DeBoer Lisa - Visual Arts in the Worshiping Church

The CALVIN INSTITUTE OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP LITURGICAL STUDIES Series, edited by John D. Witvliet, is designed to promote reflection on the history, theology, and practice of Christian worship and to stimulate worship renewal in Christian congregations. Contributions include writings by pastoral worship leaders from a wide range of communities and scholars from a wide range of disciplines. The ultimate goal of these contributions is to nurture worship practices that are spiritually vital and theologically rooted.

PUBLISHED

Singing Gods Psalms: Metrical Psalms and Reflections for Each Sunday in the Church Year
Fred R. Anderson

The Pastor as Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts in the Ministerial Life
M. Craig Barnes

Arts Ministry: Nurturing the Creative Life of Gods People
Michael J. Bauer

Touching the Altar: The Old Testament and Christian Worship
Carol M. Bechtel, Editor

Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology
Jeremy S. Begbie and Steven R. Guthrie, Editors

God against Religion: Rethinking Christian Theology through Worship
Matthew Myer Boulton

From Memory to Imagination: Reforming the Churchs Music
C. Randall Bradley

By the Vision of Another World: Worship in American History
James D. Bratt, Editor

Inclusive yet Discerning: Navigating Worship Artfully
Frank Burch Brown

What Language Shall I Borrow? The Bible and Christian Worship
Ronald P. Byars

Visual Arts in the Worshiping Church
Lisa J. DeBoer

A Primer on Christian Worship: Where Weve Been, Where We Are, Where We Can Go
William A. Dyrness

Christian Worship Worldwide: Expanding Horizons, Deepening Practices
Charles E. Farhadian, Editor

Gather into One: Praying and Singing Globally
C. Michael Hawn

The Touch of the Sacred: The Practice, Theology, and Tradition of Christian Worship
F. Gerrit Immink

The Substance of Things Seen: Art, Faith, and the Christian Community
Robin M. Jensen

Our Worship
Abraham Kuyper, Edited by Harry Boonstra

Missional Worship, Worshipful Mission: Gathering as Gods People, Going Out in Gods Name
Ruth A. Meyers

Wonderful Words of Life: Hymns in American Protestant History and Theology
Richard J. Mouw and Mark A. Noll, Editors

Discerning the Spirits: A Guide to Thinking about Christian Worship Today
Cornelius Plantinga Jr. and Sue A. Rozeboom

Evangelical versus Liturgical? Defying a Dichotomy
Melanie C. Ross

Voicing Gods Psalms
Calvin Seerveld

My Only Comfort: Death, Deliverance, and Discipleship in the Music of Bach
Calvin R. Stapert

A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church
Calvin R. Stapert

An Architecture of Immanence: Architecture for Worship and Ministry Today
Mark A. Torgerson

A More Profound Alleluia: Theology and Worship in Harmony
Leanne Van Dyk, Editor

Christian Worship in Reformed Churches Past and Present
Lukas Vischer, Editor

We Have Seen His Glory: A Vision of Kingdom Worship
Ben Witherington III

The Biblical Psalms in Christian Worship: A Brief Introduction and Guide to Resources
John D. Witvliet

Worship with Gladness: Understanding Worship from the Heart
Joyce Ann Zimmerman

VISUAL ARTS IN THE WORSHIPING CHURCH

LISA J. DEBOER

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

www.eerdmans.com

2016 Lisa J. DeBoer

All rights reserved

Published 2016

22 21 20 19 18 17 161 2 3 4 5 6 7

ISBN 978-0-8028-6951-7

eISBN 978-1-4674-4689-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: DeBoer, Lisa J., author.

Title: Visual arts in the worshiping church / Lisa J. DeBoer.

Description: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2016. | Series: The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship liturgical studies series | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016032273 | ISBN 9780802869517 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Christianity and art. | Worship.

Classification: LCC BR115.A8 D45 2016 | DDC 261.5/7dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016032273

CONTENTS

Beginning in the 1960s, a stream of books has appeared addressing the topic of the church and the visual arts. Some of these books have presented theological arguments for integrating the visual arts into the life of the church, the basic theological category employed usually being either creation, incarnation, or sacrament. Others have approached the topic from a philosophical angle, exploring how we in the West have come to think about the arts and how that way of thinking shapes the role we give to the arts in the church. Yet others have approached the topic historically, narrating the diverse ways in which different branches of the church have engaged the visual arts over the centuries.

In Visual Arts in the Worshipping Church, Lisa DeBoer takes a distinctly different approach to the topic. Rather than adding one more book to the stream of theological, philosophical, and historical treatises, she looks at how congregations in different ecclesiastical traditions actually engage the arts and explores what this tells us about how they understand the arts and how they understand themselves as church. Though her discussion is deeply informed by Scripture, theology, philosophy, and history, her overall approach is sociological rather than theoretical or historical. She identifies and analyzes the practices of actual congregations and brings to light the ways of thinking that underlie those practices. Along the way she offers evaluative judgments. But her dominant concern is not to tell readers how the church should engage the arts but to uncover how actual congregations in different traditions do in fact engage the arts and why they engage them as they do. Its a ground-breaking approach, full of fascinating details and perceptive analyses.

Rather than sending surveys to a large number of congregations, Professor DeBoer conducted detailed field studies of twenty or so congregations in southwest Michigan that she judged to be representative. She observed their practices, talked to their leaders, and read the documents, if any, that these congregations used to guide them in their practices, her aim being to dig beneath the details to discover general similarities and differences. Her observations confirmed her expectation that the major fault lines would run between the thought and practices of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant congregations.

It was especially DeBoers discussion of the role of the visual arts in contemporary Protestant congregations that proved eye-opening for me. Her discussion of the role of the arts in Orthodoxy and Catholicism is rich and deep, thoroughly versed in the relevant literature and grounded in close observation of the thought and practice of actual congregations. One knows in advance, however, that the tradition of icon painting will prove decisive for Orthodox congregations and that declarations emerging from Vatican II will be decisive for Catholic congregations. What comes as a surprise is that, whereas initially it appears that the ways in which Protestant congregations engage the arts are all over the place, here too there proves to be a pattern: usually it is not a Protestant congregations self-understanding as church that shapes the way it engages the arts, nor its standing in a certain tradition, but the influence of a few member artists or art instructors who have been inducted into our present-day secular art system and think about the arts as they were taught. Let me quote what DeBoer says in one place: