Glimpses of the New Creation: Worship and the Formative Power of the Arts
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
How do the arts in worship form individuals and communities?
Every choice of art in worship opens up and closes down possibilities for the formation of our humanity. Every practice of music, every decision about language, every use of our bodies, every approach to visual media or church buildings forms our desires, shapes our imaginations, habituates our emotional instincts, and reconfigures our identity as Christians in contextually meaningful ways, generating thereby a sense of the triune God and of our place in the world.
Glimpses of the New Creation argues that the arts form us in worship by bringing us into intentional and intensive participation in the aesthetic aspect of our humanity—that is, our physical, emotional, imaginative, and metaphorical capacities. In so doing they invite the people of God to be conformed to Christ and to participate in the praise of Christ and in the praise of creation, which by the Spirit’s power raises its peculiar voice to the Father in heaven, for the sake of the world that God so loves.
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- Talks about how the arts form the church in worship
- Envisions how the arts can serve a vision of worship that glorifies the triune God
- Argues that the arts in worship ought to be freed to form the church in their own ways, though not on their own terms
- The Meanings of Worship
- The Meanings of Art
- The Theological Meanings of Art in Worship
- Worship and the Musical Arts
- Worship and the Visual and Architectural Arts
- Worship and the Poetic Arts
- Worship and the Narrative Arts
- Worship and the Theater Arts
- Worship and the Kinetic Arts
- Mother Tongues and Adjectival Tongues
- The Worship Arts and the Mission of the Church
Top Highlights
“The purpose of the arts is to fittingly serve the respective activities of the church’s liturgy, whether praise, thanksgiving, confession, proclamation, or otherwise.” (Page 10)
“At its best, finally, visual art and architecture can enable us to perceive the world as the theater of God’s glory and to love it as God loves it.” (Page 99)
“It is instead a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language” (Page 121)
“Faithful worship is, in the end, an invitation to contemplate God: to adore, to attend, to linger, and to live our lives in light of this wonder-filled encounter. Poetry cultivates this liturgical virtue.” (Page 130)
“Whatever the art medium or mode of use, art’s best service to the church’s worship is by serving the purposes of the gathered assembly with its own ‘native tongue.’” (Page 2)
David Taylor has established himself as one of the leading voices in theology and the arts today. He brings years of real-world wisdom to his writing, gleaned from hundreds of conversations with artists, worship leaders, and academic theologians from a multitude of different traditions. It is hard to imagine anyone not being enriched by this book. Indeed, you are likely to be given manifold glimpses of the New Creation to come.
Jeremy Begbie, Duke Divinity School
A much-needed book to advance the church’s understanding of the formational role of various art forms in Christian worship. He provides a framework for viewing the arts in service to the liturgy without resorting to reductionistic, unilateral conclusions. It is thought-provoking in content and pastoral in approach. His commitment to a context-specific application of the arts makes it relevant to a wide audience. I highly recommend Taylor’s book for anyone desiring to expand the arts in worship.
Constance M. Cherry, Indiana Wesleyan University
Reading this book is like finally cresting the highest peak of a mountain range. The horizon is vast and expanding—too much to take in! Taylor blows back the boundaries of previous conversations about worship and the arts, and in so doing gives the church sight lines into new (maybe heavenly) territory, visible in the here and now.
Zac Hicks, Canon for Liturgy and Worship, Cathedral Church of the Advent, and author of The Worship Pastor