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
Amazon.com
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

Defiant Joy by Kevin Belmonte - a review

Defiant Joy: The Remarkable Life and Impact of G. K. Chesterton
Kevin Belmonte
Thomas Nelson, 2010
336 pp; £10.99; pbk
978-1595552013

Gilbert Chesterton (1874-1936) is a multi-faceted character. He is a detective writer, a biographer, an apologist, a poet, a cultural critic among many other things. He has been called an 'apostle of common sense' (Dale Ahlquist), 'a theologian' (Aidan Nichols) and 'a prophet for the twentieth century' (Aidan Mackey). Numerous biographies have been written about him. So why the interest in him and why another biography? Particularly as a major biography is soon to be released in 2011 by Ian Ker published by OUP.

What makes this book by Belmonte, stand out? This is not a biography in the normal sense of the word - its first chapters are biographical covering the period form his birth through his 'dark night of the soul' while at the Slade school of Art, his marriage to Frances Blogg and his career as a journalist and writer (chapters 1-4). The rest of the book looks at Chesterton's key work in chronological order and uses them to look at the man and, as the subtitle suggests, his impact. Thus it provides an interesting slant on a biography and we get a fuller look at Chesterton's work than we would in a traditional biography.

Belmonte makes good use of secondary sources - he utilises at least ten other biographies. He also draws upon contemporary reviews and criticisms of Chesterton's work; this serves well to place Chesterton's work in its cultural milieu. It is fascinating to read what H L Mencken, G B Shaw and T S Elliott made of Chesterton.

There is a helpful timeline and bibliography, there are 29 pages of notes, but, unfortunately, no index.

This is a great starting book for those who want to get to know better the life and works of G K Chesterton.



Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Reformed academic reviews of Calvin and culture

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)

Chapter 1 History
Chapter 2 Law
Chapter 3 Art
Chapter 4 Economics
Chapter 5 Literature
Chapter 6 Philosophy

Other chapters will no doubt follow.

Clifford Stoll on computers in school

Jamie K A Smith - The Spirit of Knowledge

Tim Challies: The Next Story - coming soon

Available soon from amazon.co.uk

John Lennox and Peter Atkins - debate

Is intelligent design a lazy option? Or does science increase the evidence for design?
God and science or God or science?

2 Corinthians 7: joy and encouragement

Here are my slides for last night's talk:

2 Corinthians 7

View more presentations from Steve Bishop.

Music for a Sunday morning

[HT RefWrite]

Music for a Sunday morning

Creativity and cultural power - Andy Crouch

Herman Dooyewerd's Collected Works

The Reformational Publishing Project and Paideia Press are working hard to get out the Collected works of Herman Dooyeweerd out at an affordable price.


Crisis in de Humanistische Staatsleer has been translated and recently published at £7. More details here.

Also forthcoming are the following.
(Thanks to Danie Strauss for providing the contents of each one)


  The Historical and two Systematic Volumes of the Encyclopedia of the Science of Law contents

  The collection of Essays on Time, Law and History contents

  Essays on the Transcendental Criticism

  Volume II of Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy: An Introduction to the anthropology of the philosophy of the cosmonomic idea contents

  Volume III of Reformation and Scholasticism: Philosophy of nature and philosophical anthropology

contents

  Dooyeweerd’s Inaugural Address contents

  Philosophy and theology

Mark Roques on Pemier radio

This week on Unbelievable : Human Value & Subversive Stories

Off-duty policemen in Bogota, Columbia shoot street children because they consider them to be "disposables". Using stories such as this Mark Roques asks whether value in human life can be found anywhere other than our being made "In the image of God". Atheist Paul Thompson argues that we don't need a supernatural explanation for the value we place on human beings. They discuss the issue of where human value comes from and Mark's "Subversive Questions and storytelling" method of apologetics.

via premier.org.uk