Beyond the Stars. The Mystical Landscape from Monet to Kandinsky—A Special Exhibition at the Musee D’Orsay—Paris, May 2017 | JR P/Flickr
Art and the Experience of the Divine
By Anne Searle Bent and Ian S. Markham
Wipf & Stock, 100 pages, $24
How do we find faith? In our secular, rational, and (as we’re constantly reminded) post-Christian world, what path should seekers follow, or what method should they implement to experience the divine? Despite the Church’s efforts over the centuries to bring people to faith by way of arguments that speak to human reason, those approaches have often proven unsuccessful, resulting in frustration for the Church and for the seeker.
The authors of this slim volume make no argument against the place of reason in the lives of human beings; without the ability to rationalize and to debate, they posit, humans will fall prey to the “danger of letting the sins of prejudice run wild and of license being granted to patriarchy, homophobia, and racism.”
They are deep in the life of the mind. Ms. Bent is a doctoral student at Virginia Theological Seminary who has taught numerous courses on art and faith, and the Very Rev. Ian Markham is dean and president at Virginia Seminary, and professor of theology and ethics. He is also president of General Theological Seminary.
The authors acknowledge that we are also endowed with emotions, which enable us to experience and react to the world when we engage with aural and visual stimuli. They argue that if the church wants to evangelize effectively, it will need to recognize and communicate with humanity’s non-rational side. Reason, though an important, God-given tool, is only one among many for making more Christians; very few people have been argued into belief. One aspect of faith is feeling God as a presence in our life.
This, in the authors’ view, is most manifest in religious iconography. Citing artists, scholars, and theorists who have written extensively on theology and art, such as Wassily Kandinsky, Noël Carroll, and George Steiner, the authors make a case for a church in which art in general, and the visual arts in particular, are part of congregational life.
Investing in the arts and creating art exhibits that invite people to reflect on the spiritual should be a goal of church leadership. Bent, as aficionado and art collector, and Markham, as a Christian thought leader, explain how art speaks powerfully to our emotions and is more than just a source of aesthetic enjoyment.
The first chapter of this three-chapter work briefly and clearly frames how religious art can also serve as a medium that connects us with God. Chapter Two is a deeper exploration of the various aspects of theology and art. Due to the technical nature of this chapter, the authors give the reader permission to bypass it and proceed to the third and final one.
The book title’s words art and experience are the focus in Chapter Three, which discusses a selection of 24 Old Master drawings, an important genre that Ms. Bent helps the reader study. Though not dated, the black, white, and red-chalk drawings were presumably executed in the 16th and 17th centuries. The artists are not the great names of renown (though there is one work by Raphael) but lesser-known masters who nonetheless depicted New Testament subjects and events with sensitivity, beauty, and reverence.
Each drawing is accompanied by Ms. Bent’s accessibly written analysis, which invites a reader to enter the work and to connect her life with that of the subjects and scenes before her eyes. This is followed by a prayer that is a vehicle to guide the reader to meditate on where God is in the drawing, as well as in her life, which leads to an experience of the divine. The tone of the prayers is one of tender humility.
The book’s primary audience—those seeking to grow into a deeper relationship with God, and clergy and church educators who want to enhance young adult and older adult-education programs—can find inspiration in its pages. Though literary scholar George Steiner saw great art as born of faith and as a witness to faith, in the face of an ever-encroaching secularism, it is an open question whether art has sufficient potency to bring people to faith, as the authors so passionately believe.
Their claim that art has such power that can ensure the church’s survival is compelling and optimistic. Churches will therefore need to put the authors’ agenda to the test and provide testimonies as to its success. Perhaps that can be the subject of their next book.
Pamela A. Lewis is a member of Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, in New York City. She writes on topics of faith.
