Abstract
Trevor Hart, Gavin Hopps and Jeremy Begbie (eds),
Art, Imagination and Christian Hope: Patterns of Promise
, Ashgate Studies in Theology, Imagination and the Arts, Ashgate: Farnham, 2012; 206 pp.: 9780754666769, £60.00 (hbk)
Collections of essays are at their best when the themes and subjects are tight enough to sustain clear lines of enquiry, while allowing enough room for diverse voices and angles of approach. Too narrow and the editors risk repetition; too broad and the collection becomes a series of set pieces, unlikely to sustain interest through the whole collection. It is the latter position to which Art, Imagination and Christian Hope is drawn, compassing such a broad terrain of approaches and subjects as to leave the reader feeling pulled to all corners of the globe.
The first two chapters certainly complement each other. Richard Bauckham reflects on time and eternity through Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and Monet’s series on Rouen Cathedral and the water lilies, finding the experience of transcendence amid the record of transience. Paul Fiddes continues this theme (and with common reference to Jürgen Moltmann) of eternity breaking into time in an excellent essay comparing Shakespeare, Blake and Eliot, arguing towards a positive relation of time and eternity, where time is neither superceded nor done away with, but healed. One might disagree with his account of divine mutability brought in towards the end, but his assertion that ‘We never escape from time, but we can experience a new relation to it’ (p. 50) is a provocative one. Anna Williams, in contrast, addresses the subject of how Christian architecture amplifies the liturgical rites in reckoning with both time and eternity. The essay is a fascinating introduction to reading the theology of architecture and an enjoyable read, making tangible the connections between the theology of the Incarnation, the ‘realised eschatology’ of worship (p. 66), and the architecture of churches which actively point beyond their spaciality to time and eternity.
At the same time, Daniel Chua gives quite a technically difficult response to the question ‘what does hope sound like?’ through a discussion of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Beethoven’s Fidelio. Again the tension of time and eternity is raised, here addressed through the motif of the ‘providential echo’. To this point the theme of aesthetic responses to time being ‘out of joint’ gives a sense of coherence to the collection. Kristen Deede Johnson, however, presents a departure with an essay that describes various positions on millennialism, particularly in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. The reference to Huxley’s dystopian vision does not extend beyond the first paragraph, disappointing those who expected a theological reflection on this important genre, and eschewing aesthetic investigation.
Psychologist Patricia Bruininks then takes the collection further afield with a fascinating stand-alone social-scientific perspective on our language of hope, hopefulness and optimism.
Bruce Longenecker brings us back to literary themes with José Saramago’s The Gospel according to Jesus Christ. Certainly this is topical with several recent (unmentioned) similar works, not least Colm Tóibín’s Man Booker shortlisted The Testament of Mary. This is followed by an unusual piece on Morrissey, which is an important attempt to read from popular culture to the yearnings present behind the popular imagination, although it is not in Morrissey’s favour to read him alongside Hardy and Larkin. Trevor Hart’s final essay takes us back to the strong opening two chapters, finding in art consolation that gives shape to experienced reality. Understandably the focus of the essay then turns to tragedy, sensitive to Terry Eagleton’s note that tragedy can become a secular theodicy, but finding in Tolkien’s category of ‘eucatastrophe’ a grace to move us from hope to despair. This admirable essay would have complemented Kevin Taylor and Giles Waller’s excellent recent Christian Theology and Tragedy (reviewed May/June 2013). As it is it provides a strong conclusion to a set of interesting and diverse essays, which, while pushing in almost too many directions, provide stimulating reflection on the nature of hope and the relation of time to eternity.