Vanhoozer on Imagination
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Over at Between Two Worlds there is a great Interview with Kevin Vanhoozer. I particularly liked his comments on imagination…
… I find that the imagination is a vital ingredient in my sanctification. I need to keep the big biblical picture (creation-fall-redemption-consummation) in mind as I attempt to live day by day, minute by minute, as a follower of Jesus Christ who desires above all to have one’s thought and life correspond to the gospel. To do that, I have to keep the gospel story (together with its presuppositions and implications) in mind, and I have to connect my story to that of Jesus. That requires imagination.
…
Reading is the way we learn to inhabit the world. Not the natural world, but the cultural world: the world of meaning.
…
My concern is that many Evangelicals are suffering from malnourished imaginations. This impedes their ability to live coherently in the world–that is, according to a meaningful metanarrative. We want to believe the Bible, but we are unable to see our world in biblical terms (this is a major theme of my Pictures at a Biblical Exhibition that I mentioned above). That leads to a fatal disconnect between our belief-system and our behavior, our faith and our life.
…
Reading … is a kind of strength-training that flexes the muscles of our imagination. Those who read widely are often those who are able to employ metaphors that connect ordinary life to the wonderful real world of the Bible.
(HT: Kingdom People]
Tags: imagination, Kevin Vanhoozer
Digital dandelion
Posted by Paul | Filed under photos
OK, I finally decided that this digital thing isn’t a fad and I should move from film 
So, here is a shot with the new acquisition…
Hopefully, the new medium will mean more ‘instamatic’ to match the ‘theology’…
Tags: photos
Culture and questions (6): Tim Keller
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I found this quote today from Tim Keller, which fits nicely with what we’ve been saying here over the last few posts…
What is contextualization?
…
I propose the following definition: Contextualization is not ‘giving people what they want’ but rather it is giving God’s answers (which they may not want!) to questions they are asking and in forms that they can comprehend. “Contextualization” ‘incarnates’ the Christian faith in a particular culture.
(Taken from this talk & pdf; HT: reformissionary)
Keller makes the interesting addition that not only does the gospel answer a culture’s particular questions, but it also presents particular challenges to each culture.
Culture and questions (5): being relevant
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Growing out of recent posts, here’s my proposal:
True relevance depends on changing the questions we answer,
rather than changing the answers we already have.
It seems that there is an endless debate in the church over whether being relevant is a really bad thing or a absolutely vital thing. I want to suggest that we can attempt relevance in many ways and the consequences depend on the route. Look for relevance by changing the answers and you risk losing what you have without actually addressing the needs of those around. But do the hard work of listening to new questions and broadening the answers to meet the new needs and you will find new depth as well as serving the culture.
Grace
Posted by Paul | Filed under photos
This is already elsewhere on the site, but the Easter allusions make it an appropriate time for a re-post…
Tags: photos
In defence of sad songs (late finish)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Over at Diary of an Arts Pastor, David Taylor has an interesting post on The Art of Lament. This reminded that I started on this subject, but — lamentably — never really got to the end of my thoughts. So here are a couple of brief ideas that should have been included…
The first is a quote from U2 sermons blog (quoting, in turn, Douglas Blount):
…for U2, “all roads to the Gospel lead first through the blues… gospel without blues leads to self-deception.”
… which, I guess, is the up-swing of what we’ve said previously.
The second is William Edgar’s suggestion (during the talk Heaven in a Nightclub) that jazz is able to express true joy because it has faced up to the darkness and despair in life. In contrast, a lot of current praise music only gets as far as happiness.
Maybe we can link these two fragments together: In a recent interview, Simon Mayo suggested that one of U2′s attractions is their joy. And certainly, for me, little praise music reaches the joy of, for example, Magnificent. Perhaps this is the result of a willingness to take the road that passes ‘first through the blues’.
Or, to be seasonal, we find the full joy of Easter Sunday only when we’ve truly engaged with the darkness & despair of Good Friday. (For more on this, see Robin Parry’s post on Tenebrae.)
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...