William A. Dyrness

The aesthetics of everyday life, as reflected in art museums and galleries throughout the western world, is the result of a profound shift in aesthetic perception that occurred during the Renaissance and Reformation. In this book, William A. Dyrness examines intellectual developments in late Medieval Europe, which turned attention away from a narrow range liturgical art and practices and towards a celebration of God's presence in creation and in history. Though threatened by the human tendency to self-assertion, he shows how a new focus on God's creative and recreative action in the world gave time and history a new seriousness, and engendered a broad spectrum of aesthetic potential. Focusing in particular on the writings of Luther and Calvin, Dyrness demonstrates how the reformers' conceptual and theological frameworks pertaining to the role of the arts influenced the rise of realistic theater, lyric poetry, landscape painting, and architecture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In search of holistic Christian witness, missionaries have increasingly sought to take into account all the dimensions of people's cultural and religious lives—including their songs, dances, dramatic performances, storytelling, and visual arts. Missiologists, educators, and practitioners are cultivating new approaches for integrating the arts into mission praxis and celebrating creativity within local communities. And in an increasingly globalized and divided world, peacemaking must incorporate the use of artistic expressions to create understanding among peoples of diverse faiths. As Christians in all nations encounter members of other religions, how do they witness among these neighbors while respecting their distinct traditions? Building on sessions at the 2018 Missiology Lectures at Fuller Seminary, this book explores the crucial role of the arts in helping people from different cultures and faiths get caught up in the gospel story. Scholars and practitioners from throughout the world present historical and contemporary case studies and analyses. Their subjects include the use of Christian songs during the Liberian civil war and Ebola crisis, social critiques in contemporary Chinese art, interreligious dialogue through choir music in Germany, aesthetic practices of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, and how hip-hop music empowers urban young people in globalizing Mozambique. These essays foster a conversation about the work that missiologists, art critics, ethnodoxologists, and theologians can do together to help guide church leaders in promoting interfaith and intercultural relationships. While honestly identifying weaknesses in the church's practice, the contributors call all Christians to understand the power of art for expressing cultural and religious identity, opening spaces for transformative encounters, bridging divides, and resisting injustice. Missiological Engagements charts interdisciplinary and innovative trajectories in the history, theology, and practice of Christian mission, featuring contributions by leading thinkers from both the Euro-American West and the majority world whose missiological scholarship bridges church, academy, and society.

New expressions of church that are proliferating among Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other non-Christian religious communities, including so-called insider movements, have raised intense discussion in missiological circles. In Seeking Church, Darren Duerksen and William Dyrness address these issues by exploring how all Christian movements have been and are engaged in a "reverse hermeneutic," where the gospel is read and interpreted through existing cultural and religious norms. Duerksen and Dyrness draw on the growing social-scientific work on emergent theory—the concept that social communities arise over time in ways that reflect specific historical and cultural dynamics. This is a missiological process, they argue, in which God has always worked through people and their culture to shape his witness in the world. They illustrate emergent theory through historical and contemporary case studies and consider the church's contextualized nature by exploring biblical models of the church, worship practices as emergent, and ecclesial markers that identify emerging churches and their distinctive witness. For missiologists, theologians, practitioners, and all who ponder the challenge and opportunities of mission among other religious communities, Seeking Church offers a multidisciplinary conceptual framework with which to understand the global diversity of the body of Christ. The Spirit is constantly drawing people toward God's community, causing new expressions of church to emerge and thus displaying new facets of his work and character. Missiological Engagements charts interdisciplinary and innovative trajectories in the history, theology, and practice of Christian mission, featuring contributions by leading thinkers from both the Euro-American West and the majority world whose missiological scholarship bridges church, academy, and society.

The aesthetics of everyday life, as reflected in art museums and galleries throughout the western world, is the result of a profound shift in aesthetic perception that occurred during the Renaissance and Reformation. In this book, William A. Dyrness examines intellectual developments in late Medieval Europe, which turned attention away from a narrow range liturgical art and practices and towards a celebration of God's presence in creation and in history. Though threatened by the human tendency to self-assertion, he shows how a new focus on God's creative and recreative action in the world gave time and history a new seriousness, and engendered a broad spectrum of aesthetic potential. Focusing in particular on the writings of Luther and Calvin, Dyrness demonstrates how the reformers' conceptual and theological frameworks pertaining to the role of the arts influenced the rise of realistic theater, lyric poetry, landscape painting, and architecture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Christianity Today Book of the Year Award of Merit - Culture and the Arts For many Christians, engaging with modern art raises several questions: Is the Christian faith at odds with modern art? Does modernism contain religious themes? What is the place of Christian artists in the landscape of modern art? Nearly fifty years ago, Dutch art historian and theologian Hans Rookmaaker offered his answers to these questions when he published his groundbreaking work, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, which was characterized by both misgivings and hopefulness. While appreciating Rookmaaker's invaluable contribution to the study of theology and the arts, this volume—coauthored by an artist and a theologian—responds to his work and offers its own answers to these questions by arguing that there were actually strong religious impulses that positively shaped modern visual art. Instead of affirming a pattern of decline and growing antipathy towards faith, the authors contend that theological engagement and inquiry can be perceived across a wide range of modern art—French, British, German, Dutch, Russian, and North American—and through particular works by artists such as Gauguin, Picasso, David Jones, Caspar David Friedrich, van Gogh, Kandinsky, Warhol, and many others. This Studies in Theology and the Arts volume brings together the disciplines of art history and theology and points to the signs of life in modern art in order to help Christians navigate these difficult waters. The Studies in Theology and the Arts series encourages Christians to thoughtfully engage with the relationship between their faith and artistic expression, with contributions from both theologians and artists on a range of artistic media including visual art, music, poetry, literature, film, and more.

Global theology represents one of the most important trends in theology today. What does it mean to do theology in a global context? How can Christian theology be understood as a conversation between different parts of the world and various streams of Christian history? This concise introduction explores the major issues involved in rethinking theology in light of the explosion of world Christianity. Combining the voices of a Western and a non-Western theologian, it integrates Western theological tradition with emerging global perspectives. This work will be of interest to theology and missiology students as well as church leaders and readers interested in the changing face of world Christianity.

Reveals the presence of God in the creative works of human life and culture What are the -poetics of everyday life-? What can they teach us about God? Art, music, dance, and writing can certainly be -poetic, - but so can such diverse pastimes as fishing, skiing, or attending sports events. Any and all activities that satisfy our fundamental need for play, for celebration, and for ritual, says William Dyrness, are inherently poetic -- and in Poetic Theology he demonstrates that all such activities are places where God is active in the world. All of humanity's creative efforts, Dyrness points out, testify to our intrinsic longing for joy and delight and our deep desire to connect with others, with the created order, and especially with the Creator. This desire is rooted in the presence and calling of God in and through the good creation. With extensive reflection on aesthetics in spirituality, worship, and community development, Dyrness's Poetic Theology will be useful for all who seek fresh and powerful new ways to communicate the gospel in contemporary society.

-For all the declarations of advance and creativity made for contemporary worship, - William Dyrness says, -the controversies that swirl around it are anything but new. And they call us to reflect on the sources of our inclinations in our current circumstances.- / A respected scholar of theology and culture, Dyrness here explores where the church has been, theologically and historically speaking, and how that shapes -- and needs to shape -- where the church will go. He shows how both medieval worship and Reformation spirituality have continued to determine the development of Christian worship in both its Catholic and its Protestant forms. / Through accessible language, clear examples, and thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion, Dyrness makes a very vital conversation about worship available to a wide audience of pastors, worship leaders, and church members.

Noting that Christians in the 20th century have not been able to make up their minds whether God and our corporate lives have anything to do with each other, Dyrness explores the century's theological trends. Citing the impact of contemporary hermeneutics, Dyrness shows how the Bible still functions as a master narrative wherein Christians can find themselves. Dyrness addresses various aspects of contemporary culture, constructing a theology of embodiment that connects culture and worship in concrete ways. For all those concerned with issues of religion and culture, particularly of the raging Culture Wars, 'The Earth is God's' offers an informed Evangelical view that is at once balanced and hopeful.

With the walls of their churches bereft of imagery and colour and their worship centered around sermons with carefully constructed outlines (as opposed to movement and drama), Reformed Protestants have often been accused of being dour and unimaginative. Here, William Dyrness explores the roots of Reformed theology in an attempt to counteract these prevailing notions. Studying sixteenth-century Geneva and England, seventeenth-century England and Holland and seventeenth and eighteenth-century Puritan New England, Dyrness argues that, though this tradition impeded development of particular visual forms, it encouraged others, especially in areas of popular culture and the ordering of family and community. Exploring the theology of John Calvin, William Ames, John Cotton and Jonathan Edwards, Dyrness shows how this tradition created a new aesthetic of simplicity, inwardness and order to express underlying theological commitments. With over forty illustrations, this book will prove invaluable to those interested in the Reformed tradition.

With the walls of their churches bereft of imagery and colour and their worship centered around sermons with carefully constructed outlines (as opposed to movement and drama), Reformed Protestants have often been accused of being dour and unimaginative. Here, William Dyrness explores the roots of Reformed theology in an attempt to counteract these prevailing notions. Studying sixteenth-century Geneva and England, seventeenth-century England and Holland and seventeenth and eighteenth-century Puritan New England, Dyrness argues that, though this tradition impeded development of particular visual forms, it encouraged others, especially in areas of popular culture and the ordering of family and community. Exploring the theology of John Calvin, William Ames, John Cotton and Jonathan Edwards, Dyrness shows how this tradition created a new aesthetic of simplicity, inwardness and order to express underlying theological commitments. With over forty illustrations, this book will prove invaluable to those interested in the Reformed tradition.

Invitation to Cross-Cultural Theology seeks to extend the study of theology to the way in which lay communities of Christians endeavor to shape their world by their faith. Using narratives of experiences with God as source material, Dyrness sets out to discover the framework, both explicit as well as implicit, that guides their lives as Christians. Testimonies are heard from five very different communities around the world. In the final chapter, the author discusses the various ways in which Christ and salvation are being addressed in these communities today.

With the growing awareness of cultural diversity, evangelicals are beginning to realize that "growing up into Christ in all things" (Eph. 4:15) is a corporate enterprise. Due to involvement in mission and international travel, many Westerners are beginning to realize how much they have to learn from different cultural traditions. LEARNING ABOUT THEOLOGY FROM THE THIRD WORLD is designed to introduce western Christians to discussions about theology going on in the Third World. The assumption is that western thinking about theology has not taken third world perspectives into account, and the day has come for us to bring these brothers and sisters into our conversations about Christianity. For the churches in this part of the world are rapidly becoming a significant force in the world and their leaders are becoming increasingly articulate about their faith (and about distortions the feel missionaries have introduced!). It is Dyrness' thesis that if we approach these sometimes unsettling writings as learners rather than teachers, we will find our own perspectives significantly altered. The maturity of the whole church demands this kind of inter-change. After an introductory chapter on the nature and problems of contextualization, the book gives major overviews of the theology of Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Issues are presented in such a way as to show that each area of the world has developed a unique approach to theological issues, and that each perspective has something to contribute to the development of theology. To illustrate this a final chapter discusses Christology form this cross-cultural perspective and the conclusion sketches out ways in which both western and non-western traditions may interact to enrich theology.