We had a bit of an experiment on Sunday night at All Souls. Instead of the normal evening service, we had a condensed corporate time for around half an hour, and then split into 3 seminars in different venues. Prof John Wyatt did one on Truth in the Brave New World of medical ethics, Nola Leach of CARE did one on Truth in the Public Square and I did one on popculture. The whole thing worked really well and it seemed refreshing to do this sort of thing every now and then.
Anyway, none of the seminars were recorded because they were intended to be quite interactive – but some have asked for my notes such as they are. So here they are (though they’re not full). In many ways, I’d have loved another hour to take further the issue of speaking into the culture – but felt for this audience at least it was more important to focus on helping us listen better to what the culture is saying before we dare to speak.
One of my favourite installations of all time is Antony Gormley‘s TESTING A WORLDVIEW (1993) which was originally in the Tate Modern. It wonderfully captures the need to test our ever-provisional understanding with other perspectives. It also illustrates one key reason why we should listen to what is being said around us.
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I wish I’d been there. I work professionally with opera singers, stage directors, conductors and pianists all over the world, and I am often left feeling marooned: between the artistic community which doesn’t understand (and often angrily rejects) any notions of faith; and a Christian community suspicious of artistic expression (beyond banal ‘worship songs’ comprising “I-love-you-baby” lyrics and cliched chord progressions). Thank you for engaging in such a thoughtful and committed manner with this topic.
thanks very much for your comments…
i wonder if you have checked out International Arts Movement in New York and elsewhere – they;ve got some really good stuff if you want to follow that up:
http://www.internationalartsmovement.org/
Please find some references which really speak the Truth to pop-“culture” and pop-religion too (which is the only kind of religion that now exists – although some/many would like to pretend otherwise)
http://www.beezone.com/up/criticismcuresheart.html
http://www.dabase.org/restsacr.htm
http://www.adidam.org/teaching/aletheon/truth-religion.aspx
On Sacred Art
http://www.aboutadidam.org/readings/art_is_love/index.html
http://www.adidaupclose.org/Art_and_Photography/rebirth_of_sacred_art.html