All Things Beautiful: An Aesthetic Christology

by Chris E.W. Green

God calls humans to be creative. The human drive to represent transcendent truths witnesses to the fact that we are destined to be transfigured and to transfigure the world. It is worth asking, then, what truthful representations, whether in art, spirituality, or theology, teach us about the one who is our truth, the one who made us and the one in whose image we are made. All Things An Aesthetic Christology  is an experimental and constructive aesthetic Christology sourced by close readings of a wide array of artistic works, canonical and popular―including poems, films, essays, novels, plays, short stories, sculptures, icons, and paintings―as well as art criticism and passages from the Christian Scriptures. From first to last, these readings engage in conversation with the deep, broad wisdom of the Christian theological tradition. The liturgical calendar guides the themes of the book, beginning with Advent and Christmas; carrying through Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, and Ascension; and ending with Pentecost and Ordinary Time. Chris Green brings together these readings to create a mosaic-like impression of Jesus as the one through whom God graces and gives nature to all things, his life and death redeeming the whole creation, including human creativity and artistic endeavor, and transfiguring it into the full, free flourishing that God has purposed. This vision of Christ holds promise for artists and theologians, as well as preachers and teachers, revealing how our compulsions to create―and the meanings with which we endow our creations―become a site of the Spirit’s presence, opening us to the goodness and wildness of God.

Genres: Theology

221 pages, Hardcover

Published September 15, 2021

Reviews

[Christopher Gow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is only ~170 pages, and the prose isn’t difficult, but it’s a hard read because 1) there are a TON of examples of artistic works (many of which were unfamiliar to me) and 2) the theological points he’s making are often really nuanced in their application even if they come through clearly in his exposition of the artworks themselves.

I guess what I’m saying is that Chris Green is a bit over my head both as a theologian and as an art critic. But that’s also what makes this really great - he’s doing big theology and using resources from our culture/lives, and he therefore shows a way of engaging art that interprets and is interpreted by theology. Pretty cool. Especially because I think some of his theological stuff is pretty cool:

He’s deeply committed to the humanity of Christ
Art as Eucharist
Art as spectacle vs way of seeing
“The resurrection is an event that happens to time, not merely in it”
“Christ himself… is that art that makes all art artful”

[Jacob Harada · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am refreshed by expositions of the gospel which do not shy from the responsibility of the faithful to the "least of these" and the responsibility to meet Christ in his humiliation "outside the gate". All Things Beautiful has for me this authenticating mark. It appears to me now more clearly that the gospel of Christ triumphs precisely because it so unflinchingly folds in the suffering of creation. His reference to Maximus's proposal enchants me, "The mystery of creation is by God's decision identical with and so inseparable from the mystery of the incarnation"; the narratival frame has expanded and I feel permitted to imagine a victory more complete than death and permitted to believe in the immediacy of God in creation's groaning and delighting and reaching out. This has stunning and sobering ramifications for the function of art on earth.

"Each Person and each thing that exists consists only in and through him and his sustaining intercession. and Jesus has been given the name above every name because he secures the integrity and viability of every name and everything that can be named.

"because creation exists in this relation to God, art and our appreciation of it, as well as theology, answer, and question, one another."

Another note: I found the exposition of Job to be the most satisfying—though intentionally disorienting—that I have yet encountered.

[Parker Friesen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful read.

Green takes you through the liturgical calendar and invites you to rethink the subject and purpose of all beauty, namely: Christ.

His section on Good Friday was thought-provoking and challenging, and his chapter on Easter left me with tear-filled eyes.

This is a book that will definitely get a second read.

Here's a favorite section from p.37:

"If, as we confess, in Christ the infinite and the finite are knit together, then he alone can hold all things together (Col 1:17)-and does. And since that is true, we can dare to face the truth, however ugly, however dark, about ourselves, about the world. And since that is true, we can dare to come apart, if we need to, and let things fall apart, if they must."

[Christina Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A proper review could only be written in essay format and therefore I can only offer a glimpse:

Green has beautifully exposed the fact that art is not an addition to theology, but a complete and whole member. He stops at each major event in the Christian faith and offers a deepening into the narrative that can only be achieved by giving pause and looking in the way of an artist.

[David Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book and was an incredibly rewarding read. I love the method and the heart of it. There were two or three chapters that didn't really land for me. But the chapters that did land were incredibly good. Really insightful.