An accidental blog

"If God is sovereign, then his lordship must extend over all of life, and it cannot be restricted to the walls of the church or within the Christian orbit." Abraham Kuyper Common Grace 1.1.

Wednesday 27 July 2011

The Cultural Way of being - Geoff Hall

The Cultural Way of Being
(Spiritual Direction in a Postmodern Landscape)
Geoff Hall
Bristol: Upptackka Press, 2011
ISBN
pbk, 82pp

Available in kindle, pdf, print and iBook here.

How does the institutional church treat artists? By and large it doesn't! Art becomes a means of propoganda for evangelistic or advertising purposes, or it becomes a means of self-expression. Hall writes, in part, to try and alleviate this disdain for the artists' cultural calling.

Hall pleads for a collaboration between artists and angels:
It is interesting that Jesus' last days in the Wilderness involved being looked after by angels before His return to the public sphere. So if you are an angel investor, this may well be your service to the artist.
It is in this collaboration that artists can make art, art that becomes culturally formative, rather than mere personal expression. But it is not just with investors that this creative collaboration can take place, it can be also with gallery owners, publishers and educationalists. Primarily, though the collaboration must be with God: 'The life of the artist is an intimate walk with God' (p. 33). Through this walk with God artists can be 'sensitised to what is going on "around Christ"' (p. 34).

All in all this book is a vigorous and articulate call for artists to take their place in God's kingdom and for kingdom people to support them, so that art can be 'a communal expression for the public domain'. The church can then be transformed from a 'culturally reclusive institution'.  

It needs to be read by all who long for the artist to take their place in God's good creation.

Contents

Introduction                                   10
The spiritual direction of a calling (David) 15
Free design & propoganda            21
Cultural power and direction        29
Intimacy                                        33
Cultural evacuation                       41
Art & prophetic imagination         47
We are not alone                            53
Reference                                       56
Also in this series                           58
About the author                            61
Notebook                                        70

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