Eugene Peterson is the genius who completed, mostly by himself, pretty much the only readable translation of the Bible into American English. It’s called The Message. He talks about that, and about story and other things, in this video of an interview with him last year. He said:
But the imagination is almost, not quite, the same thing as faith. It’s that which connects what we see and what we don’t see and pulls us through what we see into what we don’t see. Now when that imagination then becomes/involves trust and participation it’s faith. But imagination is the training ground for that. So that’s why I think novelists, poets–we ought to ordain them.
What roles do story and imagination play in making the world a more just, peaceful place?
Posted in Art, Quote for the Day, Theology, faith, story | 8 Comments »Nathan over at Compassion in Politics has kindly granted us permission to repost his recent post on materialism and mass society. Thankyou Nathan! I really encourage you to check out the full set of photos of chris jordan’s work–it’s pretty sobering.
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Current TV is featuring Chris Jordan’s work in segment entitled “Art of Consumption“ Jordan takes on materialism and mass soceity by examinging handguns, SUVs, plastics, cell phones, prisons, mail order catalogs, and the war in Iraq. Building Blocks (above) “Depicts nine million wooden ABC blocks, equal to the number of American children with no health insurance coverage in 2007.” Chris’s commentary suggests:
The fourth in our series of five posters from Tim Nyberg
Shane Claiborne shares his thoughts on Jesus and megachurches in his book The Irresistible Revolution…
In fact, Jesus and his disciples would probably get into trouble in most fancy churches. They’d probably be turning water fountains into wine fountains, inviting kids to swim in baptistries, ripping holes in the roofs when the crippled can’t get in the doors, flipping over the cash registers in the bookstores - at which point a trustee would scold Jesus and ask, “Jesus!?!? What, were you born in a barn?” And Jesus would nod.
Shane makes a great point. But what do YOU think about megachurches?
Another poster from our favorite artist-provocateur Tim Nyberg
Of course none of us would ever say we believe that God loves Americans (or Westerners, or white people, or the rich and powerful) more than all other people. But as Donald Miller reminds us in his book Blue Like Jazz, “What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.”
So as individuals, as communities, as nations and systems and institutions, DO we believe that God loves us more than the other people? And what would it look like to believe, and thus live, differently?
Posted in Art, Theology | 4 Comments »