ABSTRACTS - Saturday - SESSION 3 (11:30-13:00)
Imaging Christ and the Crucifixion (A102)
Andrew Williams, ‘Can Jews Produce Christian Art?’
Many Jewish artists have incorporated the central symbol of the Christian faith, the crucifixion, in their work. They have done so through figurative depiction, indirect reference and abstract expression. The resulting work may be challenging and unsettling for Christian viewers for it portrays suffering that is not leavened, in any straightforward way, by the hope of redemption. At the same time, it frequently confronts the church with questions about its role in the persecution of the European Jewry. The images also stir conversations about the anguish associated with the creative process and the question of God’s presence amidst the world’s evil. Indeed, the Jewish presentation of the suffering of Jesus has been freighted with meaning, connected with collective suffering, personal grief and divine abandonment, that does not always find such full expression in more familiar Christian renderings. This paper examines the ways in which Christians might fruitfully receive the christological imagery of artists such as Chagall, Kitaj, Epstein, Newman and Bak, despite its many challenges. I go on to suggest that the place of the crucifixion in late modern Jewish art opens up important ethical and theological horizons for the church and that it provides a significant resource for those interested in theodicy, theological aesthetics and Jewish-Christian relations.
Christopher R. Brewer, ‘Faith Beyond the Loss of Faith: Alfonse Borysewicz’s Cross of the Deposition (1991)’
Alfonse Borysewicz (b. 1957) is a Brooklyn-based, American artist who, after receiving a B.A. and an M.A. from St. John’s Provincial Seminary (Detroit, MI), decided against the priesthood, moved to Boston and enrolled in the Studio School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Early success led to a string of exhibitions in Boston, New York and Tokyo, as well as two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowships, and a John Simon Guggenheim Painting Fellowship. His early works (1982–1984) were on un-stretched canvas and covered with a mixture of paint, mud, sand, leaves and in some cases crayon and gold leaf. One of these works, The Passion (1984), was later de-constructed, and the blocks of old stretcher wood then re-constructed as a processional cross for The Oratory Church of Saint Boniface (Brooklyn, NY, USA). A habitual iconoclast, Borysewicz the iconographer has more recently repeated the act, cutting pages from an icon book, and incorporating them into a series of paintings, and then a series of works on paper. In this paper I will consider Borysewicz's Cross of the Deposition (1991) in relation to Natalie Carnes’s suggestion that iconoclasm is intrinsic to iconophilia, as well as Kader Attia’s notion of repair, before arguing that Borysewicz’s practice of de/re-construction might be more fully understood in terms of of William Desmond’s modalities of wonder, i.e. faith beyond the loss of faith.
Amanda Dillon, ‘Metro Messiah: Exploring the Reception of Jesus in Urban Street Art’
The past decade has seen exponential growth in urban street art internationally. This takes many diverse forms, including almost anything one can imagine; from spray-painted images, through mounted porcelain sculptures, to ‘yarn-bombing’. Quirky, lighthearted elements such as these and provocative political and social commentary often live side by side. Religious imagery also has a presence among the extraordinary breadth of artistic expressions that find form in this milieu. There is an ongoing and vigorous reclamation of ‘the public square’ by artists and others, many of whom feel excluded not only from the elitist, mainstream so-called “art world” but also from many other social, communal environments including (elitist?) mainstream places of faith and worship. This paper shall very briefly locate Street Art in the broader context of emerging global movements and trends before considering specifically images of Jesus in Street Art from around the world. I suggest these images serve as a barometer of many indices in the contemporary faith landscape. It would be wrong to conclude that most images of Jesus in street art are derogatory and mocking in tone. Rather, there is much to be gleaned about the reception of the person of Jesus in the popular imaginary from these anonymous expressions. The vast majority of street art Jesus images contain references to the crucifixion. The ‘sacred heart’ symbol is another frequently recurring motif. Why are these particular dimensions favoured over other aspects of the biblical Jesus? What is the inherent dialogical challenge or invitation put out to us, the viewer, encountering them as we move about our urban spaces?
Andrew Williams, ‘Can Jews Produce Christian Art?’
Many Jewish artists have incorporated the central symbol of the Christian faith, the crucifixion, in their work. They have done so through figurative depiction, indirect reference and abstract expression. The resulting work may be challenging and unsettling for Christian viewers for it portrays suffering that is not leavened, in any straightforward way, by the hope of redemption. At the same time, it frequently confronts the church with questions about its role in the persecution of the European Jewry. The images also stir conversations about the anguish associated with the creative process and the question of God’s presence amidst the world’s evil. Indeed, the Jewish presentation of the suffering of Jesus has been freighted with meaning, connected with collective suffering, personal grief and divine abandonment, that does not always find such full expression in more familiar Christian renderings. This paper examines the ways in which Christians might fruitfully receive the christological imagery of artists such as Chagall, Kitaj, Epstein, Newman and Bak, despite its many challenges. I go on to suggest that the place of the crucifixion in late modern Jewish art opens up important ethical and theological horizons for the church and that it provides a significant resource for those interested in theodicy, theological aesthetics and Jewish-Christian relations.
Christopher R. Brewer, ‘Faith Beyond the Loss of Faith: Alfonse Borysewicz’s Cross of the Deposition (1991)’
Alfonse Borysewicz (b. 1957) is a Brooklyn-based, American artist who, after receiving a B.A. and an M.A. from St. John’s Provincial Seminary (Detroit, MI), decided against the priesthood, moved to Boston and enrolled in the Studio School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Early success led to a string of exhibitions in Boston, New York and Tokyo, as well as two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowships, and a John Simon Guggenheim Painting Fellowship. His early works (1982–1984) were on un-stretched canvas and covered with a mixture of paint, mud, sand, leaves and in some cases crayon and gold leaf. One of these works, The Passion (1984), was later de-constructed, and the blocks of old stretcher wood then re-constructed as a processional cross for The Oratory Church of Saint Boniface (Brooklyn, NY, USA). A habitual iconoclast, Borysewicz the iconographer has more recently repeated the act, cutting pages from an icon book, and incorporating them into a series of paintings, and then a series of works on paper. In this paper I will consider Borysewicz's Cross of the Deposition (1991) in relation to Natalie Carnes’s suggestion that iconoclasm is intrinsic to iconophilia, as well as Kader Attia’s notion of repair, before arguing that Borysewicz’s practice of de/re-construction might be more fully understood in terms of of William Desmond’s modalities of wonder, i.e. faith beyond the loss of faith.
Amanda Dillon, ‘Metro Messiah: Exploring the Reception of Jesus in Urban Street Art’
The past decade has seen exponential growth in urban street art internationally. This takes many diverse forms, including almost anything one can imagine; from spray-painted images, through mounted porcelain sculptures, to ‘yarn-bombing’. Quirky, lighthearted elements such as these and provocative political and social commentary often live side by side. Religious imagery also has a presence among the extraordinary breadth of artistic expressions that find form in this milieu. There is an ongoing and vigorous reclamation of ‘the public square’ by artists and others, many of whom feel excluded not only from the elitist, mainstream so-called “art world” but also from many other social, communal environments including (elitist?) mainstream places of faith and worship. This paper shall very briefly locate Street Art in the broader context of emerging global movements and trends before considering specifically images of Jesus in Street Art from around the world. I suggest these images serve as a barometer of many indices in the contemporary faith landscape. It would be wrong to conclude that most images of Jesus in street art are derogatory and mocking in tone. Rather, there is much to be gleaned about the reception of the person of Jesus in the popular imaginary from these anonymous expressions. The vast majority of street art Jesus images contain references to the crucifixion. The ‘sacred heart’ symbol is another frequently recurring motif. Why are these particular dimensions favoured over other aspects of the biblical Jesus? What is the inherent dialogical challenge or invitation put out to us, the viewer, encountering them as we move about our urban spaces?
Challenges to Imago Dei: Personhood in Contemporary Culture (A115)
Christopher John Thornhill, ‘A Grand Ungodly God-like Man: Blood Meridian’s Judge Holden as Grotesque Parody of God’
Few characters in contemporary literature exude the fascination and menace of Judge Holden, the dreadful figure at the centre of the gang of scalp hunters who brawl and butcher their way through Cormac McCarthy’s grotesque western, Blood Meridian. The Judge is extraordinary in every sense; a huge, hairless albino who possesses uncanny physical strength, consummate skilfulness, and encyclopaedic knowledge. He is also a trickster and a ruthless murderer who nurtures a proclivity for unspeakable violence and destruction, boasting that he will never die. As inscrutable as the blank, timeless desert through which he moves and apparently involved in the very rigging of creation itself, Holden is a grotesque parody of the biblical God, bounding around a novel that is itself a horrifying parody of the ‘Good Book’.
This paper will discuss McCarthy’s presentation of the figure of Judge Holden and the play of anthropomorphic and theomorphic attributes in his remarkable appearance and in his rehearsing of key episodes from biblical literature. I will also contextualise the Judge within the tradition of parodic and incendiary literary depictions of God-like figures from Milton, Blake, Melville and Chesterton, showing how his character absorbs and rewrites these antecedents to present a powerful and provocative critique of the pieties of contemporary culture.
Monika Chmelova, ‘Iconic Symmetry of Digital Avatars: How People do (not) “Embody” God’s Image in Cyberspace’
In Christian understanding, people are created in the image and likeness of God who has taken physical human reality to heart. This assertion is a Christian foundation of human dignity, growth and fulfilment. It also spells out the potential for people to become like Christ to one another and thus help that seminal divine imprint to flourish. Over millennia, people have created additional spaces for interaction with one another such as paintings, music, books, films, phones and, of course, virtual reality. In the latter, human beings engage in an immediate interaction via the use of digital “prosthetics” - some sort of (currently graphical) representations of human agents through which they “move, breath, and have their being” in cyberspace. These digital “puppets” are commonly called avatars.
With avatars, digital reality (pixelated as it may be) remains all too human. People select avatars that match elements of their dreams and desires, and engage through them in social interactions within the given digital environment. Something of their humanity (or lack of it) then “shines through” those avatars. Equally, something of their virtual experiences than feeds back into the physical human reality. It therefore seems plausible that despite the (current) loss of human physicality in the virtual environment, the original divine imprint does not need to completely disappear: there may well be traces of it in the way avatars are used to “incarnate” their human agents. Using some concepts from the tradition of painted icons, the science of symmetry as well as the theology of sacraments, this paper will ask questions about the scope of this “incarnation” within the digital world and thus perhaps suggest some boundaries between idolatrous (and even demonic) avatars, and avatars as (possibly hidden) icons of Christ.
Julian Templeton, ‘Persons as Imaged, Viewed, Marketed, Re-valued by the Gospel, and Treasured by the Church’
The rise of marketing combined with advances in the technology of the reproduction of digital images has made human representations pervasive in Late Modern cultures. However, it is this very pervasiveness that has become problematic for Late Modern persons. Douglas John Hall argues,
…many human beings…spend their lives in a never-ending attempt to ascertain how they are perceived by others, seeking to accommodate themselves to—or perhaps to escape from, or refute—the images that others have of them . . .
The inordinate appetite for images in contemporary social and digital media raises the question: What is the role of intention on the part of image-maker and the image-viewer in distinguishing between what is imaginatively and morally harmless or harmful? For the Christian, this is a question concerning the interface between culture and the gospel. Situating this discussion in theological anthropology, and engaging with the thought of Hall, Timothy Gorringe, and Douglas Knight, I will ask: Does the offering up of one’s image to be viewed, often in the attempt to be valued by others, inadvertently devalue one’s true self? Just as pornography arguably leads to the death of the truly erotic, does the deliberate or inadvertent marketisation of oneself risk the immolation of self on the altar of consumer capitalism? Taking the Apostle Paul’s perspective of each person as one “for whom Christ died” (1 Cor. 8:11) I will re-examine the doctrine of Justification as the basis of each person’s true value. The Church treasures each person in its fellowship of justified sinners and children of God. This is a liberating counter-balance to cultural tendencies to value persons on the basis of physical attractiveness or intelligence or income-generating capacity.
Christopher John Thornhill, ‘A Grand Ungodly God-like Man: Blood Meridian’s Judge Holden as Grotesque Parody of God’
Few characters in contemporary literature exude the fascination and menace of Judge Holden, the dreadful figure at the centre of the gang of scalp hunters who brawl and butcher their way through Cormac McCarthy’s grotesque western, Blood Meridian. The Judge is extraordinary in every sense; a huge, hairless albino who possesses uncanny physical strength, consummate skilfulness, and encyclopaedic knowledge. He is also a trickster and a ruthless murderer who nurtures a proclivity for unspeakable violence and destruction, boasting that he will never die. As inscrutable as the blank, timeless desert through which he moves and apparently involved in the very rigging of creation itself, Holden is a grotesque parody of the biblical God, bounding around a novel that is itself a horrifying parody of the ‘Good Book’.
This paper will discuss McCarthy’s presentation of the figure of Judge Holden and the play of anthropomorphic and theomorphic attributes in his remarkable appearance and in his rehearsing of key episodes from biblical literature. I will also contextualise the Judge within the tradition of parodic and incendiary literary depictions of God-like figures from Milton, Blake, Melville and Chesterton, showing how his character absorbs and rewrites these antecedents to present a powerful and provocative critique of the pieties of contemporary culture.
Monika Chmelova, ‘Iconic Symmetry of Digital Avatars: How People do (not) “Embody” God’s Image in Cyberspace’
In Christian understanding, people are created in the image and likeness of God who has taken physical human reality to heart. This assertion is a Christian foundation of human dignity, growth and fulfilment. It also spells out the potential for people to become like Christ to one another and thus help that seminal divine imprint to flourish. Over millennia, people have created additional spaces for interaction with one another such as paintings, music, books, films, phones and, of course, virtual reality. In the latter, human beings engage in an immediate interaction via the use of digital “prosthetics” - some sort of (currently graphical) representations of human agents through which they “move, breath, and have their being” in cyberspace. These digital “puppets” are commonly called avatars.
With avatars, digital reality (pixelated as it may be) remains all too human. People select avatars that match elements of their dreams and desires, and engage through them in social interactions within the given digital environment. Something of their humanity (or lack of it) then “shines through” those avatars. Equally, something of their virtual experiences than feeds back into the physical human reality. It therefore seems plausible that despite the (current) loss of human physicality in the virtual environment, the original divine imprint does not need to completely disappear: there may well be traces of it in the way avatars are used to “incarnate” their human agents. Using some concepts from the tradition of painted icons, the science of symmetry as well as the theology of sacraments, this paper will ask questions about the scope of this “incarnation” within the digital world and thus perhaps suggest some boundaries between idolatrous (and even demonic) avatars, and avatars as (possibly hidden) icons of Christ.
Julian Templeton, ‘Persons as Imaged, Viewed, Marketed, Re-valued by the Gospel, and Treasured by the Church’
The rise of marketing combined with advances in the technology of the reproduction of digital images has made human representations pervasive in Late Modern cultures. However, it is this very pervasiveness that has become problematic for Late Modern persons. Douglas John Hall argues,
…many human beings…spend their lives in a never-ending attempt to ascertain how they are perceived by others, seeking to accommodate themselves to—or perhaps to escape from, or refute—the images that others have of them . . .
The inordinate appetite for images in contemporary social and digital media raises the question: What is the role of intention on the part of image-maker and the image-viewer in distinguishing between what is imaginatively and morally harmless or harmful? For the Christian, this is a question concerning the interface between culture and the gospel. Situating this discussion in theological anthropology, and engaging with the thought of Hall, Timothy Gorringe, and Douglas Knight, I will ask: Does the offering up of one’s image to be viewed, often in the attempt to be valued by others, inadvertently devalue one’s true self? Just as pornography arguably leads to the death of the truly erotic, does the deliberate or inadvertent marketisation of oneself risk the immolation of self on the altar of consumer capitalism? Taking the Apostle Paul’s perspective of each person as one “for whom Christ died” (1 Cor. 8:11) I will re-examine the doctrine of Justification as the basis of each person’s true value. The Church treasures each person in its fellowship of justified sinners and children of God. This is a liberating counter-balance to cultural tendencies to value persons on the basis of physical attractiveness or intelligence or income-generating capacity.
Encountering the Other: Images of Demons and Devils in Global Perspective (A214)
Gabrielle Thomas, ‘Gregory Nazianzen on the War between the Imago Dei and the Devil’
Discussions about patristic models of the imago Dei are often centred on the difference between image and likeness, the image’s ontology, and to what extent the philosophical influences can be defined. Whilst these approaches are valid, the result is that a key aspect of what it means for a human being to be made as the imago Dei is overlooked. This paper considers the role that spiritual warfare plays in Gregory Nazianzen’s imago Dei; he has been chosen because he was a significant influence upon the doctrine of the Church, being the one of the first to delineate the Trinity. The picture Gregory presents is one of perpetual warfare with the devil and demons, and yet his vision of the imago Dei is one of hope, since Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection has secured an eschatological promise of victory and the eventual theosis of the imago Dei.
Sandra Nickel, ‘Idols, “Superstitions” and the “Prince of Darkness” - Linguistic Re-mapping of the Yorùbá Pantheon in Nineteenth-Century Missionary Correspondence’
Hostile and vilifying descriptions and stories of local spirituality and rituals abound in the reports and journals written by European and African missionaries from nineteenth century Yorùbáland (Southwest Nigeria). Yorùbá missionary Thomas King, for example, talks about an òrìṣà, a local deity, as “the prince of darkness, whom, like the Athenians, [the devotee] is ignorantly worshipping” (from journal extracts, ending 25th December 1850). While Paul in Acts 17:19-25 sees the Athenians' Unknown God as an indication of the Christian God's presence in the people's consciousness, King refers to 'the prince of darkness', the devil, in the disguise and shape of an òrìṣà. The use of pejorative and deprecating language meant a linguistic re-mapping of the Yorùbá pantheon as 'idols' and 'superstitions', which profoundly affected how the local deities were perceived in the emerging Yorùbá Christian communities. In this paper I show that through the process of re-interpreting the òrìṣà as demons and the devil of the Judaeo-Christian texts and beliefs, these deities did not have to be abandoned by the converts but could instead be incorporated into Yorùbá Christianity, albeit as adversaries. I also show that for Yorùbá missionaries, former òrìṣà worshippers themselves, this linguistic 'othering' served as an in-group marker, aligning them with their European colleagues by vilifying their former deities. I argue therefore that the pejorative, 'othering' language concerning the òrìṣà thus did not serve to turn the local population's hearts away from them; rather, through the linguistic re-mapping of the òrìṣà as idols to be rejected, as demons to be fought, they could be integrated into the new faith, thus remaining a continued reality.
Aidan Ahaligah, ‘Icons, Images, Idol Worship and Demonic Points of Contact: Pentecostalisation and Pentecostalist Theology in the Presbyterian Church of East Africa’
The form of Christianity generally referred to as Pentecostal and Charismatic has gained the most growth and influence in sub Saharan Africa. With a theology that prioritizes the ‘spiritual’ and other pneumatic phenomena; Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity (PCC) has found fertile ground in a context where African indigenous religions hold strong believes in the malevolent and benevolent role of spirits. In several sub Saharan African countries, ‘Pentecostalist’ theology holds sway and have shaped and reframed ‘classical Western’ theological concepts including debates on icons and images in novel ways.
Exhibiting a complex conflation of primal worldview and ‘Biblical’ Christianity, PCCs conceive images as capable of being hijacked by demonic forces and thus become points of contact for demonic intrusion into the body of Christ.
Grounded in empirical research, this paper intends to show how images and icons traditionally associated with Christianity are conceptualized as doorways, gates, ‘altars’ and demonic point of contacts. Framing the debate on icons as a form of spiritual warfare, Pentecostals and Charismatics employ spiritual strategies in which ‘strategic warfare prayers’ are employed to sanctify, exorcize (through deliverance) and ‘break’ the demonic influences of certain church images and icons associated with missionary Christianity in Kenya. The paper specifically examines the image and icon breaking ministry of the Rev. Dr David Githii, the former moderator of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa within the framework of Pentecostalization and Pentecostalist theology of spirit causation in Kenya.
Gabrielle Thomas, ‘Gregory Nazianzen on the War between the Imago Dei and the Devil’
Discussions about patristic models of the imago Dei are often centred on the difference between image and likeness, the image’s ontology, and to what extent the philosophical influences can be defined. Whilst these approaches are valid, the result is that a key aspect of what it means for a human being to be made as the imago Dei is overlooked. This paper considers the role that spiritual warfare plays in Gregory Nazianzen’s imago Dei; he has been chosen because he was a significant influence upon the doctrine of the Church, being the one of the first to delineate the Trinity. The picture Gregory presents is one of perpetual warfare with the devil and demons, and yet his vision of the imago Dei is one of hope, since Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection has secured an eschatological promise of victory and the eventual theosis of the imago Dei.
Sandra Nickel, ‘Idols, “Superstitions” and the “Prince of Darkness” - Linguistic Re-mapping of the Yorùbá Pantheon in Nineteenth-Century Missionary Correspondence’
Hostile and vilifying descriptions and stories of local spirituality and rituals abound in the reports and journals written by European and African missionaries from nineteenth century Yorùbáland (Southwest Nigeria). Yorùbá missionary Thomas King, for example, talks about an òrìṣà, a local deity, as “the prince of darkness, whom, like the Athenians, [the devotee] is ignorantly worshipping” (from journal extracts, ending 25th December 1850). While Paul in Acts 17:19-25 sees the Athenians' Unknown God as an indication of the Christian God's presence in the people's consciousness, King refers to 'the prince of darkness', the devil, in the disguise and shape of an òrìṣà. The use of pejorative and deprecating language meant a linguistic re-mapping of the Yorùbá pantheon as 'idols' and 'superstitions', which profoundly affected how the local deities were perceived in the emerging Yorùbá Christian communities. In this paper I show that through the process of re-interpreting the òrìṣà as demons and the devil of the Judaeo-Christian texts and beliefs, these deities did not have to be abandoned by the converts but could instead be incorporated into Yorùbá Christianity, albeit as adversaries. I also show that for Yorùbá missionaries, former òrìṣà worshippers themselves, this linguistic 'othering' served as an in-group marker, aligning them with their European colleagues by vilifying their former deities. I argue therefore that the pejorative, 'othering' language concerning the òrìṣà thus did not serve to turn the local population's hearts away from them; rather, through the linguistic re-mapping of the òrìṣà as idols to be rejected, as demons to be fought, they could be integrated into the new faith, thus remaining a continued reality.
Aidan Ahaligah, ‘Icons, Images, Idol Worship and Demonic Points of Contact: Pentecostalisation and Pentecostalist Theology in the Presbyterian Church of East Africa’
The form of Christianity generally referred to as Pentecostal and Charismatic has gained the most growth and influence in sub Saharan Africa. With a theology that prioritizes the ‘spiritual’ and other pneumatic phenomena; Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity (PCC) has found fertile ground in a context where African indigenous religions hold strong believes in the malevolent and benevolent role of spirits. In several sub Saharan African countries, ‘Pentecostalist’ theology holds sway and have shaped and reframed ‘classical Western’ theological concepts including debates on icons and images in novel ways.
Exhibiting a complex conflation of primal worldview and ‘Biblical’ Christianity, PCCs conceive images as capable of being hijacked by demonic forces and thus become points of contact for demonic intrusion into the body of Christ.
Grounded in empirical research, this paper intends to show how images and icons traditionally associated with Christianity are conceptualized as doorways, gates, ‘altars’ and demonic point of contacts. Framing the debate on icons as a form of spiritual warfare, Pentecostals and Charismatics employ spiritual strategies in which ‘strategic warfare prayers’ are employed to sanctify, exorcize (through deliverance) and ‘break’ the demonic influences of certain church images and icons associated with missionary Christianity in Kenya. The paper specifically examines the image and icon breaking ministry of the Rev. Dr David Githii, the former moderator of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa within the framework of Pentecostalization and Pentecostalist theology of spirit causation in Kenya.
Archaeology (Manchester Museum)
There is also a museum workshop as part of this session; for more information and to book a place (limited availability), please click here.
There is also a museum workshop as part of this session; for more information and to book a place (limited availability), please click here.
ABSTRACTS - Saturday - SESSION 4 (13:45-15:15)
Devotional Images (A102)
Soetkin Vanhauwaert, Devotion to the Baptist's Head. Relic versus Image
In late medieval culture, the skull relics of St John the Baptist were famous for their number. Calvin mentions them, because believing in twelve skulls belonging to one saint made the relic culture a laughing stock, and that number only included the ‘bigger’ skull parts in Notre-Dame (Amiens), San Silvestro in Capite (Rome), Residenz (Munich), Topkapi Museum (Istanbul), Umayyad Mosque (Damascus). In addition, smaller pieces of the Baptist's skull were scattered all over Europe, some of them put in the sculptures of his head to make the relic ‘speak’. These relic containers were worshipped as in the large skull reliquary in Amiens – pars pro toto – they were believed to help against headaches, throat diseases and convulsions with children - but, as sources show us, sculptures of the head of St John that did not contain a relic, were nonetheless worshipped as if they did.
This paper discusses the gradation in the veneration of the skull of St John, departing from the most famous skull relic in Amiens, to a fragment of a (skull) relic in a sculpture as relic-container, and ending with the veneration of an image that merely represents the skull of the saint. The collections of the Low Countries preserve several examples of sculptures that can be placed in this discussion, and will be the starting point of this paper.
Elaine Belz, ‘A Wounded Presence: The Virgin of Vladimir Icon’
Long revered as miraculous and often copied, the 12th-century Virgin of Vladimir icon is today perhaps more iconic than ever. Thanks to photographic reproduction and distribution, its image is familiar to people who may not know its name or history, and who may never have the opportunity to view it in its present location at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Thus abstracted, the image is easily limited to its artistic and conceptual features, such as its colors or its archetypal composition depicting sweet tenderness between Christ and his mother.
However, religious tradition has long emphasized the materiality and sensuality of an icon: far from a "window into heaven," the icon's physical presence mediates that of the divine here on earth. This paper takes that tradition seriously. In particular, I consider the scars and abrasions on the Virgin of Vladimir icon—surface damages from age, abuse, and devotion which might otherwise be counted accidental to the image itself—as among the icon's formal qualities. Drawing from the theological aesthetics of Alejandro García-Rivera, I argue that these "wounds" are now inherent properties of the icon. Visible even to those who only see it in reproduction, they mediate the icon's materiality so that viewers who attend to them, even via photograph, may experience something of the icon's presence, and through it, the presence of the divine.
Luke Penkett, ‘Theological Aspects of a Recently Found Sixth-Century Coptic Icon of Christ and the Virgin’
Icons serve to draw us into that divine world, to which we have only full access after death. Yet they also have much to teach us about this present life and our relationships with the divine.
In recent years, none have revealed as much as the extraordinary Coptic icon of Christ sitting in a mandorla, placed upon his mother Mary's lap. This icon was discovered in the opening years of the present century. Until then, books on icons had 'lamented' (Sr Wendy Beckett's word) that only seven icons of the Virgin had survived the Iconoclasm. What happened in 2003 meant that the history books had to be rewritten.
This sixth- or seventh-century icon from Egypt that has miraculously survived, grants us a glimpse into the early Christian church with an intensity and a spiritual strength that is rarely equalled.
My purpose in this paper is twofold: to enable this icon to be better known; and to explore aspects of theology that studying this icon reveals.
Soetkin Vanhauwaert, Devotion to the Baptist's Head. Relic versus Image
In late medieval culture, the skull relics of St John the Baptist were famous for their number. Calvin mentions them, because believing in twelve skulls belonging to one saint made the relic culture a laughing stock, and that number only included the ‘bigger’ skull parts in Notre-Dame (Amiens), San Silvestro in Capite (Rome), Residenz (Munich), Topkapi Museum (Istanbul), Umayyad Mosque (Damascus). In addition, smaller pieces of the Baptist's skull were scattered all over Europe, some of them put in the sculptures of his head to make the relic ‘speak’. These relic containers were worshipped as in the large skull reliquary in Amiens – pars pro toto – they were believed to help against headaches, throat diseases and convulsions with children - but, as sources show us, sculptures of the head of St John that did not contain a relic, were nonetheless worshipped as if they did.
This paper discusses the gradation in the veneration of the skull of St John, departing from the most famous skull relic in Amiens, to a fragment of a (skull) relic in a sculpture as relic-container, and ending with the veneration of an image that merely represents the skull of the saint. The collections of the Low Countries preserve several examples of sculptures that can be placed in this discussion, and will be the starting point of this paper.
Elaine Belz, ‘A Wounded Presence: The Virgin of Vladimir Icon’
Long revered as miraculous and often copied, the 12th-century Virgin of Vladimir icon is today perhaps more iconic than ever. Thanks to photographic reproduction and distribution, its image is familiar to people who may not know its name or history, and who may never have the opportunity to view it in its present location at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Thus abstracted, the image is easily limited to its artistic and conceptual features, such as its colors or its archetypal composition depicting sweet tenderness between Christ and his mother.
However, religious tradition has long emphasized the materiality and sensuality of an icon: far from a "window into heaven," the icon's physical presence mediates that of the divine here on earth. This paper takes that tradition seriously. In particular, I consider the scars and abrasions on the Virgin of Vladimir icon—surface damages from age, abuse, and devotion which might otherwise be counted accidental to the image itself—as among the icon's formal qualities. Drawing from the theological aesthetics of Alejandro García-Rivera, I argue that these "wounds" are now inherent properties of the icon. Visible even to those who only see it in reproduction, they mediate the icon's materiality so that viewers who attend to them, even via photograph, may experience something of the icon's presence, and through it, the presence of the divine.
Luke Penkett, ‘Theological Aspects of a Recently Found Sixth-Century Coptic Icon of Christ and the Virgin’
Icons serve to draw us into that divine world, to which we have only full access after death. Yet they also have much to teach us about this present life and our relationships with the divine.
In recent years, none have revealed as much as the extraordinary Coptic icon of Christ sitting in a mandorla, placed upon his mother Mary's lap. This icon was discovered in the opening years of the present century. Until then, books on icons had 'lamented' (Sr Wendy Beckett's word) that only seven icons of the Virgin had survived the Iconoclasm. What happened in 2003 meant that the history books had to be rewritten.
This sixth- or seventh-century icon from Egypt that has miraculously survived, grants us a glimpse into the early Christian church with an intensity and a spiritual strength that is rarely equalled.
My purpose in this paper is twofold: to enable this icon to be better known; and to explore aspects of theology that studying this icon reveals.
Trinity and the Moving Image (A115)
Marten Krijgsman, ‘The Digital Messiah: The Use of Messianic Themes in the Mass Effect Trilogy’
Although video games have had a relatively short tenure as forms of media, their impact on modern popular culture has been immense. As one of the highest-grossing forms of entertainment at this moment, they remain nonetheless undervalued and understudied within academia. I hope to shed light on the rich world of video game storytelling by analysing the narrative arc of the Mass Effect trilogy. In particular, I aim to show that video game writing can be on par with other forms of media and literature, and that the themes adopted therein warrant closer examination. In this relatively brief paper, I will focus on one specific aspect of religious themes in the Mass Effect trilogy, that is, the way in which messianic characteristics are attributed to the main character, Shepard. Two aspects of the adaptation of the archetypal messiah are taken into consideration: firstly, the characterisation of the hero, Shepard, as an amalgamation of king David and Jesus; secondly, the visual imagery associated with artistic depictions of the messiah in Christian art. In conclusion, I will propose that the reason for this rather straightforward adoption of religious imagery is used to allow the player to identify with the main character, and furthermore to let the player interact with complex dilemmas akin to some of the most fundamental questions in theology and philosophy.
Hannah Barr, ‘Transcendence Unchained: Imaging the Holy Spirit in Tarantino’s Django Unchained’
Christ-figure characters are readily identifiable in films and have been used – perhaps sometimes overused – since the film industry’s inception; for example, Neo in 'The Matrix', Gandalf in 'The Lord of the Rings', and Katniss in 'The Hunger Games.' The doctrine of incarnation lends itself to the silver screen, but what about the doctrine of transcendence? In this paper, I will explore how it is possible to image transcendence and create Holy Spirit-figures in films, as seen in Quentin Tarantino’s 'Django Unchained'. I will show that these kinds of characters and images play a crucial role in transcending the viewer’s normative experiences and drawing them into a new morality, or a new way of seeing things, and how this changes a film from being for audience escapism to audience activism. Noted Bible and film scholar Adele Reinhartz discuss transcendence has a plot device that hints at communication with the divine and which is designed to engender an emotional response from the viewer, for example, 'The Tree of Life.' Building on this, I will explore how it is possible to image transcendentalism in films through characters and how this can enhance traditional ideas of the doctrine of transcendence and just how important theology in film can be.
Denys Kondyuk, ‘The Possibility of Communicating God through Cinematography: Theological Analysis of Beauty as Transcendental in some Contemporary Films’
God cannot be viewed and cannot be comprehended, but is there a possibility of presenting God through a film? There are several ways used by the Church to represent God in worship, and these are: worship through singing or with music, visual worship through icons, and participation in dramatic performance. In the suggested study, the methodology of finding God in films will be suggested and applied to some films. It will be based on contemporary works in theological aesthetics by John Panteleimon Manoussakis and David B. Hart. The films of Terrence Malick and Andrey Zvyagintsev will be considered as case study objects. One of the main ideas of this study is related to viewing God through Jesus as God that could be (in some way) comprehended and incorporating Christological reading of reality into film analysis. The concept of beauty as transcendental and as radical distance between God and creation is also addressed in this study.
Marten Krijgsman, ‘The Digital Messiah: The Use of Messianic Themes in the Mass Effect Trilogy’
Although video games have had a relatively short tenure as forms of media, their impact on modern popular culture has been immense. As one of the highest-grossing forms of entertainment at this moment, they remain nonetheless undervalued and understudied within academia. I hope to shed light on the rich world of video game storytelling by analysing the narrative arc of the Mass Effect trilogy. In particular, I aim to show that video game writing can be on par with other forms of media and literature, and that the themes adopted therein warrant closer examination. In this relatively brief paper, I will focus on one specific aspect of religious themes in the Mass Effect trilogy, that is, the way in which messianic characteristics are attributed to the main character, Shepard. Two aspects of the adaptation of the archetypal messiah are taken into consideration: firstly, the characterisation of the hero, Shepard, as an amalgamation of king David and Jesus; secondly, the visual imagery associated with artistic depictions of the messiah in Christian art. In conclusion, I will propose that the reason for this rather straightforward adoption of religious imagery is used to allow the player to identify with the main character, and furthermore to let the player interact with complex dilemmas akin to some of the most fundamental questions in theology and philosophy.
Hannah Barr, ‘Transcendence Unchained: Imaging the Holy Spirit in Tarantino’s Django Unchained’
Christ-figure characters are readily identifiable in films and have been used – perhaps sometimes overused – since the film industry’s inception; for example, Neo in 'The Matrix', Gandalf in 'The Lord of the Rings', and Katniss in 'The Hunger Games.' The doctrine of incarnation lends itself to the silver screen, but what about the doctrine of transcendence? In this paper, I will explore how it is possible to image transcendence and create Holy Spirit-figures in films, as seen in Quentin Tarantino’s 'Django Unchained'. I will show that these kinds of characters and images play a crucial role in transcending the viewer’s normative experiences and drawing them into a new morality, or a new way of seeing things, and how this changes a film from being for audience escapism to audience activism. Noted Bible and film scholar Adele Reinhartz discuss transcendence has a plot device that hints at communication with the divine and which is designed to engender an emotional response from the viewer, for example, 'The Tree of Life.' Building on this, I will explore how it is possible to image transcendentalism in films through characters and how this can enhance traditional ideas of the doctrine of transcendence and just how important theology in film can be.
Denys Kondyuk, ‘The Possibility of Communicating God through Cinematography: Theological Analysis of Beauty as Transcendental in some Contemporary Films’
God cannot be viewed and cannot be comprehended, but is there a possibility of presenting God through a film? There are several ways used by the Church to represent God in worship, and these are: worship through singing or with music, visual worship through icons, and participation in dramatic performance. In the suggested study, the methodology of finding God in films will be suggested and applied to some films. It will be based on contemporary works in theological aesthetics by John Panteleimon Manoussakis and David B. Hart. The films of Terrence Malick and Andrey Zvyagintsev will be considered as case study objects. One of the main ideas of this study is related to viewing God through Jesus as God that could be (in some way) comprehended and incorporating Christological reading of reality into film analysis. The concept of beauty as transcendental and as radical distance between God and creation is also addressed in this study.
Philosophical Approaches to Idols (A214)
James Beck, ‘‘There is no God and we are his prophets’: Religious Atheism and the Mysticism of the Sign in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road’
In an essay on Simone Weil titled ‘The Absent God’ Susan Taubes describes what she calls a ‘religious atheism’. For Taubes, whereas before the horrors of the 21st century atheism had to do with religious scepticism it has, in the work of certain modern writers, now come to mean a religious experience of the death of God where ‘the godlessness of the world in all its strata and categories becomes, paradoxically and by a dialectic of negation, the signature of God and yields a mystical atheism, a theology of divine absence and nonbeing, of divine impotence, divine non-intervention, and divine indifference’.
This paper aims at further considering what exactly Taubes means by the ‘signature of God’ through an analysis of the portrayal of signs in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Taking the text as demonstrative of the religious atheism Taubes describes in her essay, I consider how the radical finitude of an afflicted world, rather than creating scepticism towards the possibility of a God, invests the finite with a religious meaning akin to the sacred. In particular, I consider how the failure of language brought about by a state of affliction ‘of words shorn from their referents’ as McCarthy puts it, when pushed to the extremes of religious atheism, allows for a sense of redemption to the act of signing, investing signs with the quality of the mysterious and infusing a sense of the sacramental into the processes of finite life. I conclude with some reflections on the possibility of considering this as an essentially spiritual standpoint as opposed to religious as Taubes defines it.
Clayton Goodgame, ‘The Social Role of Icons: Latour and the Anthropology of “Religious Talk”’
This paper seeks to address Bruno Latour’s intervention into the religion-science debate through a discussion of the social role of icons in the Christian tradition. Latour’s view of Christian iconongraphy, in contrast with the conventional Orthodox Christian understanding of icons as image-copies made to venerate the prototype (the person depicted), is seemingly its opposite. To Latour, the purpose of religious iconography is “[not] turning the spectator’s eyes to the model far away [but] to break the habitual gaze of the viewer, so as to attract attention to the present state, the only one which can be said to offer salvation.”
The paper will address the opposition Latour sets up between what he calls in-formation talk, which merely aims to transfer information between subjects, and religious, or trans-formation talk, which aims to generate a transformation in the listener and the speaker, drawing them closer in time and space. It will do so in two ways: first, by putting contemporary Orthodox theology in conversation with Latour’s language of the religious present, in order to show the role icons can play in generating that presence. Second, it will bring to bear ethnographic material from the researcher’s fieldwork among Palestinian Orthodox Christians to demonstrate how ‘religious talk’ can generate the kind of personal transformation Latour advocates in practice within the Orthodox tradition.
The thesis that follows is two-fold. First, Latour’s position vis-à-vis religious talk as the mode of religious experience is affirmed and taken as a platform to understand religious ethics, not in terms of abstract principles but as communicative images, objects, and speech that act on and transform the religious person. Second, it argues that this is possible within the Orthodox understanding of iconography; as such, the paper concludes with a call for broadening the category of religious talk to include a variety of communicative modes.
Gillian Breckenridge, ‘“The Domination of the All-distorting Image”: Karl Barth and Michel Foucault on the Power/Knowledge of Sin as Falsehood’
In paragraph 70 of his Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth describes the falsehood of sin “in its most highly developed form,” this “specifically Christian form of sin,” as a “false image.” Through this false image, humanity attempts to evade the encounter with the Word of the Cross that is contemporaneous with the gospel message. In this evasion, the human attempts to actively appropriate the truth and divorce from it that which offends and accuses her, creating and promoting a “counter-revelation” which shapes not just her understanding of God and humanity, but also her existential and political reality. The human falls under the “dominion of the all-distorting image,” which “controls, determines, limits and characterizes his existence.” In this falsehood, “man’s answer becomes his act:” his way of thinking about the relationship between God and humanity becomes more than just an epistemological dilemma: it becomes politically and existentially critical.
This paper will use Foucault’s critiques of power/knowledge and subjectivity in order to clarify, interpret, and develop Barth’s doctrine of sin as the “false image.” Reading Barth through Foucault will bring to light the political and existential nature of Barth’s understanding of the encounter with the Suffering Word that meets humanity as an accusation of complicity in the sufferings of the world. Furthermore, Foucault’s work will be shown to offer a necessary critique of Barth’s theological project as a whole in a way that Barth invites in paragraph 70, but does not perform, suggesting a way forward through Foucault’s understanding of “subjugated knowledges” and the necessity of the localised nature of critique.
James Beck, ‘‘There is no God and we are his prophets’: Religious Atheism and the Mysticism of the Sign in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road’
In an essay on Simone Weil titled ‘The Absent God’ Susan Taubes describes what she calls a ‘religious atheism’. For Taubes, whereas before the horrors of the 21st century atheism had to do with religious scepticism it has, in the work of certain modern writers, now come to mean a religious experience of the death of God where ‘the godlessness of the world in all its strata and categories becomes, paradoxically and by a dialectic of negation, the signature of God and yields a mystical atheism, a theology of divine absence and nonbeing, of divine impotence, divine non-intervention, and divine indifference’.
This paper aims at further considering what exactly Taubes means by the ‘signature of God’ through an analysis of the portrayal of signs in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Taking the text as demonstrative of the religious atheism Taubes describes in her essay, I consider how the radical finitude of an afflicted world, rather than creating scepticism towards the possibility of a God, invests the finite with a religious meaning akin to the sacred. In particular, I consider how the failure of language brought about by a state of affliction ‘of words shorn from their referents’ as McCarthy puts it, when pushed to the extremes of religious atheism, allows for a sense of redemption to the act of signing, investing signs with the quality of the mysterious and infusing a sense of the sacramental into the processes of finite life. I conclude with some reflections on the possibility of considering this as an essentially spiritual standpoint as opposed to religious as Taubes defines it.
Clayton Goodgame, ‘The Social Role of Icons: Latour and the Anthropology of “Religious Talk”’
This paper seeks to address Bruno Latour’s intervention into the religion-science debate through a discussion of the social role of icons in the Christian tradition. Latour’s view of Christian iconongraphy, in contrast with the conventional Orthodox Christian understanding of icons as image-copies made to venerate the prototype (the person depicted), is seemingly its opposite. To Latour, the purpose of religious iconography is “[not] turning the spectator’s eyes to the model far away [but] to break the habitual gaze of the viewer, so as to attract attention to the present state, the only one which can be said to offer salvation.”
The paper will address the opposition Latour sets up between what he calls in-formation talk, which merely aims to transfer information between subjects, and religious, or trans-formation talk, which aims to generate a transformation in the listener and the speaker, drawing them closer in time and space. It will do so in two ways: first, by putting contemporary Orthodox theology in conversation with Latour’s language of the religious present, in order to show the role icons can play in generating that presence. Second, it will bring to bear ethnographic material from the researcher’s fieldwork among Palestinian Orthodox Christians to demonstrate how ‘religious talk’ can generate the kind of personal transformation Latour advocates in practice within the Orthodox tradition.
The thesis that follows is two-fold. First, Latour’s position vis-à-vis religious talk as the mode of religious experience is affirmed and taken as a platform to understand religious ethics, not in terms of abstract principles but as communicative images, objects, and speech that act on and transform the religious person. Second, it argues that this is possible within the Orthodox understanding of iconography; as such, the paper concludes with a call for broadening the category of religious talk to include a variety of communicative modes.
Gillian Breckenridge, ‘“The Domination of the All-distorting Image”: Karl Barth and Michel Foucault on the Power/Knowledge of Sin as Falsehood’
In paragraph 70 of his Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth describes the falsehood of sin “in its most highly developed form,” this “specifically Christian form of sin,” as a “false image.” Through this false image, humanity attempts to evade the encounter with the Word of the Cross that is contemporaneous with the gospel message. In this evasion, the human attempts to actively appropriate the truth and divorce from it that which offends and accuses her, creating and promoting a “counter-revelation” which shapes not just her understanding of God and humanity, but also her existential and political reality. The human falls under the “dominion of the all-distorting image,” which “controls, determines, limits and characterizes his existence.” In this falsehood, “man’s answer becomes his act:” his way of thinking about the relationship between God and humanity becomes more than just an epistemological dilemma: it becomes politically and existentially critical.
This paper will use Foucault’s critiques of power/knowledge and subjectivity in order to clarify, interpret, and develop Barth’s doctrine of sin as the “false image.” Reading Barth through Foucault will bring to light the political and existential nature of Barth’s understanding of the encounter with the Suffering Word that meets humanity as an accusation of complicity in the sufferings of the world. Furthermore, Foucault’s work will be shown to offer a necessary critique of Barth’s theological project as a whole in a way that Barth invites in paragraph 70, but does not perform, suggesting a way forward through Foucault’s understanding of “subjugated knowledges” and the necessity of the localised nature of critique.
Living Cultures (Manchester Museum)
There is also a museum workshop as part of this session; for more information and to book a place (limited availability), please click here.
There is also a museum workshop as part of this session; for more information and to book a place (limited availability), please click here.
