Confluence of the arts and theology
LE3 .A278 2014
2014
Janzen, Carol Anne
Acadia University
Doctor of Ministry
D.Min.
Ministry
Acadia Divinity College
In the past few decades, the world has become a media culture that thinks and communicates through the language of the arts. Unless the church thinks in the language of media and the arts, it may have little to say to those outside its walls. This work demonstrates how the commitments of artists and theologians are complementary and essential to each other. It proposes an approach by which artists might collaborate with theologians in our churches, modeling a wholistic engagement with theological meaning that might transfer to a broader base of ownership within each church. This project employed the methodology of arts-based participatory research through an event in which artists created alongside theologians, and from which emerged key factors in the way people today acquire knowledge. These factors or touchstones find support in a variety of disciplines shaped by postmodernism, but also transcend current trends as they are located in Jesus’ own teaching style. What may be transferable to any church is the way these touchstones, drawn from the idiom of the arts, map the priorities for how leaders and artists might engage people today with theological truth. Experiencing truth is a key undercurrent in the first five touchstones, each of which contributes a facet for how people today tend to consider new concepts, at which point an individual may have to adjust his or her framework of ideas. The final touchstone embodies the wholistic priority that, as imagination is a balance of the intuitive big picture with an analytical explanation, so our churches might benefit from an accommodation of the strengths of the artists and the theologians. This work will offer a way forward for the church today with scenarios from its touchstones helping leaders to approach truth from the perspective of this world by working with those who most comfortably think in its idiom.
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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:326