CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!!! // The Second Annual Duke Divinity School Juried Visual Arts Exhibit

Duke Divinity School students, faculty, staff, alumni and their immediate families are invited to submit visual art pieces for the 2010 Duke Divinity School Juried Arts Exhibit. The exhibit will run from March 22nd through May 2nd in the Divinity School.

The theme under which this year's exhibit is curated is “The End of Words,” based upon the book of the same title by Richard Lischer. The theme may be interpreted broadly in a variety of ways and in a variety of media. New work is encouraged, but previous work may also be submitted. First, second, and third place entries will be awarded $200, $100, and $50 (respectively) in gift cards to the arts retailer/supplier of their choice.

There will also be an Artists’ Reception, open to all Duke Divinity School and the broader community, to celebrate all exhibit artists and their entries (Date/Time/Locale are TBA).

The Deadline for submissions is Thursday, March 18, 2010

Contact Duke Divinity School ThD candidate Laura Levens for more information at:laura.levens@duke.edu.

(Image at above right: Lena McGrath Welker, from her 2004 exhibit "Navigation Cycle" at the NDMOA which inquired into the end(s) of words as well as the nature, limits, potentialities and structure of communication.Artist Biography: Welker comes from Oregon and her work grew out of her early years as a weaver. She makes densely layered installations about language both written and musical. She is interested in how communication takes place without either words or musical notations. Learn more about her seminal 2004 exhibit, "Navigation Cycle" by clicking here.)

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The exhibit "The End of Words" and its surrounding ancillary events are all sponsored, organized and produced by New Creation Arts Group (an official student group of the Divinity Student Council).Join us on facebook by clicking here.

NEW CREATION Asks: How might an informed theological aesthetic(s) help church-leaders in responding to technologically-induced "mini-generation gaps?"

As every church-leader knows, holding together your congregation as one body often takes blood, sweat, tears, and more blood, sweat, and tears. Differences caused by gender, class, race, income, sexual orientation, education, politics, ideology, etc. can not only hold a congregation back from realizing its greater potential as the body of Christ - it can cause it to implode altogether.

It is in the light of these inescapable realities of ministry that New Creation brings you this short but important new article suggesting that technology may be ushering in the emergence of "mini-generation gaps" which could be a cause for greater (and more subtle) rifts amongst those within congregations.

With all this mind, New Creation asks: What role could a robust and thoughtful theological aesthetic(s) play in helping churches adapt to these coming 'mini-generation gaps' wrought by the continuing onset of social media and the greater assimilation of technology into our everyday lives?

It's an important question as pastors are going to need, as always, every tool at their disposal to reconcile differences amongst their congregations. Certainly there is a role for the arts to play here, but what exactly might it be? Ruminate on these and other questions after reading Brad Stone's short article "The Children of Cyberspace."

Full Article Here // Excerpt Below

My 2-year-old daughter surprised me recently with two words: “Daddy’s book.” She was holding my Kindle electronic reader.

Here is a child only beginning to talk, revealing that the seeds of the next generation gap have already been planted. She has identified the Kindle as a substitute for words printed on physical pages. I own the device and am still not completely sold on the idea.

My daughter’s worldview and life will be shaped in very deliberate ways by technologies like the Kindle and the new magical high-tech gadgets coming out this year — Google’s Nexus One phone and Apple’s impending tablet among them. She’ll know nothing other than a world with digital books, Skype video chats with faraway relatives, and toddler-friendly video games on the iPhone. She’ll see the world a lot differently from her parents.

But these are also technology tools that children even 10 years older did not grow up with, and I’ve begun to think that my daughter’s generation will also be utterly unlike those that preceded it.

Researchers are exploring this notion too. They theorize that the ever-accelerating pace of technological change may be minting a series of mini-generation gaps, with each group of children uniquely influenced by the tech tools available in their formative stages of development.

“People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. “College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.”

Novelist Clyde Edgerton on the importance of Narrative in Ministry and Leadership

A fascinating piece just up from Duke Divinity's Faith and Leadership on the importance of narrative within ministry and its potential import for leaders across the board.

Excerpt Below // Full Article Here

Clyde Edgerton spoke with Faith & Leadership about storytelling and imagination, teaching and preaching, how story-telling assumes uncertainty, as well as about the fascination of relationships that continue to inspire his own writing.

Edgerton, who teaches at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, has been a Guggenheim Fellow and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Three of his novels have been made into movies and five have been listed as New York Times Notable Books. The plot of his first novel, “Raney,” revolves around the marriage of a Free Will Baptist and an Episcopalian. His latest book is “The Bible Salesman,” about the adventures of a Bible salesman and a car thief.

Edgerton grew up in a family with 23 aunts and uncles and was inspired to be a writer after hearing Eudora Welty read “Why I Live at the P.O.” What he heard in that story was the beauty and simplicity of the particular details that create relationships between people. His nine novels are filled with this kind of Southern storytelling.

Q: How should Christian leaders approach storytelling?

I think they should look at the parables of Jesus.

Q: Why?

Because the parables of Jesus are fascinating in that they often talk around a subject. They can be interpreted in different ways sometimes. And they usually are not telling you what to do or not to do.

Leaders tend to think that that’s their job to tell people what to do and what not to do. And you would think, if we look to someone like Jesus as a leader, there clearly are places where he tells you what to do and what not to do, but there clearly are places where he illustrates with a story. So I think illustrating with a story can engage.

Storytelling assumes uncertainty. Storytelling assumes that the other person is involved. When you tell a story you’re using your experience -- when you’re telling a story that you made up -- your experience, your observation, what you know about and you’re using your imagination. And when you tell that story, it lands on another human being who has his or her own experience, his or her own observation and knowledge and his or her own imagination. So it might not be the same story that left your mouth. And if you recognize that, life is much more exciting.

And I think that’s one of the truths about the parables of Jesus. They land on different sets of imaginations. So leading through a story recognizes right away that the way we are designed and made up is variable from one to the other. So, to order proclamations and directions may not set well and may not be as effective as storytelling.

But storytelling assumes story listening. By that I mean when I deliver my story, that might not be the end of it. Why should I not have a story told back to me and in doing so find out that my story did not work the way I had anticipated it? And thus I need to tell another story. Where I’m coming from, two-way communication is helpful in leadership.

NEW CREATION Asks: Is There A Role For Theology & The Arts To Play In Mediating The American Culture Wars?

Last weekend saw the arrival of a splendid and urgently important Op/Ed piece by one of the most thoughtful thinkers of our day, David Brooks of PBS and The New York Times.

The article, entitled "The Tea Party Teens", lays bare that 2009 was (among other things) a vicious return of America's "culture wars" in a rather zealous fashion, with a larger canyon opening up not only between left and right, but between the educated class and the rest of the nation. The crucial and practical question which Brooks' article leads New Creation to ask is: "In what ways might a thoughtful and creative theological aesthetic(s) be able to mediate, re-frame, and reconcile the American culture wars?"

It's a particularly important questions for pastors-to-be in the United States, as many will soon find themselves in congregations where this problem stares them in the face.

Ruminate on this question (as well as others) and probe for your own answers after reading Brooks' "The Tea Party Teens."

Full Article Here // Excerpt Below

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year. The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

In the near term, the tea party tendency will dominate the Republican Party. It could be the ruin of the party, pulling it in an angry direction that suburban voters will not tolerate. But don’t underestimate the deep reservoirs of public disgust. If there is a double-dip recession, a long period of stagnation, a fiscal crisis, a terrorist attack or some other major scandal or event, the country could demand total change, creating a vacuum that only the tea party movement and its inheritors would be in a position to fill. Personally, I’m not a fan of this movement. But I can certainly see its potential to shape the coming decade.

Continue reading David Brooks' column by clicking here.

Architecture & Beyond: The High Cost of Ignoring Beauty

A recent Duke Divinity alumni passed along this fascinating article on architecture, "The High Cost of Ignoring Beauty" (which has distinct theological overtones) to New Creation last week! Thank You to Miss Seattle (and the beau by your side) for thinking of us! : )

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Read the article in full by clicking here

Looking Ahead: In 2010, Chopin's bicentennial dominates performance landscape

The Los Angeles Times' arts blog Culture Monster notes the following:

"The dominant theme in the 2010 musical performance landscape is the Frederic Chopin bicentennial. More than 2,000 worldwide events will honor the beloved Polish composer and his elegiac piano scores. Chopin festivals abound seemingly everywhere: London, Rome, Buenos Aires, Tel Aviv, New York, Miami, Tucson, et al."

Click here to read the rest of the article.

At Duke Divinity on January 21st: Nicholas Wolterstorff's lecture “Through Beauty and the Aesthetic to Art in Life”

The first of Duke Divinity School's Distinguished Lectures in Theology and The Arts will be given by renowned scholar Nicholas Wolterstorff and will take place at Duke Divinity School in room 0014 (Westbrook) on Thursday, January 21st at 5:30pm. The title of his lecture is: "Through Beauty and the Aesthetic to Art in Life"

Professor Wolterstorff is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. DITA (which stands for: Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts) is directed by Dr. Jeremy Begbie. To learn more about Dr. Wolterstorff's lecture, upcoming lectures, as well as Dr. Begbie's larger vision for theology and the arts at Duke, visit the home site of DITA.

Theology for Atheists?: For believers and atheists alike, the Biblical text remains as alluring, elusive, and urgently relevant as ever

Harold Bloom once commented that the God of the Bible has, "an awesome power to not go away," (in Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine) and while that statement may be contentious to some, this article (Theology for Atheists, by Nathan Schneider) from The Guardian certainly makes clear that the textual Bible no doubt has precisely such an awesome staying power - even for atheists.

Schneider's remarkable and short piece lays out the profound and seemingly infinite literary and political resources of the Bible, for believers and non-believers alike.

We, at New Creation, offer this article to you because of its implicit (as well as explicit) insights about the relationship between theology and literature - in this case, merged together within the Biblical text itself. The article also, subtly, asks the question of what sustained inquiry from different vantage points might mean for the future of theology and the arts.

Excerpt Below // Full Article Here

James Wood, a writer who himself has lived between the tugs of belief and unbelief, made an eloquent call in the New Yorker last August for "a theologically engaged atheism". Concluding a review of Terry Eagleton's recent attack on Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, he imagines something "only a semitone from faith [which] could give a brother's account of belief, rather than treat it as some unwanted impoverished relative."

At the American Academy of Religion meeting in Montreal last year, he may have gotten his wish, or something resembling it. Following an apocalyptic sermon from "death of God" theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer, to the podium came the ruffled Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a self-described atheist and "materialist through and through", before an audience of religion scholars, theologians, and costumed adherents. He spoke of truths Christianity alone possesses and how Christ's death reveals that "the only universality is the universality of struggle." Atheism, he explained, is true Christianity, and one can only be a real atheist by passing through Christianity. "In this sense, I am unconditionally a Christian", said Žižek.

Taylor blends Photography, Theology, Philosophy, Family History, and Near-Death Experiences in Rocket's Arc of a Memoir

This past October saw the publishing of a new memoir by Mark Taylor (controversial public intellectual, prolific scholar, and chair of the Department of Religion at Columbia University) which, in significant ways, breaks new ground for the genre.

Blending the clean gleam of academic philosophy and theology together with the ambiguous atmospherics of photography, the cacophony of a near-death experience and the muddiness of family history, Field Notes From Elsewhere: Reflections on Dying and Living is one book very much worth checking out!

As an appetizer to the book, this morning New Creation offers up an interview with Taylor conducted by Columbia University Press which concerns his new book.

Excerpt Below // Full Article Here

(Columbia University Press) Question: The book begins with an incredibly traumatic series of events unfolding in your life. Tell us a little about what happened to you and how you came to write the book Field Notes from Elsewhere as a result.

Mark Taylor: I had been thinking about writing a book that combined personal narratives with philosophical and theological reflection for many years. The issues about which I teach and write are often very abstract but are significant because of the ways in which they illuminate specific experiences we all undergo. I knew that this kind of writing would be different from anything I had done before and realized that the only possible research is life itself. Three years ago, I went into septic shock as the result of a biopsy for cancer. I also suffer from diabetes, which complicates everything. Septic shock is caused by a severe infection in the blood and is fatal in 50-75% of the cases. My case was especially bad. I taught a class on Derrida's The Gift of Death at noon and by 7:00 that evening was on the verge of death. I was in the intensive care unit for five days, stayed in the hospital for another five days, and then on intravenous antibiotics for five weeks. Six months later, I underwent surgery for cancer. It was quite a trip! One never really recovers from such experiences, but in the months following surgery, I felt I had done enough research and it was time to begin writing.

Q: This book is structured differently than other memoirs. How does the structure of the book interact with the writing?

MT: I did not want to write a traditional narrative. Life is not a story but is episodic—brief periods of continuity are punctuated by unexpected disruptions. I envision the book less as a memoir than as a diary or book of hours. It is also a photo album with more than 120 images. The interrelation of text and image is carefully calibrated. There are fifty-two chapters or sections, which are divided into AM and PM entries. The book begins with dawn and ends with sunset. Each section is a brief meditation on a single topic—Light, Nights, Pleasure, Money, Disease, Hope, Vocation, Ordinary . . . My hope is that people will read these meditations slowly and will ponder these issues in their own lives.

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Reinventing The Recital: Andsnes & Rohde attempt cutting-edge Music/Image synthesis at Lincoln Center

If you've ever been to a church service, you've been to a mult-media artistic experience. Text(s), song(s), built environment, and performance are the basic building blocks of virtually every church service. And more than ever, video is not an uncommon aspect of worship.

But the search for a seamless amalgamation of art forms resulting in a culmination which is greater than the sum of its parts is not only confined to pastors and church-administrators, it's obviously part of the larger arts-landscape as well.

And so, with this pretext/context in mind, we invite you to take a look at this review of a fascinating artistic experiment: A collaboration between one of the most acclaimed pianists of our day, Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes, and South African-born video artist Robin Rohde. Pictures Reframed is the result of their collaboration, and it premiered this past November in the newly reopened, magisterially redesigned, Alice Tulley Hall at Lincoln Center.

Excerpt Below // Full Article Here

The remarkable Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes is a self-effacing, substantive and completely unflashy artist. You would not peg him as someone curious to explore multimedia and reinvent the piano recital.

Yet several years ago Mr. Andsnes approached Jane Moss, the vice president for programming at Lincoln Center, to propose collaborating with a visual artist on a performance of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Ms. Moss embraced the idea as being ideal for New Visions, part of the Great Performers series. After some searching, she introduced Mr. Andsnes to the South African-born video artist Robin Rhode.

The product of that collaboration, “Pictures Reframed,” an intriguing multimedia piano recital 80 minutes long without intermission, was presented at Alice Tully Hall on Friday night. It was the first of two performances, and the place was packed.

Theology & Theater: Playwright David Hare comments on the inextricably linked relationship of Faith & Doubt

A nice article from the Melbourne Australia Herald-Sun asking the question "Why doesn't God reveal himself so obviously that no one could doubt his existence?" New Creation brings this article to you in primary part because of playwright David Hare's commentary in the last half of the article.

Click here to read it!

Sapphire on "Precious", based on her book "Push"

The Wall Street Journal and its arts blog SPEAKEASY has posted a fascinating conversation with novelist Sapphire, author of Push - the book which was made into the movie Precious.

Excerpt Below // Full Article Here

Walking down 125th Street in Manhattan last month, the author Sapphire was stopped by a librarian who told her in an amazed tone how “Push” just won’t die. After a healthy shelf-life following its publication in 1996, the novel — which narrates the tale of Precious Jones, an 80’s-era abused and illiterate teenage girl who learns to read and take charge of her life — is once again atop the bestsellers list thanks to interest spinning from an award-winning film adaptation by director Lee Daniels. Just nominated for eight NAACP image awards, the film — renamed “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire” — has grossed nearly $44 million so far and is on its way to winning other awards for stars Mo’Nique and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. Sapphire recently spoke to us about the evolution of her book.

The Wall Street Journal: Though “Push” was a best-selling book when it was released, now, thanks to the movie, a whole new generation feels as if they’re discovering the book for the first time.

Sapphire: It’s not just a new generation that’s discovering the book, it’s a new population. Because I had been a poet, that’s the way it was originally promoted and it really went strongly into the social service segment of the population. For example, it was used as a teaching tool at Hunter College and psychiatrists at Harlem hospitals used it to show the inner mindset of a rape survivor, and in 2007, a whole conference was dedicated to it at Arizona State. So it had it’s own world, but it hadn’t crossed over into popular literature yet. Now, its spreading beyond the coasts, and hitting the Midwest and the South and I’m excited. Because now, no one is mistaking “Precious” for a documentary. People just want to see where the movie came from. It’s like when I ran out to buy “One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “The Godfather” in the 1970s; I wanted to see the literary document the movie sprang from.

She's Singin' Sondheim: Elaine Stitch at The Cafe Carlyle

Happen to be in the Big Apple anytime before the end of January? If so, this one looks like it's a can't miss -- “Elaine Stritch Singin’ Sondheim ... One Song at a Time,” at the Café Carlyle. Read all about it in Stephen Holden's rapturous review...

Excerpt Below // Full Article Here

One reason any singing actor with a modicum of talent can’t go wrong interpreting the songs of Stephen Sondheim is that they make whoever sings them sound like a genius and a sage. In a fusion of sensibilities, the composer’s complicated thoughts become the singer’s, so that the performer’s best possible self — a more intuitive, smarter self (Mr. Sondheim doesn’t do stupid) — comes to the fore.

That’s why an all-Sondheim program like Elaine Stritch’s new show, “Elaine Stritch Singin’ Sondheim ... One Song at a Time,” at the Café Carlyle is so touching. The selections — a baker’s dozen — constitute a handpicked, personal anthology of the composer’s observations on life, time, relationships and show business, expressed by supremely articulate stage characters, whose thoughts are indelibly stamped with Ms. Stritch’s outsize personality.

Darwin Goes To The Opera!

Or rather, the opera goes to Darwin! Read all about Swedish indie-rock brother/sister duo The Knife and their opera Tomorrow, in a Year which is based upon Darwin's ultra-seminal The Origin of Species (and then take a sample listen of leaked track "Coloring of Pigeons").

Sidenote: If The Knife and The White Stripes are any indication, it looks as if there is some sort of Apollo/Dionysus-esque alchemical musical magic to be wrung from the primordial brother/sister relationship in the 21st century. Here's to the first Brother/Sister Music Festival!

Click here to take a look at and a listen to The Knife and their opera Tomorrow, in a Year.

What Is Art For? // Lewis Hyde examines “the public life of the imagination”

Here is a classic article from 2008 which profiles acclaimed (but still largely unknown) poet and essayist Lewis Hyde. David Foster Wallace called Hyde, "one of our true superstars of nonfiction," and, as Daniel B. Smith notes in this piece, Hyde's "fans — among them Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem— routinely use words like “transformative” and “life-altering” to describe his books."

It's a bit of a longer article, but well worth your time since it asks such cogent and thoughtful questions about the meaning of art while leveraging provocative points about topics such as the "cultural commons" in a digital age; the relationship between art and the exigencies of commerce; as well as discussing and elucidating Hyde's lifelong project to "examine the public life of the imagination."

Excerpt Below // Full Article Here

Last April I asked the writer Lewis Hyde if he would take a trip with me to Walden Pond, in Concord, Mass. At 63, Hyde has boyishly tousled brown-gray hair, freckled, soft-looking cheeks and the slightly abstracted gaze of a man who spends a disproportionate amount of his time in library carrels. He has an ironic streak, but his default mode is a kind of easygoing acquiescence, and so one slate gray Saturday afternoon he picked me up in Cambridge, where he lives and works half the year, and drove us the 12 miles west to Walden.

Hyde knows the area well — among his ongoing projects is a detailed series of annotations of Henry David Thoreau’s essays — and he led me down a dirt path from the parking lot to the site of the cabin where, more than 150 years ago, Thoreau wrote his celebrated paean to solitude and self-reliance. The cabin no longer exists. In its place there is a lightly excavated, cordoned-off square of soil and, to its side, a waist-high cairn erected in commemoration by generations of pilgrims.

Our own visit wasn’t commemorative, but it was a pilgrimage of a sort. Hyde has been writing and publishing for more than three decades, and he has received numerous high-profile awards, including a MacArthur “genius grant” in 1991, but his name is still obscure to most readers. His body of work is slim; he has published two books, a volume of poems and a smattering of essays, translations and edited anthologies. His reputation, however, is rich. David Foster Wallace called him “one of our true superstars of nonfiction.” Hyde’s fans — among them Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem— routinely use words like “transformative” and “life-altering” to describe his books, which they’ve been known to pass hand to hand like spiritual texts or samizdatmanifestoes. The source of much of this reverence is Hyde’s first book, “The Gift” (1983), which has never been out of print (it was recently rereleased by Vintage in a 25th-anniversary edition) and which tries to reconcile the value of doing creative work with the exigencies of a market economy.

Looking Ahead: Theology, Literature, and the impact of Technology

What is the future of theology and the arts in the ever-evolving electronic age? What are the limitations, along with the advantages, which the digital age bequeathes unto literary culture and the "life of the book" in particular?

These are precisely the questions posed by Duke Divinity's Faith and Leadership to literary luminary Sven Birkerts (author of, among others, The Gutenberg Elegies).

Of the many thought-provoking lines which Birkerts offers, this one is paramount:

"I am deeply invested in the idea that books represent something else besides the transmission of knowledge..."

Excerpt Below // Full Article Here

Sven Birkerts is the editor of the journal AGNI and the author of eight books, most notably “The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age.” He has reviewed regularly for The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, Esquire and other publications, and has taught writing at Harvard, Emerson, Amherst and Mt. Holyoke. He lives in Arlington, Mass.

He spoke with Faith & Leadership while visiting Duke to participate in a public conversation about the future of reading hosted by Duke Magazine.

Q: You wrote a book called “The Gutenberg Elegies” about digital culture and concluded it with a call to refuse it. I imagine you’re not in favor of digital culture.

The book was written right when the first great wave of electronic technology was rolling in. People on many fronts were very quickly turning against stodgy old print. I had an investment in print culture as a teacher, writer and bookseller. I began to wonder what we were so happily abandoning and jumping on board with. The resulting series of meditations raised a lot of questions and ended on a very skeptical note.

Some years later, the publisher wanted to do a new edition. Ten years had passed. In traditional time, 10 years is nothing. In terms of what we’re going through culturally, it’s an enormous time period.

Things had also changed for me. Since I had argued against the “salvation” offered by all that is digital, I had been identified as a Luddite. Many people imagined me living in a cabin with no electricity, making my own ink. But I live in the contemporary world, including as a writer.

In order to carry on with my writing life, I had to make concessions. This book was written originally on a Selectric typewriter. When I wrote the introduction to the revised edition it was on a laptop.

Q: Some of your concessions have been due to being a parent, but you certainly don’t make them without circumspection and sadness.

I tried to adopt a tolerant approach, but also made clear that lifestyle decisions have effects. Even though we gradually acquired more gadgets, our house is also wall-to-wall books. The children saw us reading and living the life of the book. We hoped to model one thing while not holding them back from electronic culture.

Both of my children read intelligently, but sadly both read books as just part of the menu. I am deeply invested in the idea that books represent something else besides the transmission of knowledge, so I feel that they’re losing out.

Dreaming Out Loud: Reconciliation Through The Arts

This past Sunday saw the arrival of the sixth Op/Ed piece in The New York Times by indefatigable activist and U2 frontman Bono. In Ten for the Next Ten, he puts forth ten ideas which "might make the next 10 years more interesting, healthy or civil."

Why do we at New Creation post this Op/Ed piece in the belief that you might be better off having known about it? Could it be that one of our editors may be a little too interested in U2's work? Or might it rather be that buried within this list, smack-dab in the middle in fact, is a fascinating and utterly cogent suggestion for inter-faith reconciliation through the arts via a "Festival of Abraham?" Hmm... Better to bet on the second of these options.

Regarding such a notion as a "Festival of Abraham," Bono writes:

Here’s something that could never have happened in the Naughts but will maybe be possible in the Tweens or Teens — if there’s a breakthrough in the Mideast peace process. The idea is an arts festival that celebrates the origin of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Every year it could be held in a different location; Jerusalem would obviously be the best place to start.

In Ireland, at the height of the “Troubles,” it was said that the only solution for rabid sectarianism was to let 1,000 punk-rock bands bloom: music helped create a free space for dialogue (of a high-volume variety). So no politicians allowed. Artists only.

(Read Ten for the Next Ten in its entirety by clicking here.)

One thing which Bono does not suggest (explicitly, at least) in this piece but which seems implicitly obvious is that there seems to be no reason why such a "Festival of Abraham" couldn't be organized as soon as this year in America or the UK (and wouldn't a divinity school be a natural fit as the locale for such an event?!!?). Make it an annual Festival and then, after momentum has built for a couple of years, such a festival could then move onto center stage in Jerusalem (as Bono suggests). Three cheers to the divinity school students and faculty who pull this off first!

Finding God in Abstract Expressionism

Here is a fascinating story on the "painting priest" by John Rogers for the Associated Press which has been making its way around the world's newspapers. Our link takes you to the homesite of the Monterey Herald, one of the first newspapers to pick up Rogers' story...

Excerpt Below // Full Article Here

There's no steeple out front, no rows of pews inside, not even so much as a crucifix on display.

Still, this cramped little art studio in the middle of what, until not very long ago, was a Pomona street with as many broken dreams as it has potholes, is the closest thing to paradise the Rev. Bill Moore has found. It's the place where the 60-year-old Catholic priest serves God by creating abstract paintings that he sells by the hundreds.

No ordinary preacher, Father Bill, as he's known throughout Pomona's fledgling arts district, long ago discarded his clerical collar in favor of a painter's smock. Only on Sundays does he trade it for holy vestments to deliver Mass at a local church or one of several detention facilities for young offenders.

All other times, Moore is head of the Ministry of the Arts for the West Coast branch of his religious order, the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

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Looking Ahead: The London Times Profiles The Visual Arts of 2010

Another one just up from The London Times, this one previews the year ahead in visual art. Click here and enjoy!

Looking Ahead: The London Times Profiles The Films of 2010

Also just up today, The London Times takes us on a tour through the coming year in film. Click here to read all about it!

Looking Ahead: A New Month, A New Year, A New Decade, and New Art!

Just up today, The New York Times' writers take a look across mediums (from theater to television, painting to dance, film to literature) and peer into January 2010 and beyond. Take a sojourn through the future here.

DC Explores The Body of Christ in Epic Visual Arts Exhibit

The Washington DC Theological Consortium has completed a stunning visual arts exhibit on the theme: The Body of Christ. Click on the link in red to take in a smorgasbord of fantastic pieces!