Apocalyptic and The Beauty of God-N. T. Wright
Here’s the first lesson I learned after attending a lecture by N. T. Wright.
Good luck taking notes.
The man is a geyser of information. The best you can do is hold on and enjoy the ride. With that said, I will give you my best recollection and a few quotes from the talk, “Apocalyptic and The Beauty of God.”
Using Revelation 21-21 as his backdrop, Wright spoke about the the role of apocalyptic in the arts. He wondered if we could rescue apocalyptic from the “Left Behind” hermeneutic. He juxtaposed the 2 current leanings in the arts; sentimentalism versus brutalism. Brutalism recognizes only the evil and shame of this world, sentimentalism, only the beauty. Wright contends that it is the job of the artists in the Church to bring a creative tension that speaks of the evil and pain of this world without ignoring the beauty.
The whole earth is filled with God’s Glory (Is 6), and the arts acknowledge the tension of the already/not yet. The arts can approximate how things are and how they shall be. The arts tell the story of New Creation so that we might glimpse and taste of it in the midst of this world.
Celebration without sentimentalism
Sorrow without cynicism
“Heaven and earth are not that far apart, and with the arts, they are brought even closer”
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sounds like it was a very good ride…
Having been to a Tom Wright talk, I can wholeheartedly agree about the taking notes part. He rattles through his material at quite a pace (in this case, the whole of Simply Christian in about an hour and a half). As such I actually found the Q&A session of more benefit, because he had to slow down a bit! Very good, though. Enjoy your blog, by the way, been reading for a while now and meant to say that for some time. Thanks.
Paul, it was fabulous. He is “simply brilliant” ha ha.
Keith, Thanks for reading and commenting. I actually found that the sessions I attended on Saturday were a bit easier to keep track of, I need to post my notes from the second session on Sat. I have just so enjoyed reading/hearing him.
Jamie