Religious Aesthetics

Religious Aesthetics
Author: Frank Burch Brown
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 1993-05-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691024723

In this groundbreaking work, Brown shows how aesthetics, no less than ethics, can play a central role in the study of religion and in the practice of theology. "An important book, wide ranging, often very witty . . . showing an impressive grasp of the current state of aesthetics and possible new directions".--Nick McAdoo, British Journal of Aesthetics.

Aesthetics of Religion

Aesthetics of Religion
Author: Alexandra K. Grieser
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2017-12-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3110460459

This volume is the first English language presentation of the innovative approaches developed in the aesthetics of religion. The chapters present diverse material and detailed analysis on descriptive, methodological and theoretical concepts that together explore the potential of an aesthetic approach for investigating religion as a sensory and mediated practice. In dialogue with, yet different from, other major movements in the field (material culture, anthropology of the senses, for instance), it is the specific intent of this approach to create a framework for understanding the interplay between sensory, cognitive and socio-cultural aspects of world-construction. The volume demonstrates that aesthetics, as a theory of sensory knowledge, offers an elaborate repertoire of concepts that can help to understand religious traditions. These approaches take into account contemporary developments in scientific theories of perception, neuro-aesthetics and cultural studies, highlighting the socio-cultural and political context informing how humans perceive themselves and the world around them. Developing since the 1990s, the aesthetic approach has responded to debates in the study of religion, in particular striving to overcome biased categories that confined religion either to texts and abstract beliefs, or to an indisputable sui generis mode of experience. This volume documents what has been achieved to date, its significance for the study of religion and for interdisciplinary scholarship.

Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste

Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste
Author: Frank Burch Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2000-09-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0195343964

Christians frequently come into conflict with themselves and others over such matters as music, popular culture, and worship style. Yet they usually lack any theology of art or taste adequate to deal with aesthetic disputes. In this provocative book, Frank Burch Brown offers a constructive, "ecumenical" approach to artistic taste and aesthetic judgment--a non-elitist but discriminating theological aesthetics that has "teeth but no fangs." While grounded in history and theory, this book takes up such practical questions as: How can one religious community accommodate a variety of artistic tastes? What good or harm can be done by importing music that is worldly in origin into a house of worship? How can the exercise of taste in the making of art be a viable (and sometimes advanced) spiritual discipline? In exploring the complex relation between taste, religious imagination, and faith, Brown offers a new perspective on what it means to be spiritual, religious, and indeed Christian.

Aesthetics and the Divine

Aesthetics and the Divine
Author: Shimon Dovid Cowen
Publisher: Hybrid Publishers
Total Pages: 117
Release: 2020-09-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1925736644

"Rabbi Cowen's creative engagement with these contemporary artists reveals how spirituality can enhance the power of the visual image, the emotional persuasiveness of the literary text, and the neurological impact of music ..." - Mel Alexenberg, formerly Professor of Art at Columbia University In the realm of contemporary aesthetic high culture, there are many painters, writers and composers of great talent, but few with deep religious knowledge and belief. In the realm of faith, there are many with deep belief and religious knowledge, but very few with developed great artistic talent. Is there some way of making good the absent but essential combination of artistic prowess and religious depth required to produce great religious artworks in the various artistic media? In response to this question, this book addresses the theory and practice of engaging significant artists – not necessarily religiously learned or committed – to draw forth from them genuinely religious high art. After exploring the concept of the religious artwork, it documents three religious-creative encounters through which important religious artworks emerged, in the realms of painting, literature and music. It concludes with thoughts on the methodology and kinds of successful engagements between religion and aesthetics – with broader implications for education to religious art.

Black Religion and Aesthetics

Black Religion and Aesthetics
Author: A. Pinn
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2009-07-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0230622941

A great deal of attention has been given to the sociopolitical and theological importance of Black Religion. However, of less academic concern up to this point is the aesthetic qualities that define much of what is said and done within the context of Black Religion. Recognizing the centrality of the black body for black religious thought and life, this book proposes a conversation concerning various dimensions of the aesthetic considerations and qualities of Black Religion as found in various parts of the world, including the the Americas, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. In this respect, Black Religion is simply meant to connote the religious orientations and arrangements of people of African descent across the globe.

Aesthetics and Analysis in Writing on Religion

Aesthetics and Analysis in Writing on Religion
Author: Daniel Gold
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2003-06-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0520236130

Annotation This is a book that looks at contemporary challenges to studying and writing in religion, rethinking the discipline in a way that takes seriously both the aesthetic dimensions and its need for scientific discipline. Gold pursues a new line of thought about the art of religion, arguing for something he calls interpretive writing.

Good Taste, Bad Taste, & Christian Taste

Good Taste, Bad Taste, & Christian Taste
Author: Frank Burch Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2003
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780195158724

Christians frequently come into conflict with themselves and others over such matters as music, popular culture, and worship style. Yet they usually lack any theology of art or taste adequate to deal with aesthetic disputes. In this provocative book, Frank Burch Brown offers a constructive, "ecumenical" approach to artistic taste and aesthetic judgment--a non-elitist but discriminating theological aesthetics that has "teeth but no fangs." While grounded in history and theory, this book takes up such practical questions as: How can one religious community accommodate a variety of artistic tastes? What good or harm can be done by importing music that is worldly in origin into a house of worship? How can the exercise of taste in the making of art be a viable (and sometimes advanced) spiritual discipline? In exploring the complex relation between taste, religious imagination, and faith, Brown offers a new perspective on what it means to be spiritual, religious, and indeed Christian.

Faith and Beauty

Faith and Beauty
Author: Edward Farley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2020-04-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1351937367

'Aesthetics' and 'theological aesthetics' usually imply a focus on questions about the arts and how faith or religion relates to the arts; only the final pages of this work take up that problem. The central theme of this book is that of beauty. Farley employs a new typology of western texts on beauty and a theological analysis of the image of God and redemption to counter the centuries-long tendency to ignore or marginalize beauty and the aesthetic as part of the life of faith. Studying the interpretation of beauty in ancient Greece, eighteenth-century England, the work of Jonathan Edwards, and nineteenth and twentieth-century philosophies of human self-transcendence, the author explores whether Christian existence, the life of faith, and the ethical exclude or require an aesthetic dimension in the sense of beauty. The work will be of particular interest to those interested in Christian theology, ethics, and religion and the arts.

The Aesthetics of Atheism

The Aesthetics of Atheism
Author: Kutter Callaway
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2019-04-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506439896

To really understand God, you have to understand atheism. Atheism and Christianity are often placed at polar opposite ends of a spectrum, forever in stark conflict with each other. In The Aesthetics of Atheism, Kutter Callaway and Barry Taylor propose a radical alternative: atheism and theism need each other. In fact, atheism offers profound and necessary theological insights into the heart of Christianity itself. To get at these truths, Callaway and Taylor dive into the aesthetic dimensions of atheism, using everything from Stranger Things to Damien Hirst's controversial sculptures to the music of David Bowie, Nick Cave, and Leonard Cohen. This journey through contemporary culture and its imagination offers readers a deeper understanding of theology, culture, and how to engage faith in a chaotic and complex world where God is present in the most unexpected place: atheism.

Theological Aesthetics

Theological Aesthetics
Author: Richard Viladesau
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 311
Release: 1999
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019512622X

In this book, Richard Viladesau contrues Christian theology as a "theological aesthetics." He examines Christian revelation and its rational presuppositions in relationship to three interconnected meanings of the "aesthetic" in modern thought: human cognition as feeling and imagination; the realm of the beautiful; and the arts. In each area, examples from the arts are correlated with classical and contemporary theological themes.