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When Art Disrupts Religion
Aesthetic Experience and the Evangelical Mind
By (author)
Philip S. Francis
Foreword by
Randall Balmer
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Synopsis
When Art Disrupts Religion opens at London's Tate Modern Museum, with a young Evangelical man contemplating a painting by Mark Rothko, an aesthetic experience that proves disruptive to his religious life. Without those moments with Rothko, he says, "there never would have been an undoing of my conservative Evangelical worldview." The memoirs, interviews, and ethnographic field notes gathered by Philip Francis for this book lay bare the power of the arts to
unsettle and overturn deeply ingrained religious beliefs and practices. Francis explores the aesthetic disturbances of more than 80 Evangelical respondants. From the paintings of Rothko to the films of Ingmar Bergman, from The Brothers Karamozov to The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Francis finds that the arts
function as sites of "defamiliarization," "comfort in uncertainty," "a stand-in for faith" and a "surrogate transcendence." Bridging the gap between aesthetic theory and lived religion, this book sheds light on the complex interrelationship of religion and art in the modern West, and the role of the arts in education and social life. New & Used
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What Reviewers Are Saying
Francis' study engages profoundly with the question of how religious communities (and not only 'fundamentalists') preserve their identities, how challenging it can be to move away from these inherited patterns of life, and how multidimensional and complex may be the role of arts and other humanities on this journey. And, although written in the American evangelical context, Francis' study offers a challenge to all denominational institutions and theological schools
whose role is to preserve and shape their own denominational identity. * Helle Liht, European Baptist Federation, Journal of European Baptist Studies * Offers valuable insights and a rich selection of moving personal narratives about the fraught relationship between the church world and the art world * David Hoekema, Christian Century * Francis' fascinating work offered me new ways to remember and reframe my own art education within an Evangelical college. As an artist and Evangelical, I found the book an encouraging reminder of art's power to disrupt and reorient people's lives. The text is an enjoyable read and may be especially appealing to those interested in the arts, aesthetic experience, conversions, fundamentalism, and higher education. * Ryan Stander, Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society * Given the increasing number of op-ed pieces by evangelicals considering abandoning that title in the age of Roy Moore and Donald Trump, however, Francis's text provides a timely and rigorous exploration of the benefits of escaping absolute certainty, a clear divide between those who have welcomed Jesus into their lives and those that haven't, an all-or-nothing commitment to evangelical Christian ontology, and an over-evaluation of a mythical past of truer faith. This
text would work well in an advanced undergraduate seminar, offering students insightful and approachable accounts of an enormous body of social theory, while also encouraging them to think about their own various crises of faith Similar to My Utmost, When Art Disrupts Religion offers new ways of
thinking about conversion beyond common narratives of "rupture" offered by convertsto or from Christianity themselves. * Elayne Oliphant, Reading Religion *
whose role is to preserve and shape their own denomination
text would work well in an advanced undergraduat
thinking about conversion beyond common narratives of "rupture" offered by convertsto or from Christianity