By: Bill Dobrenen on September 5, 2014
My mother died this week. It happened suddenly and peacefully. Her cancer, which had spread from the lungs to the bones to the spine, finally won the battle. The passing was a difficult time for my father. He was mom’s caretaker for the past ten years as she had succumbed to alcohol-induced dementia a decade…
By: Travis Biglow on September 5, 2014
Good evening to everyone. I just want to give you heads up. I just got in from work and went to copy and paste and my Micro soft word would not open. So I am going to wing it tonight. I also did not get my book from Rowntree so I will be will be…
By: Julie Dodge on September 5, 2014
“…churches often appear imaginatively empty.”[i] Such a statement breaks my heart. As Christians, we worship God the Creator of everything that ever was and ever will be. We worship the God who his greater than our imaginations and broader than we can understand. He is without limit. His creativity is without end. God, who created…
By: Stefania Tarasut on September 5, 2014
I bought my first icon this year. It took me about thirty minutes to decide if buying this icon was a sin. It’s funny, but when you grow up with Orthodoxy in the background and the Protestant voice labeling icons as idol worship, you can’t help but pause and question what you’re about to do.…
By: Richard Volzke on September 5, 2014
William Dyrness’s book, Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue[1], provides historical context to how art and Christianity have impacted one another over time. The early Catholic Church (before the Reformation) incorporated elaborate art and architecture into their places of worship and services. It was used to draw people into the worship experience. During…
By: Clint Baldwin on September 5, 2014
“It is possible that we might win the battle of words, but lose the battle of images. And losing that battle could well cost us this generation.”[1] I think Dyrness offers a vital point with this statement in noting that modes/methods that worked in the past will not necessarily work in the present. However, with…
By: John Woodward on September 4, 2014
Every time I travel to Europe, I take time to visit churches (which, amazingly, are kept open and accessible rather then locked-up like in the United States). Most of the churches I visit are Catholic or Orthodox, which provide s tsunami of sensory stimulation, from sight to smell, from sound to feel. Rich in images…
By: Phillip Struckmeyer on September 4, 2014
From the moment I saw the title of the book, How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard, I became implicated by the title. Not only for my past, but in an immediately predicting sense of what was about to take place. While not even owning the book, with just the mere…
By: Brian Yost on September 4, 2014
To read or not to read, that is the question. At least that seems to be the question posed by Pierre Bayard in his book How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. Bayard draws our attention to an obvious but often overlooked reality; we can’t read everything and we immediately begin to forget that…
By: Mitch Arbelaez on September 4, 2014
As I am completing this assignment on Visual Faith, I am on assignment here on the tropical, Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. Yes, missions is a tough job, but someone has to do it. As I am “suffering for the Lord” in this beautiful three story hacienda located on the northern coast of the island…
By: Liz Linssen on September 4, 2014
I remember while working as a lecturer in a university in Seoul, talking to a fellow colleague, Mr. Kim. He was an art professor there and he showed me some of his personal work: sculptures of heads which were part pig, part human. I asked him why he created such art and he told me…
By: Deve Persad on September 4, 2014
From Miriam-Webster’s Dictionary: 1 an opening especially in the wall of a building for admission of light and air that is usually closed by casements or sashes containing transparent material (as glass) and capable of being opened and shut. 2 a means of entrance or access; a means of obtaining information. Adding a window to…
By: Dawnel Volzke on September 4, 2014
I can’t say that I have always enjoyed reading, especially those books outside of genres that most capture my interests and attention. Looking back, I must honestly admit that I haven’t truly read any textbook or novel in its entirety. Despite this admission, I have been able to effectively gain the knowledge needed through my…
By: Ashley Goad on September 4, 2014
Growing up, I attended worship every Sunday at Springfield Friends Meeting in High Point, North Carolina. Quaker meeting houses are not known for their ornate decorations or visual art. In fact, this statement is included in our Book of Discipline, Faith and Practice: “Paintings, crosses, and stained glass are all outward symbols, or representations, of…
By: Jon Spellman on September 4, 2014
If I’m completely honest, when it comes to academic texts, I must admit to expending a lot of mental energy figuring out what portions I can get away with not reading while still capturing the essential message of a book. In the time spent attempting to avoid them, I could probably get those portions read…
By: Mary Pandiani on September 3, 2014
Reflecting on the title of our first book, How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, my hope was to find some practical tools that would provide an efficient mechanism to get through all the anticipated, required, and copious reading. While I enjoy reading, articulating main points comes with laborious effort because of my desire…
By: Nick Martineau on September 3, 2014
I have a 5-year-old daughter and soon we will start teaching her to read. Should we even bother? I read a lot of books when I was younger but truth is I can’t even recall what they were actually about, not to mention what they were even titled. What was the point? While those are…
By: Dave Young on September 3, 2014
My first response to the title of Pierre Bayard’s book– “How to talk about books you haven’t read”—was to think it was a joke. The author couldn’t intend for us to feign knowledge we don’t possess, could he? That response got to the heart of what I found interesting as well as uncomfortable about this…
By: Jon Spellman on August 29, 2014
Author’s note. The Kindle edition of the book provides “locations” rather than “pages.” In-text citations are reflective of this. For many, the discipline of ecclesiology is neither practical nor prophetic. Rather, ecclesiology is understood by most to be primarily and essentially reflective, pondering the historical progression of the church in an attempt to understand it…
By: Clint Baldwin on July 16, 2014
Karl Polanyi first wrote The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time in 1944. Much has changed (understatement) since 1944; and yet… And yet, unfortunately, one of the things that has not changed is our need to still learn some of the lessons that Polanyi suggested were needed back in 1944 (Joseph…
