Thursday, November 19, 2009

Legitimization of Imagination and Art

One of my favorite ministries is that of Steve Bell. In his quest to encourage "artful word and music..." (as expressed in this interview), I think he is responding to the same mission call as theologian Greg Boyd in his book Seeing is Believing - Experience Jesus through imaginative prayer


p.134: "... Much of the present spiritual impoverishment of Western Christianity has come about because the Christian church, under the influence of the Enlightenment worldview, largely lost its spiritual imagination. It was influenced by the worldview that explained away the internal intersecting point where God meets humans, where the things of God become experienced realities. It accepted our culture's scientific view of the imagination as being only make-believe. Consequently for many people the Christian faith has become little more than an abstract set of doctrines to which one gives intellectual assent."


Here is a short video where Boyd explains the church history of so-called cataphatic (visualizing imaginative) prayer:


Here is a recent video combining a song from Steve's latest album with rap artist Fresh I.E.:

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