Beholding the Glory: Incarnation through the Arts

Beholding the Glory has 54 ratings and 8 reviews. Zachary said: Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book. Here are my chapter by chapter thoughts:In the fi.
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• "Beholding the Glory: Incarnation Through the Arts (Book Review)" by Simon du Toit
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• Beholding the Glory: Incarnation Through the Arts

What is fascinating is the focus of the chapter. Graham Cray chose to engage the intersection of the Incarnation and the art of music at the cultural level. This enables Cray to situate two specific albums of Marvin Gaye in the context of his struggle with his religious and legalistic upbringing, a disastrous relationship with his father, and his ultimate failure to deal with his own internal struggles with temptation. Rather than dictate how music or 'pop' music might be able to contribute to a theological discussion on the Incarnation, Cray simply and engagingly does it.

In treating Gaye's albums and the songs therein as solidified forms of art, they can be perceived to be an outflow of the struggle Marvin found himself in between his moralistic and overbearing upbringing and his desire to be good and do good. The popularity of the albums points to their poignancy and resonance with the culture at large surrounding him. And yet, in them, we also see a man dealing with temptation and struggling to find his way amidst the chaos of life, and doing so poorly. Cray takes Gaye's struggles with temptation and ultimate surrender to them, contrasting it with Christ's temptation and how He dealt with and responded to it.

In the end, Cray allows Gaye's failure to illumine Christ's triumph, and challenges the reader to walk Christ's path instead of Marvin Gaye's. The title of the final chapter, written by Jeremy Begbie himself, was slightly misleading, at least to me. Its title reads, "Through Music: Sound Mix," and so I expected some sort of incarnational trinitarian contemplation rooted in the sonic dynamic and reality available in modern sound mixes.

Instead, the 'mix' Begbie has in mind is simply that of polychorality, the utilization of more than one note at once - even down to a minimal two notes sounded simultaneously. And yet, in his insightful and engaging manner, Begbie lays out the spatially restrictive thinking which binds too many minds when attempting to consider both the dual natures of Christ fully divine, fully human , and even the tripartite existence of the trinity. Visual conceptions of the Godhead truly limit it spatially, for the human tendency is to assume no two things can occupy the same physical or even visual space.

And yet music, and specifically notes, can in fact occupy the same space, and yet retain their distinctiveness. Without delving too deeply into his chapter, suffice it to say that he clearly points out not only the incarnational and trinitarian conceptions this more aural understanding opens to the theologian, he also points towards the communal implications as well. That being said, this chapter is phenomenal and pretty much what I expected when I first opened the book.

Though I didn't quite know what to expect, and I was slightly disappointed to find out that Begbie merely wrote the introduction and the concluding chapter, in the end this little book was a very engaging and fascinating read. More than anything else, it points towards the essentiality of the arts to theology. Theology cannot merely dictate to the arts, but it must engage and even allow itself to be shaped by them when the art itself aligns with and allows a deeper understanding of a Biblical truth.

More than anything else, the book argues that in the theological conversations of our day, art and artistry should have a voice. I greatly enjoyed the book and will highly recommend it in the future. Jun 12, Steve rated it it was amazing Shelves: Here is a very strong set of essays on the Christian view the arts. There are excellent contributions on literature, poetry, sculpture, dance, music, all yielding important theological and practical insights.

Jul 23, Andrew Fox rated it liked it. Edited by Begbie this unique book presents eight different aspects of art and our understanding of the incarnation.

The first is by Trevor Hart who examines hearing, seeing and touching truth through art. His premise is that God became flesh so caution and wisdom is needed when art represents this. Without doubt, art creates a sense of thought and joy but is often relegated to a lower importance than politics, economy, science or religion. But art brings together our imagination and incarnation. It does cast light on the narrative of scripture by shaping the unfamiliar with the familiar. He goes on to say that symbolism is a key component to our worldview. He cites Plato and his warning that art is cosmic burglary.

Collingwood is cited that real art is in the imagination of the artist and the imagination of the one who is appreciating the work. The physical realm is not the real work of art. Is art located somewhere between both imaginations? Both the artist and the appreciating person have a role to play. Kant takes this thought further and isolates how we appreciate art separate from how we see the world. This makes it highly subjective. Hart then takes us to two extremes of Schoenberg's music and Kandinsky's painting. It is a dualism between matter and spirit.

It is a higher level of abstraction as the music does not fit a particular harmony and the canvas looks nothing like an exact representation of the world we see. How this relates to incarnation, Hart brings into focus by quoting Paul's words to the Galatian churches.

God is no longer abstract and distant from the world but in the world and its history. He is no longer a divine idea but a personable reality. Hart continues that we have struggled with the humanity of Jesus and therefore deify him through art whereas the incarnation humanized God.

Therefore the incarnation itself has huge meaning and art must represent this. The second is by Malcolm Guite who examines Christ and redemption through language. His premise is that the Word became flesh therefore was a word-user. How he unpacks this is unique. He cautions preachers to be wise with words as the unbeliever needs to hear the mystery of God without explaining it away. Also, the divine baby must not be thrown out with the cultural bathwater.

The Word became flesh not just words. He was like us and had to learn how to use words. As an infant he would be wordless.

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The incarnation becomes profound in that the creator of mankind has to learn how to speak and use words himself. Guite adds that with the fall of the human race came the corruption of language and how it is used. The incarnation includes the redemption of language. This is seen in Luke's record of Jesus. Following this record, Jesus visited the temple many times but three of them were significant to following how the Word became authoritive with words. The first was his dedication by Simeon where the old sage spoke words of prophecy over the infant that he would be a light of the Gentiles, although a mere infant at the time without many intelligent words.

The second was as a pre-teen who asked questions but spoke with authority. The third was in cleansing the temple of its corruption speaking with astonishing authority that no-one would question him. Guites conclusion is that literature and language helps us journey from the incarnation to the cross.

Andrew Rumsey looks at poetry and its particularity. He states that this is a key word because details drive our lives and become crystallization. He suggests particularity is in crisis within our culture because we cannot decide between Christ and Krishna or between the varieties of brands offering the same product in the supermarket.

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Everything is somehow grey and without particularity. He then looks at several aspects of particularity. Firstly, attention, like a poet driven by what is before him. He wants meaning to it. Rumsey concludes brilliantly that the guitar strings of Jimmy Hendrix are not just guitar string but they must have a greater meaning to a poet. Secondly, presence, in the poets mind is the absence of presence, not seeing what is before them.

Thirdly, resonance, that brings context to meaning. His example is salvation itself. Not that we are forgiven of our sins but that the Son of Man should do so. Metaphors are vital for the poet to gain meaning and the choice of words. This brings it full circle to particularity. Sara Savage expanded my thinking about dance, being fully human and fully alive. She suggests that it brings back more of ourselves and more of Christ.

This statement was carefully unpacked in her dialogue. We tend to isolate intellect in our culture but this can affect how we see Jesus. The result is twofold: Jesus is divine or Jesus is human but not both. Savage suggests this is the body. She correctly states that before we could use words we came to know ourselves as we interacted with those around us physically.

But the church has historically seen this as carnal and a stumbling block. This is only partially true. For every time scripture records immobility it also records a movement. It was human just like ours therefore encountering him must also incorporate the body. Savage suggests this is in the dance. Jim Forest examines the incarnation through icons. Both ancient and modern controversy has argued that icons are a powerful testimony to the incarnation.

His premise is logos and eikon. Jesus the Word is also Jesus the image. Forest opens up a concise history of icons explaining the benefit and controversy. His conclusion to this chapter is nothing short of brilliant saying that our culture is filled with noise and words and needs silent icons to speak for themselves revealing the wonder of incarnation. Genesis is cited as an obvious and often ignored fact, about understanding the incarnation through sculptures. God created man from the dust of the ground like a potter on a wheel.

Therefore God is a great artist! She raises an interesting point in her own profession that when an artist feels the project is failed, it will be pushed aside. Although she was not explicit, I think she was driving at the incarnation endorsing humanity as the created and that God has not pushed us aside as a failed project. Graham Cray attempts to explain the incarnation, and temptation of Jesus, through popular music. He creates a tension by stating the incarnation of Jesus cannot be fully understood unless we also understand his temptation.

The extraordinary way of explaining this through popular music is through the life of the late soul singer Marvin Gaye. He correctly states that the saving power of Jesus cannot be real unless his temptation was real.

Slaves were converted to Christianity and with it came a new sound for expressing the gospel. He swings it back to Gaye and states that his own personal tension was between God and sex, as the two albums reveal. On one level he is looking for sexual pleasure temptation but on the other it is a deeper narrative of a man falling to temptation unlike Jesus. I would have expected more from the most popular form of art - popular music. Thankfully, Begbie expands Cray's thoughts into music as a general form of art. Sculptor Lynn Aldrich shows the power of sculpture in the three dimensional materiality that it shares with us to lead us into awe and reflection at God's incarnation.

Graham Cray takes the career of popular single Marvin Gaye to argue for the capacity of popular culture's ability to take on profound themes, and uses Gaye's songs and his life to argue that "To take the incarnation seriously is to take the temptation of Jesus seriously" Begbie, who has played an important role in bringing together theologians and artists to consider a "theology of the arts," closes the collection with a stunning essay that tackles the human fear that were God to be active in the world we would somehow not have room to act.

Using the analogy of several notes sounding at the same time, each of which influences what we hear of the others, Begbie proposes that "music can remind us that all the extraordinary patterns of interpenetration and resonance we have been tracing -- within God, between the Son and the humanity of Jesus, and between us and God -- all participate in a magnificent multi-voiced symphony of salvation, with the incarnate Son at its heart" The book is aimed at the general reader, who will find some of the ideas already "abroad" but others quite fresh.

Most readers, I think, will revel in the thought-provoking very specific examples of the essayists. This celebration of art's foundation in the body and the senses is a welcome reminder that we, too are artists, and we live most deeply when we experience the awe of God's work with us in our every moment. Skip to main content.

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