (3) explorations of how these conversations and sources might shape contemporary practical and ethical concerns. The essays work both for the Wesleyan tradition and from the Wesleyan tradition for the church catholic, showing how recent trajectories in Wesleyan-holiness theology might contribute to broader discussions.