Peculiar Orthodoxy

S. Begbie Jeremy

Description

World-renowned theologian Jeremy Begbie has been at the forefront of teaching and writing on theology and the arts for more than twenty years. Amid current debates and discussions on the topic, Begbie emphasizes the role of a biblically grounded creedal orthodoxy as he shows how Christian theology and the arts can enrich each other. Throughout the book, Begbie demonstrates the power of classic trinitarian faith to bring illumination, surprise, and delight whenever it engages with the arts.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 21 août 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493414529
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2018 by Jeremy S. Begbie
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-1452-9
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Dedication
In memory of Roger Lundin, scholar, friend, and teacher extraordinaire
Contents
Cover i
Title Page ii
Copyright Page iii
Dedication iv
Introduction v
1. Created Beauty: The Witness of J. S. Bach 1
2. Beauty, Sentimentality, and the Arts 25
3. Faithful Feelings: Music and Emotion in Worship 49
4. Openness and Specificity: A Conversation with David Brown on Theology and Classical Music 79
5. Confidence and Anxiety in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius 93
6. The Holy Spirit at Work in the Arts: Learning from George Herbert 113
7. Natural Theology and Music 129
8. Room of One’s Own? Music, Space, and Freedom 145
9. The Future of Theology amid the Arts: Some Reformed Reflections 181
Index 209
Back Cover 217
Introduction
One of the more encouraging signs in theological writing over the last thirty years or so has been a flourishing of activity at the interface of theology and the arts. When I first began working at this frontier in the early 1980s, although it was not hard to find material on poetry, music, and painting with overtly Christian subject matter, in many theological quarters that was about as far as the interest went. A few philosophically minded writers went out of their way to show how a Christian perception of the world might shape and in turn be shaped by our engagement with the arts. But this kind of activity tended to be confined to relatively small and isolated pockets. The majority of theologians in the United States and Europe tended to see the arts as a peripheral and specialist interest. There was little cross-disciplinary conversation, little recognition that the arts presented serious and fruitful territory for theological research, little in the way of college courses and programs, and very little of theological depth to help Christian laypeople come to terms with whatever art surrounded them day by day. And the resources for Christians who were making art “on the ground”—molding clay, stringing notes together, spinning words into verse—were scarce.
Things are dramatically different today. College courses abound, institutes and doctoral programs flourish, parachurch organizations prosper, and literature pours out in myriad forms: monographs, journals, magazines, websites, and social media. Admittedly, funding to support the best of this activity is often meager, but there can be little doubt that, like the confluence of two rivers, Christian theology and the arts are together generating a bubbling ferment that shows no signs of abating. And much of this spans a wide ecclesiastical spectrum—Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox—generating cross-traditional conversation of a kind not witnessed to date. Here we should not forget the dogged persistence of those who over many decades have kept the arts firmly on the radar of church and academy, amid what was often a climate of indifference (in some cases hostility). To the likes of Nicholas Wolterstorff, Calvin Seerveld, Jane and John Dillenberger, Wilson Yates, Frank Burch Brown, Sandra Bowden, Richard Viladesau, Greg Wolfe, Mako Fujimura, William Dyrness, and others, we owe an incalculable debt.
This burgeoning activity is surely in large part to be welcomed, auguring well for the future health of both theology and the arts. If I had reservations about the present-day scene, they would not concern the liveliness of the field or its seriousness or depth. My misgivings would rather involve the theological resources being drawn upon. I welcome the sheer range and variety of ecclesial traditions currently being deployed, but what often seems to be lacking is the sustained exercise of what some have called a “scriptural imagination”—a sustained immersion in biblical texts that enables us to perceive and live in the world in a way that is faithful to Scripture’s theological coherence, and this together with an attention to the classic creedal traditions that seek to convey and foster such an imagination. 1 The reasons for this lack are many and varied. Undoubtedly one of them is that the Bible’s overt references to the arts are few and far between, and the early church’s patterns of belief were established with relatively little sustained reflection on the arts. In this light it is hardly surprising that many have turned to extrabiblical and extracreedal sources for the most promising primary sources of theological wisdom—an ancient metaphysical tradition perhaps, or a particular strand of modern or late modern philosophy. Others may put their confidence in a contemporary cultural movement or expression. Indeed, the tables can be turned here: some writers tell us that the arts themselves deliver theological wisdom that will make us question key elements in the biblical orthodoxy of yesteryear. The artist is typically an awkward customer, goading pastor and professor with questions they would rather ignore, questions that may well strike at the root of “the faith once delivered.”
While fully appreciating the motivations and concerns underlying these convictions, I have come to believe that the most profoundly awkward and in the long run most life-giving questions that arise from a Christian engagement with the arts will be provoked through engaging the often strange and puzzling texts the church recognizes as its canon and from the creedal confessions that seek to be faithful to its testimony. It is this stubborn peculiarity of biblically based orthodoxy—centering on the embodiment of the world’s Creator in a crucified king, and a God who is perplexingly threefold—that seems to be all too easily screened out or sanitized by those exploring the resonances between faith and the arts today. And it is worth emphasizing that in using “peculiar” in my title I have in mind both a strangeness (“he had a peculiar look in his eye”) and a distinctiveness (“she had that look peculiar to academics”). That is, I am keen to encourage an awareness not only of the odd and puzzling character of orthodoxy but also of how unique and unparalleled it is, and thus also an awareness of the danger both of muting its witness and of trying to turn it into something it is not.
Orthodoxy, of course, necessarily deals with doctrine, and like orthodoxy, talk of doctrine may well raise hackles. Doctrine, it will be protested, is about tidying things up, things that need to be left open. In the church’s deadening passion for control and conformity, for accurate propositions that supposedly give us a final hold on truth, mystery is dissolved, open-minded inquiry suppressed, conversation closed down. The arts move in a radically different world, so we are told, breathing a much fresher and healthier air. Here we will find openness, allusiveness, ambiguity, a resistance to that stifling pursuit of certainty that has plagued so much of the church’s history. Indeed, at their best, the arts can help liberate the church from its misguided reliance on doctrinal correctness.
This kind of sentiment is more than understandable. The arts do indeed rely heavily on allusiveness for much of their potency. And few will need reminding of the ways in which the church has exploited Christian dogma in oppressive ways (the very term “dogma” easily suggests as much), ways that do indeed encourage hegemony, flatten irresolvable paradoxes, inhibit discussion, exclude much-needed voices, and—not least—asphyxiate the arts. At the same time, we need to question some of the assumptions behind this kind of resistance to doctrine. In particular, there is the notion that language—including propositional language—strives by its very nature to “close in” on its subject, like a shark seeking to seize its prey in one bite, the notion that language is necessarily an attempt to enclose, grasp, and control. Undoubtedly formulating doctrine always involves specifying and delineating. But if it is undertaken “according to the Scriptures”—that is, if it is open to the redeeming activity of the God of Israel and Jesus Christ—and if it is conceived as “direction for our fitting participation in the ongoing drama of redemption,” 2 then it will, potentially at least, be a vehicle of liberation. Among other things, it will ensure that the gospel’s mystery remains mystery, that its ambiguities persist as ambiguous. Doctrine is at its most orthodox when it enables the skandalon of the gospel to be heard more clearly as just that, good news—and good news precisely because of and through its stubborn refusal to be domesticated and controlled. Doctrine’s prime ministry to the artist is to direct our eyes and ears to that skandalon above all, and the artist’s ministry to the doctrinal theologian is perhaps above all to remind him or her that no formal or technical language can ever encompass or contain its subject matter, least of all language about God.
This book is a modest attempt to explore the fruits of the church’s “peculiar orthodoxy” in the arena of the arts and in so doing recover a fresh confidence in its power. It has arisen through the encouragement of friends who suggested that I gather