Aesthetics as a Religious Factor in Eastern and Western Christianity

Aesthetics as a Religious Factor in Eastern and Western Christianity PDF Author: William Peter van den Bercken
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042916821
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
This volume contains selected papers of a conference in 2004 at Utrecht University on aesthetics as a religious factor in Eastern and Western Christianity. They discuss the role of aesthetics in the presentation and expression of Christian faith in Catholic and Orthodox tradition. During its history Christianity has produced many works of art: church architecture, iconography, painting, music and literary texts. And in Orthodoxy beauty has always been the main form of religious expression, more than verbal presentation of Christian teaching, which is embedded in the aesthetic context of liturgy. In Christian theology beauty has often been seen as a form of divine revelation, related to the mystery of incarnation. The relation between aesthetics and religious belief has acquired new relevance in our secularised world. Today the visible products of Catholic and Orthodox aesthetics are for many people the main means through which they come into contact with Christianity and many people without affinity to religion are attracted by the beauty of Christian art, inside and outside the church. In modern religious studies the experience of beauty is recognised as a factor in explaining religious feelings. The papers are divided in four sections: 1. Comparative aspects of Orthodox and Catholic aesthetics, 2. Religious aesthetics in Russian literary culture, 3. Applied aesthetics in church art, 4. Art-theoretical, ideological and religious-philosophical aspects.

Aesthetics as a Religious Factor in Eastern and Western Christianity

Aesthetics as a Religious Factor in Eastern and Western Christianity PDF Author: William Peter van den Bercken
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042916821
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 458

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume contains selected papers of a conference in 2004 at Utrecht University on aesthetics as a religious factor in Eastern and Western Christianity. They discuss the role of aesthetics in the presentation and expression of Christian faith in Catholic and Orthodox tradition. During its history Christianity has produced many works of art: church architecture, iconography, painting, music and literary texts. And in Orthodoxy beauty has always been the main form of religious expression, more than verbal presentation of Christian teaching, which is embedded in the aesthetic context of liturgy. In Christian theology beauty has often been seen as a form of divine revelation, related to the mystery of incarnation. The relation between aesthetics and religious belief has acquired new relevance in our secularised world. Today the visible products of Catholic and Orthodox aesthetics are for many people the main means through which they come into contact with Christianity and many people without affinity to religion are attracted by the beauty of Christian art, inside and outside the church. In modern religious studies the experience of beauty is recognised as a factor in explaining religious feelings. The papers are divided in four sections: 1. Comparative aspects of Orthodox and Catholic aesthetics, 2. Religious aesthetics in Russian literary culture, 3. Applied aesthetics in church art, 4. Art-theoretical, ideological and religious-philosophical aspects.

Phenomenology of the Icon

Phenomenology of the Icon PDF Author: Stephanie Rumpza
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 100931789X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
How can something finite mediate an infinite God? Weaving patristics, theology, art history, aesthetics, and religious practice with the hermeneutic phenomenology of Hans-George Gadamer and Jean-Luc Marion, Stephanie Rumpza proposes a new answer to this paradox by offering a fresh and original approach to the Byzantine icon. She demonstrates the power and relevance of the phenomenological method to integrate hermeneutic aesthetics and divine transcendence, notably how the material and visual dimensions of the icon are illuminated by traditional practices of prayer. Rumpza's study targets a problem that is a major fault line in the continental philosophy of religion – the integrity of finite beings I relation to a God that transcends them. For philosophers, her book demonstrates the relevance of a cherished religious practice of Eastern Christianity. For art historians, she proposes a novel philosophical paradigm for understanding the icon as it is approached in practice.

The Glory of Kings

The Glory of Kings PDF Author: Peter J. Leithart
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1630879444
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
Over the past several decades, Reformed theologian and biblical scholar James B. Jordan has produced a unique body of work. His electrifying commentaries and essays on Scripture, along with his penetrating writings on Trinitarian theology, liturgics, music, and culture have inspired a growing number of pastors and theologians. In this Festschrift, Jordan's friends and associates celebrate his contributions by applying his methods and insights to a range of biblical, theological, liturgical, and cultural questions. The Glory of Kings aims to bring Jordan's work to the attention of a wider audience and to introduce the work of a scholar that R. R. Reno has called "one of the most important Christian intellectuals of our day."

Anton Chekhov Through the Eyes of Russian Thinkers

Anton Chekhov Through the Eyes of Russian Thinkers PDF Author: Olga Tabachnikova
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 0857282271
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
The collection is comprised of twelve scholarly essays written by leading Chekhov specialists from around the world, each analysing an interpretation of Chekhov by one of three Russian thinkers of the Silver Age of Russian culture - Vasilii Rozanov, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii and Lev Shestov. It thus examines the hitherto under-researched relationship between the origins and the results of the cultural phase that came to be known as the Silver Age, and focuses specifically on the complex connections betweens Chekhov's legacy and the Russian culture of that period.

Technofutures, Nature and the Sacred

Technofutures, Nature and the Sacred PDF Author: Celia Deane-Drummond
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131704648X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The capacity of human beings to invent, construct and use technical artifacts is a hugely consequential factor in the evolution of society, and in the entangled relations between humans, other creatures and their natural environments. Moving from a critical consideration of theories, to narratives about technology, and then to particular and specific practices, Technofutures, Nature and the Sacred seeks to arrive at a genuinely transdisciplinary perspective focusing attention on the intersection between technology, religion and society and using insights from the environmental humanities. It works from both theoretical and practical contexts by using newly emerging case studies, including geo-engineering and soil carbon technologies, and breaks open new ground by engaging theological, scientific, philosophical and cultural aspects of the technology/religion/nature nexus. Encouraging us to reflect on the significance and place of religious beliefs in dealing with new technologies, and engaging critical theory common in sociological, political and literary discourses, the authors explore the implicit religious claims embedded in technology.

The Eclipse and Recovery of Beauty

The Eclipse and Recovery of Beauty PDF Author: John Dadosky
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 144266732X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
According to the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, a world that has lost sight of beauty is a world riddled with skepticism, moral and aesthetic relativism, conflicting religious worldviews, and escalating ecological crises. In The Eclipse and Recovery of Beauty, John D. Dadosky uses Kierkegaard and Nietzsche’s negative aesthetics to outline the context of that loss, and presents an argument for reclaiming beauty as a metaphysical property of being. Inspired by Bernard Lonergan’s philosophy of consciousness, Dadosky presents a philosophy of beauty that is grounded in contemporary Thomistic thought. Responding to Balthasar, he argues for a concept of beauty that can be experienced, understood, judged, created, contemplated, and even loved. Deeply engaged with the work of Aquinas, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Kant, among others, The Eclipse and Recovery of Beauty will be essential reading for those interested in contemporary philosophy and theology.

Visual Arts in the Worshiping Church

Visual Arts in the Worshiping Church PDF Author: DeBoer
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802869513
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book 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.

Modernism and Theology

Modernism and Theology PDF Author: Joanna Rzepa
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030615308
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
This is the first book-length study to examine the interface between literary and theological modernisms. It provides a comprehensive account of literary responses to the modernist crisis in Christian theology from a transnational and interdenominational perspective. It offers a cultural history of the period, considering a wide range of literary and historical sources, including novels, drama, poetry, literary criticism, encyclicals, theological and philosophical treatises, periodical publications, and wartime propaganda. By contextualising literary modernism within the cultural, religious, and political landscape, the book reveals fundamental yet largely forgotten connections between literary and theological modernisms. It shows that early-twentieth-century authors, poets, and critics, including Rainer Maria Rilke, T. S. Eliot, and Czesław Miłosz, actively engaged with the debates between modernist and neo-scholastic theologians raging across Europe. These debates contributed to developing new ways of thinking about the relationship between religion and literature, and informed contemporary critical writings on aesthetics and poetics.

Lost in Wonder

Lost in Wonder PDF Author: Aidan Nichols
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409431622
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
This book explores the liturgy as the manifestation by cultic signs of Christian revelation, the 'setting' of the Liturgy in terms of architectural space, iconography and music, and the poetic response which the revelation the liturgy carries can produce. Nichols makes the case for Christianity's capacity to inspire high culture - both in principle and through well-chosen historical examples which draw on the best in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Anglicanism.

Lost in Wonder

Lost in Wonder PDF Author: Aidan Nichols O. P.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317103262
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
This book explores the Liturgy as the manifestation by cultic signs of Christian revelation, the 'setting' of the Liturgy in terms of architectural space, iconography and music, and the poetic response which the revelation the Liturgy carries can produce. The conclusion offers a synthetic statement of the unity of religion, cosmology and art. Aidan Nichols makes the case for Christianity's capacity to inspire high culture - both in principle and through well-chosen historical examples which draw on the best in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Anglicanism.