In Praise of a Naked Christ
In a recent online exchange, I posted a photo of an icon that showed the Virgin Mary with a breast partially uncovered. While some of the discussion centered around the ever-weary topic of modesty, another …
Art
Visio Divina in the Classroom: Seeing through Contemplative Prayer
It is not uncommon for professors at Christian colleges and universities to begin class with prayer. I attended public schools through high school and public colleges until I transferred to a private secular art school …
What Do People See? Exploring the Last Supper Vs. Bacchanalia Debate
I am a scholar of art & religion. This is one of those rare moments when my academic discipline intersects with a major media story. I am also a Christian, so this story is of …
They promised us a meteor shower
-For S. They had promised us a meteor shower, but all we saw were lightning bugs. Down the street, you could hear the lowing and occasional roars of livestock, the bulls and broncos that had …
Teaching drawing
I’ve been teaching art in college for many years now. On the first day of class, I always tell students that the way they learn in an art class is very different from how they …
I have begun to wonder if we have not found God
A poem, Epiphany 2022 I have begun to wonder if we have not found God because we think we do not have time to gaze at the stars. We could follow them if we tried, …
It’s the Logos not the Word
The comment below came across my Twitter and it struck me… but, not in a good way. “The Holy Spirit does not use movies. He uses whatever Scripture is in those movies. The film, itself, …
Get on your knees and fight like a man: Shifting from world peace to spiritual warfare in contemporary Christian music
The contemporary Christian rock group Petra dedicated an entire album to the theme of spiritual warfare when they released This Means War in 1987. With a title track that channeled John Milton’s Paradise Lost in …
Is Beauty Objective? Or in the Eye of the Beholder?
Is beauty objective or subjective? There are extremely different opinions about the ontology of beauty. For many today, beauty is subjective, merely in the eye of the beholder. For others, beauty is an objective reality. …
Telling secrets, finding grace: If all life is sacred, all life is truly sacred
A couple of years ago, a meme started to float around in what I think of as my Internet circles that wasn’t so much a joke as it was an expression of despair. It was …