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Saturday, 9 February 2013

Faith and imagination resources

I was recently asked to recommend some resources on the interface between faith and imagination. Those I commended were: 

Art and Christianity Enquiry are the main organisation in the UK exploring links between faith and the visual arts. There are a small number of articles on the page about their journal. 'Art, Modernity & Faith' by George Pattison, 'God in the Gallery' by Daniel A. Siedell and 'The Art of the Sacred' by Graham Howes are all well worth reading. Daniel Siedell had a blog for a while on the themes of 'God in the Gallery' which has some interesting debate on it. Colin Harbison is also worth reading online.

'Contemporary Fiction and Christianity' by Andrew Tate is a good review of theological themes in literature as is 'The Poet as Mirror: Human Nature, God and Jesus in twentieth-century literature' by Karl-Josef Kuschel. George Steiner's 'Real Presences' is a classic text when it comes to literature arguing that a transcendent reality grounds all genuine art. Malcolm Guite makes a similar argument for poetry in 'Faith, Hope and Poetry'. In 'Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love' Rowan Williams sketches out a new understanding of how human beings open themselves to transcendence.

Steve Scott's 'Crying For A Vision' is worth a read and spans music, literature and visual art. My own co-authored book on faith and music (taking in aspects of literature and the visual arts too) is 'The Secret Chord'.

On imagination specifically, Walter Brueggemann's 'The Prophetic Imagination' is another classic text. 'Image' Journal sees itself as bridging faith and imagination. In Walking On Water, Madeleine L'Engle argues that the prime task of the artist is to listen, to remain aware, and to respond to creation. In The Mind of the Maker Dorothy L. Sayers explores understandings of the Trinity through the medium of human creativity. Finally, in The Book of God Gabriel Josipovici applies literary criticism to the texts of the Bible. 

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Bruce Cockburn - Creation Dream.

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