Abstract
Art historians, theologians, and sociologists have published numerous books on art and the Christian faith from the perspectives of history, theological aesthetics, philosophy, ethics, and sociology. While offering important insights, these writers generally interpret the meaning of art as viewers, spectators, or researchers. Only occasionally do we hear an artist explain the meaning of making art in written form. It is rarer still for readers to have the privilege of learning from an accomplished artist’s theology of making. That is why Fujimura’s Art and Faith embodies such a unique but significant emic perspective.
The first major theme centers on theological creativity in the first two chapters. Fujimura begins with the creativity of God through the lens of creation, the Incarnation, and God’s revelation to humanity and nature. Like Bezalel and Oholiab (Exodus 31), God invites God’s creatures to co-create in Creation (9). Creativity can be redemptive and liberating through beauty and truth. Creativity is neither utilitarian nor unguided. “A sanctified imagination” (21) calls us to create with the Holy Spirit and to offer “culture care” (23).
Fujimura raises a second significant theological issue of the New Creation in chapters three through five. In contrast to a restorationist vision of the eschaton, which he coins as “plumbing theology” (29), Fujimura advocates for a theological vision of God who renews, generates, and gathers us around the feast of the New Creation. Drawing on the Japanese pottery-mending tradition of Kintsugi as a metaphor, the theology of making holds together Christ’s sacred wounds with the kainos (newness) of resurrection (47). The Eucharist serves as the fundamental paradigm for a theology of making toward the New Creation, connecting the Maker and the co-creating human makers (73).
Third, Fujimura clarifies the common suspicions and misunderstandings about art in chapters six and seven. Art does not have to be distractive or contradictory to faith. Fujimura argues for a necessary paradox of giving up art and creating even better art for the sake of faith.
The final three chapters recognize the sacred expressions of lament, grief, angst, and anger through tears. Fujimura suggests that artists are called to be like Mary, whose seeming waste of costly perfume is an act of devotion and sacrifice (115).
Fujimura successfully argues for why art matters to theology and faith. More profoundly, Fujimura invites Christian readers to a philosophical shift in how we relate to the physical and the material, to the land, and to the entire world around us. He urges us to be redeemed from our consumption of the world to cultivate what he calls a “Lazarus Culture,” which ushers in God’s New Creation through creating beauty with compassion, mercy, and justice. This inspiring work contributes to conversations in art, theology, spiritual formation, and World Christianity. Fujimura leads us on a journey of seeing God and the world through the theological eyes of the artist.