Imagination and Interpretation: Christian Perspectives

by Hans Boersma

Interpretation is tricky business. Music and art are among the most difficult 'texts' to interpret. And yet, today more than ever, the media are bombarding us with sounds and images that desperately need imaginative Christian minds to interpret. Is it possible to find traces of the transcendent in contemporary culture? Do we perhaps even find Christian modes of expression where we would least expect them? Or should Christians take a far more critical interpretive stance toward contemporary cultural art forms than they generally do? Consisting of three main sections, this collection of essays first asks how we should interpret the cosmos and the biblical story of salvation. The second part deals specifically with questions surrounding music and worship. The final section deals with the interpretation of contemporary art and mass media. This collection of essays is a helpful guide for those who are willing to engage the imagination as they face tough interpretive questions, particularly in the areas of music and the arts. Contributors to this volume: Jeremy Begbie . John L. Bell . Hans Boersma Dennis R. Danielson . Laurel Gasque . Wayne L. Roosa Quentin J. Schultze . Diane Sekuloff . James K.A. Smith Hans Boersma (Th.D., University of Utrecht) is associate professor of religious and worldview studies at Trinity Western University. He has been appointed to the J. I. Packer Chair of Theology at Regent College. Boersma is also the organizer of the annual LambLight Lecture series sponsored by the Geneva Society and the author or editor of several books, including A Hot Pepper Corn: Richard Baxter's Doctrine of Justification in Its Seventeenth-Century Context of Controversy and Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition.

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 17, 2005

About the author

I serve in the Saint Benedict Servants of Christ Chair in Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House in Wisconsin—a community of formation marked by the fullness of Anglican faith and practice, Benedictine spirituality, and classical Christian thought and teaching. (If you’re interested in studying at Nashotah House, contact me: hboersma@nashotah.edu). I am a Priest in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

Before coming to Nashotah House in 2019, I taught for fourteen years at Regent College in Vancouver, BC and for six years at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC. I also served several years as a pastor in a Reformed church. I grew up in the Netherlands and have been in Canada since 1983.

My interests range across a variety of areas: patristic theology, twentieth-century Catholic thought, and spiritual interpretation of Scripture. In each of these areas, I am driven by a desire to retrieve the ‘sacramental ontology’ of the pre-modern tradition. So, much of my work looks to the past in hopes of recovering a sacramental mindset. I suppose this makes me a ressourcement (retrieval) theologian of sorts. Retrieval of the Great Tradition’s sacramental ontology has been at the heart of almost all my publications over the past twenty years or so.

Reviews

[Jon Beadle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The introduction was okay, and only two of the essays were worth anything. I’m still a fan of Hans Boersma and Jamie Smith, but the rest can try again...