Theological Aesthetics: A Reader. This item is unavailable.Theological Aesthetics: A Reader

While interest in the relationship between theology and the arts is on the rise, there are very few resources for students and teachers, let alone a comprehensive text on the subject. This book fills that lacuna by providing an anthology of readings on theological aesthetics drawn from the first century to the present. A superb sourcebook, Theological Aesthetics brings together original texts that are relevant and timely to scholars today. Editor Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen has taken a careful, inclusive approach to the book, including articles and extracts that are diverse and ecumenical as well as representative of gender and ethnicity. The book is organized chronologically, and each historical period begins with commentary by Thiessen that sets the selections in context. These engaging readings range broadly over themes at the intersection of religion and the arts, including beauty and revelation, the vision of God, artistic and divine creation, God as artist, images of God, the interplay of the senses and the intellect, human imagination, mystical writings, meanings of signs and symbols, worship, liturgy, doxology, the relationship of word and image, icons and iconoclasm, the role of the arts in twentieth-century theology, and much more. A sampling of the more than 125 primary sources The Early Church: Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Ambrose, Tertullian The Medieval Church: John Scotus, Anselm, Hildegard of Bingen, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi The Reformation: Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries: George Herbert, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Schleiermacher, Coleridge, Newman, Ruskin, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard The Twentieth Century: Tillich, Rahner, Bonhoeffer, Barth, von Balthasar, Nicholas Berdyaev, Jeremy Begbie, Richard Harries, Sallie McFague, Joan D. Chittister

'...The book is engaging. It reflects on a whole range of issues: the nature of wisdom, leadership and power, handling tradition, inclusion, hope, sovereignty...and ends with a very moving personal perspective on the Coming Of Jesus, gained by having looked death in the eye. The book really took flight after the introduction, so don't get bogged down in this, but head on through it with anticipation. And, when you get into the main part of the book, I would suggest that you start on 17 December with O Sapientia and read a chapter a day'. Praxis News of Worship, December 2007

We live in a turbulent time of change. Many, beyond the borders of church, are desperate for some sense of spiritual reality. Fresh expressions of church are the green shoots of the future. - The Revd Tom Stuckey, President of Methodist Conference 2005/06 "I'm colossally encouraged by the amount of activity that there seems to be around the church at the moment. There's already a huge amount going on, our job is to join in, to give it the nourishment it needs so that it will grow in the right way. I hope you will give thanks to God and get involved!" - Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury