Theology and the Arts

Review: Naming the Spirit

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Cover image of "Naming the Spirit" by W. David O. Taylor and Daniel Train, eds.

Naming the Spirit

Naming the Spirit, W. David O. Taylor and Daniel Train, eds. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514013489) 2025.

Summary: An essay collection considering the different names for the Holy Spirit, using works of art to deepen our understanding.

Many of us wrestle to understand the person and work of the Holy Spirit. While scripture is always our ultimate authority, artistic works often illuminate the narratives of scripture. They depict in image and sound the character and work of God in the world. This book focuses in on the Holy Spirit, looking at names and aspects of the work of the Spirit from both theological and artistic perspectives. The essays are authored by both theologians and artists, some co-written.

Steve Guthrie open the collection considering the Greek term for Spirit, pneuma, which can mean “wind” or “breath.” He reflects on the poetic “fecundity” of this term. It speaks to God’s life-giving breath, his word-bearing breath, and the dynamic wind of God. Then Jonathan A. Anderson uses portrayals of Pentecost in early church art. Thus, he considers the spaciality of “descent,” the visual form of this outpouring in tongues and fire, the persons on whom the Spirit is poured,- and from where this outpouring occurs. Christina Carnes Ananias explores how Olafur Eliasson’s Beauty illustrates Basil’s contention that light and the image it illuminates cannot be separated.

Several collaborative essays follow. Erin Shaw and Taylor Worley reflect on the shalom of the Spirit. Shaw’s art is influenced by Native American ideas and worldview. She draws on the notion of kincentricity as an expression of what shalom means–the interdependency of all things flourishing in relationships of reciprocity. From discs of various sizes to wound balls of string, she expresses this idea. Then Devon Abts and Joelle Hathaway return to the idea of pneuma, connecting our breath and the breath of the Spirit. They do so through an analysis of Ross Gay’s “A Small Needful Fact,” written upon the death of Eric Garner whose last cry was “I can’t breathe.”

Finally, Phil Allen Jr. and Justin Ariel Bailey move from breath to breadth. They consider the work of the Spirit in creating habitable spaces for people through Dea Jenkins BLK Halos, an artistic installation for artistic resistance and liturgical performance in a black-walled room with textile creations. Then, perhaps the greatest example of creating a “habitable space” came when the Spirit “overshadowed” Mary. Chelle Stearns explores Oliver Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jesus. She reflects on how Messiaen captures the work of the Spirit in Mary, with her full assent, and how the Spirit may similarly work in the church.

Julian Davis Reid describes the Spirit’s prompting during a performance to enfold “Holy, Holy, Holy” into “Give Me Jesus” as a lead in to exploring the Spirit’s convicting work. Amy Whisenand Krall also draws on a musical performance. “Hope for Resolution” serves as the basis to reflect on maintaining the unity of the Spirit. Having sung this piece, it joins an ancient chant and an African praise song into a seamless garment of sound. Finally, in this section on music, Shannon Steed Sigler considers Charles Wesley’s “resignation,” and both the spiritual and creative freedom that followed.

Lastly, the concluding two essays turn to film and landscape architecture. David W. McNutt and Wesley Vander Lugt consider Terence Malik’s The Tree of Life. They focus on its insights into the comforting and disrupting work of the Spirit. Jennifer A. Craft and W. David O. Taylor describe the renovation of Laity Lodge’s landscape, using native species requiring less maintenance. They see this as an illustration of the Spirit’s particularizing work. No one size fits all!

Part of the impact of a book like this is to be able to experience the artistic works. The book renders some of these and links to others. The chapter on maintaining the unity of the Spirit was powerful because I’ve sung “Hope for Resolution” and knew its significance. The person and work of the Holy Spirit is not known merely through cognition or affect. The Spirit acts upon our physical world. People know Him through their senses and in their bodies. So, this collaboration of theologians and artists helps open up the reader to that deeper knowing.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Watching the Chosen

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Cover image of "Watching the Chosen" Robert K. Garcia, Paul Gondreau, Patrick Gray, Douglas S. Huffman, editors

Watching The Chosen, Robert K. Garcia, Paul Gondreau, Patrick Gray, Douglas S. Huffman, editors. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802885463) 2025.

Summary: Essays exploring the imagination, storytelling, Christology and treatment of persons, especially women, in “The Chosen.”

Recently, another book I was reviewing had a chapter titled, “Can I call myself a Christian if I Don’t Watch The Chosen?” I resonated, having sometimes wondered in the last couple years whether I was the last Christian in my circles not to watch The Chosen. I’d just seen too many bad movies and videos by Christians, and I didn’t need to watch more. Then this book came. And I felt that I couldn’t review the book without having watched at least a bit of the series. Honestly, Season one, Episode one hooked me, when Jesus healed Mary Magdalene. Now I’m through most of Season Three, having watched most of what the book covers.

One of my discoveries is that many of the contributors to this volume had similar experiences to mine. That is, they approached skeptically and were won over by the imaginative storytelling, the very human and yet divine Jesus, and the way Jesus in The Chosen treats persons, especially women. The essays, seventeen in all, are divided under four topics.

Part One considers “Imagination and Interpretation.” Douglas S. Huffman leads off looking at how the series balances authenticity, plausibility, and relatability. But sometimes people have criticized the imaginative reading between the lines of scripture. David Kneip looks at Philip and Nathanael under the fig tree in John 1:43-51 and how the early church fathers offered similar renderings. Dolores G. Morris considers the show’s approach to the problem of evil and the hiddenness of God, noting the epistemic humility that runs throughout. She also responds to charges that the show adds to scripture, reminding critics that this is historical fiction based on the gospels, which viewers are urged to read. Concluding this section, Kenneth Gumbert, explores the wide appeal beyond Dallas Jenkins own evangelicalism, noting how the storytelling also appeals to the sacramental imagination.

Then Part Two digs more deeply into the storytelling and narrative art of the series. The first essay explores the storytelling through the lens of attachment theory and dual processing models of information. Then T. Adam Van Wert explores how The Chosen affirms the sufficiency of story to invite us to live within the story. Jeannine Hanger focuses on stories from John’s gospel and how these move viewers to take in more of scripture, a reaction of many. Finally, John Hilton III explores how to use The Chosen in the classroom. He offers a helpful set of questions to use with many episodes.

Part Three focuses on Christology and history. Paul Gandreau addresses the very human portrayal of Jesus in the context of historical Christological debates. Daniel M. Garland Jr. elaborates the bridegroom theology portrayed in the series’ treatments of John’s gospel. But how does the portrayal of Jesus relate to the “quests” for the historical Jesus? James F. Keating takes up this subject. Finally, in this section., Patrick Gray considers how The Chosen portrays the traditional Evangelists: Matthew, Luke, and John.

One of the most compelling aspects of The Chosen for me is how Jesus encounters various individuals. Jesse Stone considers this emotional resonance. Deborah Savage shows how this portrayal of Jesus in relationship exemplifies John Paul II’s personalism. Then Robert K. Garcia builds on this, showing the portrayal of the infinite worth of each individual. Finally, the concluding essays center on the women in The Chosen. The first shows how dialogue amplifies women’s voices. The second offers a rhetorical analysis of Jesus’ interactions with women and how these elevate the status of women.

In sum, reading these essays enhanced my appreciation for the storytelling artistry and the historical authenticity of the series. They also confirmed the high view of scripture evident in this “historical fiction.” All this suggests to me that the series creators have immersed themselves deeply in the gospel narratives. Above all, the discussion confirmed my own sense of the compelling portrayal of Jesus, the most believable I’ve seen. While one doesn’t need this book to watch The Chosen, reading it will enable you to enter more deeply into the series. It has for me.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: A Subversive Gospel

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A Subversive Gospel

A Subversive Gospel (Studies in Theology and the Arts), Michael Mears Bruner. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Academic, 2017.

Summary: Proposes that the grotesque and violent character of Flannery O’Connor’s work reflects her understanding of the subversive character of the gospel and the challenge of awakening people in the Christ-haunted South to the beauty, goodness, and truth of the gospel.

A number of years ago our book group decided to read the collected works of Flannery O’Connor. It was a challenge. The stories involved everything from a stolen wooden leg to a rape to the murder of a whole family. The word “grotesque” is often used to describe her work. The question arises, why did this single Catholic woman, who lived on her parents’ farm in Milledgeville, Georgia, suffering and ultimately dying of lupus, write such strange stories?

Michael Mears Bruner explores this question in his contribution to the Studies in Theology and the Arts series.  His discussion focuses particularly around the novel The Violent Bear It Away (an allusion to Matthew 11:12 in the Douay-Rheims version) and a statement about the main character, Francis Tarwater, about whom O’Connor says:

“His black pupils, glassy and still, reflected depth on depth his own stricken image of himself, trudging into the distance in the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus, until at last he received his reward, a broken fish, a multiplied loaf.”

Bruner’s thesis is “that through the medium of her art, Flannery O’Connor showed her readers how following Christ is a commitment to follow in his shadow, which becomes a subversive act aesthetically (“bleeding”), ethically (“stinking”), and intellectually (“mad”).” Elsewhere, and repeatedly in the text, he refers to the “terrible beauty, violent goodness and foolish truth of God.” Bruner helps us realize that O’Connor writes in a Southern context that has been effectively innoculated against the Christian gospel–grown so comfortable with Christian language that it is impervious to the radical and startling claims of the Christian faith–the beauty of God’s love revealed in suffering, the goodness and righteousness of God revealed in the violent death of Jesus, and the foolishness of a message wiser than human wisdom. The grotesque and the violent in O’Connor’s stories startle us awake to realities to which we’ve grown too accustomed.

Bruner begins with tracing the development of O’Connor’s writing from the earlier to the later works which reflect a theological turn that he attributes to the influence of Baron von Hugel’s thought. He then looks at the moral and theological vision that shapes her work as a Roman Catholic in the fundamentalist south. He connects her dramatic vision with her subversive aesthetic and then goes deeper into how her work subverts the transcendentals of beauty, goodness, and truth. Finally he applies this approach to her last novel, The Violent Bear It Away. A brief conclusion is followed by a liturgical celebration of the Eucharist using O’Connor’s work.

The body of this work consists of dense literary analysis, and it is helpful to have recently read and have a copy of O’Connor’s work handy. In the process, Bruner joins O’Connor in challenging the nostrums and platitudes of Christian faith with the subversive character of O’Connor’s work. One example is this passage:

“Yet this hardly settles the matter regarding the notion that God might indeed be terrible, and so what do we do with this component of O’Connor’s fierce theology? She refuses to placate us with religious euphemisms and spiritual jargon, preferring instead to ‘shout’ and ‘draw large and startling figures” in our faces” (p. 154).

O’Connor wrote to disturb the comfortable, and Bruner demonstrates just how subversive she was in her story writing. He also helps us understand the theological turn in her writing and the influences other critics have noted briefly or not at all. He helps those of us disenchanted with enculturated, saccharine versions of Christianity who ask, “is that all there is?” to see that O’Conner writes out a more bracing vision, one we might even need to brace ourselves against. She defies all our conventions of beauty, goodness, and truth, Bruner argues, because that is what the gospel does. She bids us ask the dangerous question of whether this is in fact the gospel we’ve believed–as dangerous a question as a Flannery O’Connor story.