Visual Art as Theology is a post-critical aesthetics for theology based on the epistemology of Michael Polanyi. This aesthetics is employed in examining Paul Tillich's philosophy of art. Polanyi's epistemology is extended into an aesthetics which moves beyond the impasse left by Tillich's work in art and theology. This book demonstrates an appreciation of the possibilities and problems of Tillich's thought, and moves beyond Tillich towards a more integrative program.

An intriguing, substantive look into the relationship between the church and the world of art.

For most of history, argues John Dillenberger, the visual arts were, for better or worse, part of the very fabric of the life and thought of the church. But with the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation a major change took place. Protestant rejection of the visual was matched in Roman Catholicism by the reduction of its formative power. While the visual arts dropped out of the lives of Protestant churches, they became a memory rather than a source of ennoblement or power in the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, in different but allied ways, Protestants and Catholics lost the power of the visual. Part art history, part historical theology, and part theological reflection, this book is both an argument and a program for the recovery of the visual arts in the life of the church, for reclaiming seeing as part of religious perception. It offers a theological understanding of the visual and provides a basis upon which the visual arts may again be incorporated into Protestantism and reinvigorated in Roman Catholicism. The first part is devoted to historical reconstruction, exploring those moments in Western history in which the relation between religion and the arts was in ferment. Part 2 is given to contemporary delineation and analysis: of spiritual perceptions in modern American painting and sculpture, of modern church art and architecture, and of the changing views of contemporary theologians toward the visual arts. Citing David Tracy, Karl Rahner, Langdon Gilkey, and others as examples, Dillenberger argues that contemporary theology is moving away from the modern rationalistic understanding of theological analogy to one far closer to the arts. Part 3 is constructive, developing a theological perspective that demands and includes the visual arts, and suggesting ways in which this can be accomplished in pastoral and theological education. The world of art, says Professor Dillenberger, is more aware of the role of religion in the arts than the world of religion is of art. Thus it is time for the church to resume its historic association with the visual arts, albeit in analogous rather than repristinating ways.

At least since the time of Paul (see Acts 18), Christians have wrestled with the power and danger of religious imagery in the visual arts. It was not until the middle of the twentieth century that there emerged in Western Christianity an integrated, academic study of theology and the arts. Here, one of the pioneers of that movement, H. Wilson Yates, along with fourteen theologians, examine how visual culture reflects or addresses pressing contemporary religious questions. The aim throughout is to engage the reader in theological reflection, mediated and enhanced by the arts. This beautifully illustrated book includes more than fifty images in full color.

This collection of essays seeks to redefine the discussion of Calvinism's impact on the visual arts through an exploration of Reformed artistic influences in England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and America. 200+ illustrations, many in color.

How has religion affected the creation and patronage of American art? This is the question explored in 'The Visual Arts and Christianity in America', the most comprehensive treatment of this subject to date. With its 184 illustrations, the volume is a visual and textual survey of both the religious paintings, statuary, and architecture produced in America since colonial times and the attitudes toward such art expressed by the artists, the clergy, and the religious press. By means of a multifaceted approach that includes investigation of biographical, journalistic, art historical, as well as religious literature, a broad range of art objects and buildings are carefully placed in their social and intellectual context. Part One presents the colonial backdrop, both English and Spanish, against which and out of which the ensuing developments in American art and religious life took shape. Part Two treats nineteenth-century views of art and architecture, focusing on the views held by the clergy and conveyed in religious journals as well as the religious views of the artists and architects themselves. In Part Three, devoted to art in private and public life, major issues emerge that will remain as such into the twentieth century: the relation between nature and history, the place of art in civil religion, and the presence or absence of explicit biblical themes. The fourth and entirely new portion of the book, devoted to the twentieth century, examines the continuities and discontinuities in style and content between nineteenth- and twentieth-century art in relation to spiritual and religious perceptions.

An intriguing, substantive look into the relationship between the church and the world of art.