Faith on View

Revisiting 2014…aka another top 10 list.

Rondall, Pamela, and the kids in a fall 2014 portrait

A little while back I had a fan of Faith on View message me on Facebook asking me to once again post regularly on Faith on View. Okay, truth be told it really was more of an internet friend teasing me for my failures. For those who follow this blog, they noticed that in September posts stopped fairly abruptly. What happened was that I had the wonderful opportunity to become a Senior Lecturer at California College of the Arts which is one of the top Art Schools in the nation. But, I had previously committed to teaching two classes at William Jessup University, an evangelical school in the Sacramento area, and a class at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where I am pursuing my PhD. This meant that in addition to the Theological Aesthetics course I was auditing from the esteemed Frank Birch Brown, I was also now teaching five classes at three different institutions. All that to say I was really busy and I let my writing on Faith on View slip. The good news is that this semester my teaching is reduced and I am only teaching one course at GTU and one at CCA. This should translate into more regular writing from me. I have a lot of ideas so I am looking forward to having more time to get them on “paper.”

Rondall, Pamela, and the kids in a fall 2014 portrait taken by Nicole DiGiorgio of Sweetness and Light Photography — Rondall, Pamela, and the kids in a fall 2014. Portrait taken by Nicole DiGiorgio of Sweetness and Light Photography

This is a guest post by James Arnold who was a student in my department at Louisiana College before changing to be a Christian Studies major. The post was first published on Joshua Breland’s blog, …

Darth David Hankins laying hands on joe Aguillard to pray with smoke in the foreground and another minister shooting sith force lightning out of his hands

One of my favorite events that I organized when I was at Louisiana College was a panel on the Philosophy & Theology of Star Wars. We had a panel with two theology professors, a history professor, and me. We discussed the Philosophy of Star Wars (which often is not consistent with Biblical theology) and then watched the movies all night long. It was a good exercise in how to think through the philosophy presented in popular culture. Over the last month I have been thinking about Star Wars, especially episodes 1-3. Those movies are really about the struggle of good and evil and the political maneuvering of the evil Sith. All throughout the movies the Sith Lord is manipulating the political scene. There is also in each movie a “public” face of the Sith.

One of my favorite quotes in the first movie is from Padme who, while in the senate chamber, says, “This is how liberty dies… to thunderous applause.” This speaks to an important truth. Evil often manipulates the situation so that people excitedly think they are doing the right thing. I can’t help but think of when Joe Aguillard was made President of Louisiana College.

This is my third movie review and I have enjoyed the process so far. I think it is helpful to think about movies in a more philosophical and theological light. However, people have asked me …

Why the World doesn’t Trust Us Nancy Pearcey is a big name in evangelical circles. I loved her book Total Truth. And her newer book Saving Leonardo is in my pile of books to read, …

I’ve never been a huge movie guy. I enjoy them like everyone else but I wouldn’t consider myself a serious critic. Mostly, I see action films, with a real soft spot for Sci-Fi, and kids’ …

I haven’t said much about the Duck Dynasty trend that has swept through America over the last couple of years. I know many good Christians who enjoy the show and are attracted to the principled …

Most people know Dinesh D’Souza as a conservative author. But, to be frank I don’t read many of the type of books he writes. I know him as the former president of the evangelical The King’s College in New York City. For those of you who do not know, D’Souza resigned from his position at The King’s College in October 2012 after World Magazine reported that he checked into a hotel at a conference with a woman who was introduced as his fiancée despite the fact that he was still married, though estranged. He has followed that up now by being indicted for campaign fraud. More details are available here, but basically he gave too much money to a campaign but gave it under different names so it wouldn’t get caught and knowingly caused others to lie.

May carrying a drawing of a woman and an easle

The issue of the relationship, or lack thereof, between homosexuality and the church, especially the evangelical church, is a hot topic these days. In some ways, I am a really bad blogger. I tend to …

Last semester I used my blog as a platform to think through a project I was working on entitled Five Evangelical Christs. It was a six part series which allowed me to think through ideas that turned into a more developed paper. I really enjoyed the process and got some great feedback, though more of that feedback was written on Facebook than showed up directly on this blog.

I think I will do something this semester in connection with my Philosophical Aesthetics class. I’ve decided that my big paper will be a systematic look at the concepts of the Beautiful and the Sublime. But, as I’ve been thinking this through, I believe I need to include two additional concepts: the Pretty and the Ugly.

The relationship of Beauty, Sublime, Pretty, and Ugly.

Beauty and Sublime both have a long history. Typically, they are set in opposition to each other. I, on the other hand, have a slightly different conception. The basis of my idea isn’t without historical precedent, but that is for another blog post…maybe. My conception has overlapping areas as illustrated with the above Venn diagram. In some ways the diagram is misleading. For example, I don’t believe that the majority of beauty is free of the pretty, sublime, and ugly. But, this is the best way I have, so far, been able to visualize my concept. Please feel free to make suggestions on this.