Nancy Pearcey on the sacred-secualr split

The Wilderness and the Desert of the Real - Geoff Hall

The Wilderness and the Desert of the Real
Part 1 of 4 in Spiritual Direction in a Postmodern Landscape
Geoff Hall
Upptackka Press
ISBN 978-0-9568034-0-5
pbk, 59pp, £

What is Christian art? How does spirituality and art relate? What does it mean to be a Christian artist?

Is it more than painting biblical scenes or painting a sheep in each picture?  Geoff Hall maintains that it is more than that. In this, the first of four books, he looks at the calling of the Christian artist. A calling that involves desert and wilderness: 'between the Call and its realisation, comes The Wilderness!' p. 14. In the wilderness God can create a depth of character and experience that will help shape the artists work - and hopefully move beyond painting sheep in the picture!

Hall is not advocating an interaction of art and spirituality, an icing of spirituality on the cake of art he is seeking a robust integration of spirituality and art, of art and spirituality. Neither is he wanting an art through theology approach, as he rightly observes 'art is not theology' (p 33).

This is a great brief book; it can be read in less than an hour but will take hours to digest and meditate on the wisdom and insight it contains.

Contents

Introduction                                   10
Cast of Characters                         13
Direction through a Weary Land   17
At Work in the Digital Babel         21
The Desert of the Real                   25
Synthetic Spirituality                     31
Notebook                                       34
Also in this series                          52
About the author                           54



Arts Mentoring Group
Upptacka

Available from
Lulu
Amazon.co.uk
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Book depository

Rob Bell interviewed by Martin Bashir

Music for a Sunday morning

The Sketch Show UK - Phobias Workshop

[HT Robin Parry]

Odds and sods

2K or not-2K [HT Gregory Baus via google reader] - argues that VanDrunen's 'clarification .. only serves to reinforce the problem'
Newbigin study guides - courtesy of Tony Stiff
Paul Copan on his recent interaction with Richard Dawkins
Tell publishers why you didn't buy a book
How to discuss Rob Bell without killing each other

Reformed academic reviews of Calvin and culture - update

Reformed Academic are posting a series of reviews of each the chapters of David W. Hall and Marvin Padgett, Calvin and Culture: Exploring a Worldview (P&R, 2010). I mentioned this before - but it's such a great series it's worth mentioning again, particularly as two more chapter reviews have been posted:

Chapter 1 History
Chapter 2 Law
Chapter 3 Art
Chapter 4 Economics
Chapter 5 Literature
Chapter 6 Philosophy
Chapter 7 Politics
Chapter 8 Science

Music for a Sunday morning