Anybody read this? Looks interesting...

With the walls of their churches bereft of imagery and colour and their worship centered around sermons with carefully constructed outlines (as opposed to movement and drama), Reformed Protestants have often been accused of being dour and unimaginative. Here, William Dyrness explores the roots of Reformed theology in an attempt to counteract these prevailing notions. Studying sixteenth-century Geneva and England, seventeenth-century England and Holland and seventeenth and eighteenth-century Puritan New England, Dyrness argues that, though this tradition impeded development of particular visual forms, it encouraged others, especially in areas of popular culture and the ordering of family and community. Exploring the theology of John Calvin, William Ames, John Cotton and Jonathan Edwards, Dyrness shows how this tradition created a new aesthetic of simplicity, inwardness and order to express underlying theological commitments. With over forty illustrations, this book will prove invaluable to those interested in the Reformed tradition.


"¢ Explores the Puritan promotion of popular visual culture and its continuing influence


"¢ Explains how the roots of our modern "˜imagination´ lay in the faith of the Reformation


"¢ Written by an author who is a greatly respected figure in his field

Contents
1. Introduction: imagination, theology and visual culture; 2. Medieval faith and the ambiguity of sight; 3. John Calvin: seeing God in the preached word; 4. England and the visual culture of the reformation; 5. William Ames, John Cotton and seventeenth-century puritanism; 6. Seventeenth-century visual culture; 7. Jonathan Edwards: the world as image and shadow.

Reviews
'"¦ Dyrness does a good job.' Christian Marketplace

'A brief review of this book can do scant justice to its scholarship or its breadth of reference. As a general introduction, it will be a valuable tool for any reader seeking to understand more fully the intersection between popular culture and religious inspiration.' Church Times

'An important contribution to the complex history of the relationship between Christianity and art.' International Review of Biblical Studies

'This book is full of interesting asides and pointed readings of various texts and art works, but there is also a strong thesis here about the relationship of religion and art to popular culture.' Reviews in Religion and Theology

'"¦ a very rewarding book, which challenges deeply-held assumptions about the way in which Protestantism inhabits the world, and which opens up ways for those who come from that culture to appropriate a visual culture for ourselves.' Anvil


[Edited on 1-30-2006 by crhoades]

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Chris Rhoades -33
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church (PCA) Nashville, TN-Under Care

Vera theologia non theoretica, sed practica est; Finis siquidem eius agere est hoc est vitam vivere deiformem. - Martin Bucer
""True theology is not theoretical, but practical. The end of it is living, that is to live a godly life."

Author Bio:
http://www.fuller.edu/provost/facult...cord.asp?id=26

As you can see, he teaches at Fuller Seminary fwiw.

Dyrness did an ok book on missions. It had the chance to be really good, but it wasn't. That being said, this book probably has the chance of being really good. Sounds interesting.

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

No, but I can get it and put in the stack of other books, that I won't finish reading before I am thirty. Let me know if you read it, and if it is really really good.

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Ryan
1689 London Baptist Confession

I have a great deal of interest in studies on Calvinist aesthetics (Ã* la Abraham Kuyper, Leon Wencelius, and Francis Schaeffer). I'll definitely add this book to my list. Thanks, Chris!

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Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole

One of the things that attracted me to Puritan/Reformed/Presbyterianism was the aesthetics element. Born & raised Roman, I was once strongly influenced by the "smells 'n bells" element of the liturgy. I loved the stained glass, statues, rituals, vestments, chant, incense, etc.

However, it was the history of such things that got me to thinking - and moving - in a different direction. I learned tha the artwork (stained glass, statues, carvings, etc.) were designed to teach basics of the faith to an illiterate population. My question then was: Why were they illiterate? The answer eventually led me to reformation - and especially the Puritans - with their stress on literacy and education in general.

When Roman (and Lutheran) I was told that sermons (homilies, actually) were to be no more than 5-8 minutes because the attention span of the average parishioner couldn't take any more than that. That may be true, but if so, why? I'm of the opinion that we've become a "visual" society at the expense of literacy; that we've performed electronic lobotomies upon ourselves through tv, movies, computer games, etc., and that reading and imagination and creativity have been forgotten, if not lost. Fortunately, I find that this is not true amongst lovers of Puritanism.

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Pastor Kevin Guillory
St. Andrew Lutheran Church
Baltimore, MD

"I don't interpret Scripture. Scripture interprets itself. And in the process ... scripture interprets me."

Yes, things have been dumbed down. This constant visual stimulation is most likely in many ways a step backward. To be sure, there are other factors, but as it has become more prevalent, literacy has declined.

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Chris
Member at Grace Community Baptist Church, Mandeville, LA

Beware of a religion without holdfasts. But if I get a grip upon a doctrine they call me a bigot. Let them do so. Bigotry is a hateful thing, and yet that which is now abused as bigotry is a great virtue, and greatly needed in these frivolous times. I have been inclined lately to start a new denomination, and call it "the Church of the Bigoted." Spurgeon