Join us at 7 p.m. on Tuesday evenings in September and October for our series, “Reflections on the Image: Seeing Christ in Shadows of the ArtForm,” at the Rattlesnake Bar and Grill with the presentations beginning at 7:30 p.m.  We’ll see you there!

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

“Two Georges and a Clive:
Gadamer, Steiner, and Lewis on Intellectual Hospitality”

Bruce Herman
Lothlorien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts at Gordon College

In George Steiner’s Real Presences (1989, Cambridge Univ Press) the secular British linguist explores an alternative to deconstructionism in his theory of “real presences” (obviously a reference to Eucharistic theology).  What Steiner has in common with C. S. Lewis and Hans Georg Gadamer is that all three advocate for a certain “courtesy” or hospitality toward texts, images, works of culture. Lewis’s Experiment in Criticism and Gadamer’s The Relevance of the Beautiful share this common ground with Steiner’s theory. We will explore the concept of literary and artistic real presence and its possible relevance to the life of faith in a culture that has radical suspicion toward all texts, particularly sacred ones.

Bruce Herman (American, b. 1953) is currently Lothlorien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts at Gordon College. He completed both undergraduate and graduate fine arts degrees at Boston University School for the Arts. He studied under Philip Guston, James Weeks, David Aronson, Reed Kay, and Arthur Polonsky. Herman lectures widely and has had work published in many books, journals, and popular magazines. His artwork has been exhibited in more than 20 solo and 100 group exhibitions in eleven major cities including Boston, New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. His work has been shown internationally, including in England, Italy, Canada, and Israel. His art is featured in many public and private collections including the Vatican Museum of Modern Religious Art in Rome; The Cincinnati Museum of Fine Arts; DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts; and the Hammer Museum, Grunwald Print Collection, Los Angeles.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

“Desiring Images”

Daniel McClain
Affiliate Professor of Theology at Loyola University

The Judeo-Christian tradition offers a unique perspective for thinking about images, the most popular of which being Genesis’ language of the image of God, as well as Paul’s language in Col. 3:9-11. However, the Old Testament is less helpful when it comes to manufactured images. Compare this to the proliferation of images in the Christian tradition. The matter only becomes more complicated in our era wherein we’re surrounded by media, much of which is disconnected from and ambivalent to religions reflection. What’s a person to do amidst such a cacophony of imagery?  What method or approach to images, art, and the aesthetic will satisfy our thirst for visual and theological reflection?

Daniel is the Director of Program Operations for the Master of Theological Studies, and Affiliate Professor of Theology at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, MD. He is writing a dissertation on Creation and Theological Education according to St. Bonaventure. Aside from Introduction to Theology, he has also taught and published in the areas of Anglicanism & Anglican poetry and culture, Culture, Creation/Evolution, Christian Discipleship, Historical and Systematic Theology, and, his favorite, Harry Potter.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

“What’s in a Painting?
Vincent van Gogh as Theologian with a Brush”

Dr. Charles N. Davidson, Jr.
Retired Darrel Rollins Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care, and Counseling at Virginia University

School children know of the famous painter’s severed ear. Adults know that his works have sold for the highest prices ever paid for original art. Artists know that his expressionism was a bridge between impressionism and twentieth century modernism. Readers of his letters know that his life was filled with conflict, suffering, and defeat, and with a singular and passionate commitment to his calling as an artist. Yet, what do Christians know of Vincent as a theologian doing theology with his brush? The illustrated lecture will reveal lesser-known aspects of Vincent’s life and some sacred secrets contained within his art.

Charles Davidson, a Presbyterian (PCUSA) minister, is a pastoral psychotherapist in Black Mountain, NC, the retired Darrel Rollins Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care, and Counseling at Virginia University of Lynchburg (Va.), and editor of Life Turnings (lifeturnings.com), an interactive blogging community dedicated to spirituality and the healing arts. He received his B.A. from Hampden-Sydney College, his M.Div. and Th.M. from Union Presbyterian Seminary, and his D.Min. in pastoral counseling and psychotherapy from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. His book, Bone Dead and Rising: Vincent van Gogh and the Self Before God, was published by Wipf and Stock’s Cascade Books in 2011.