“Aesthetics.” 2015. Vocabulary for the Study of Religion, Vol. 1, 14–23, edited by Kocku von Stuckrad and Robert Segal. Brill: Leiden. (original) (raw)

Aesthetics and the Analytical Study of Religion - SORAAAD 2016

The full program for Aesthetics and the Analytical Study of Religion, #SORAAAD2016, SORAAAD & Arbeitskreis Religionsästhetik 9/9/2016 Update contains suggested readings for J. Sorett and S. Promey. Method and Theory of the Aesthetics of Religion Alexandra Greiser, “Aesthetics of Religion – What It Is, and What It Is Good For” Sally Promey, Respondent Somatic Approaches to the Aesthetics of Religion Jens Kreinath, “Somatics, Body Knowledge, and the Aesthetics of Religion” Rebecca Raphael, “Disability, Aesthetics, and Religious Studies Method” Deborah Green, ““In A Gadda Da Vida” (In the Garden of Eden)” Sound and the Senses in the Aesthetics of Religion Annette Wilke, “Sound Matters: the Case of Hindu India and the Sounding of Sacred Texts. An Applied Aesthetics of Religion” Jason Bivins, “Immersion, Transcription, Assemblage: On Sonic Impermanence and the Study of Religion” Religious Diversity, Collective Cultural Agency, and the Question of Aesthetics Birgit Meyer, “Religious Diversity and the Question of Aesthetics” Josef Sorrett, “The Abiding Powers of AfroProtestantism” David Morgan - Respondent Media and Transmission in the Aesthetics of Religion Jolyon Thomas, “Framing Religious Subjects in an Irreligious Place: Procedural and Ethical Hurdles in Studying the Religion of Japanese Manga and Anime” David Feltmate, “Should I Laugh Now? The Aesthetics of Humor in Mass Media” S. Brent Plate - Respondent

The Aesthetic Face of the Sacred

Religions , 2019

You enter a church-let us say it is a traditional Orthodox Church setting-to attend a church service. Immediately, you find yourself immersed in a profoundly aesthetic environment, which evokes a variety of rich sensory experiences. You smell incense, the clouds of which fill the space of the church, infused alongside the scent of the burning wax from the candles. You listen to the chanting. You see richly decorated priestly vestments, in white, red, green, gold visually resonating with the colorful paintings-icons-on the iconostasis and on the walls. Toward the end of the service, if you are a believer and an active member of the Church, you taste the Eucharist-you eat the bread and wine-the flesh and blood of Christ.

The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics (Introduction only)

Lexham Press, 2018

In The Beauty of the Lord, I begin by discussing four distinct approaches to theological aesthetics, laying the groundwork for the rest of my book. Here's an extended excerpt from the Introduction —— Theological aesthetics does not imply there is homogeneity in the kind of theological scholarship on aesthetics. On the contrary, the diversity of distinct theological approaches to the subject of aesthetics can only rightly be described as heterogeneous. Effectively there are four basic categories in terms of respective concerns and the ways theology applies and is integrated: (1) natural theology of beauty, (2) theology of the arts, (3) religious aesthetics, and (4) theological aesthetics. . . . . What is not subsumed or entailed in these categories is philosophical aesthetics since its focus and substance do not necessarily address specifically theological concerns. It is not any of our interest, however, to provide a comparative evaluation of these theologies of aesthetics, nor explicate any of them except the last one that we are describing as theological aesthetics. . . . . . Theological aesthetics is premised on the canon of Scripture being the norm that norms other norms over all matters pertaining to Christian doctrine and practice. Scripture’s authority as such holds preeminence in how we interpret theologically everything considered general/natural revelation as well as expressions of culture. By extension, biblical authority presides over the domain of aesthetics in its understanding of the whole of creation—the theatrum gloriae Dei, as John Calvin (1509–1564) puts it. The basic position of theological aesthetics, argued by reasonable inference from Scripture, is that beauty corresponds in some way to the attributes of God, and as such is a communicated property or phenomenon of the opera Dei ad extra. Inferred from the previous point is that the objective reality of beauty comes from its correspondence to the attributes of God; it is this correspondence that grounds a metaphysically realist view of beauty. In general terms, theological aesthetics derives from biblical- and systematic-theological work concerning or pertaining to the aesthetic dimension as integral to and as apprehended throughout the canon of Scripture. The fruit of theological aesthetics for theology more broadly is its consequent interpretation and implications for doctrine and practice. In this work, theological aesthetics is directed primarily on the objective beauty of the person of Christ, the beauty of the work of Christ (redemption accomplished), and the beauty of Christ’s work ongoing through the Holy Spirit (redemption applied). The constructive development of this project involves a biblical-theological characterization of God’s beauty—notably in and through God the Son—as reflected economically in the phases of creation, redemption, and consummation.

Seeing is believing? The role of aesthetics in assessing religion cross-culturally.

Tetsugaku: International Journal of the Philosophical Association of Japan, 3, 207-222, 2019

The opinion that Japanese religion was rather “spiritual” or “superstitious” has, albeit being reproached for its Eurocentric basis, reached noteworthy spread and tempted scientific explanations. Yet, aside from dogmatic or structural differences to monotheistic religions, a major reason for the aforementioned impression may be that experiencing religion in Japan mismatches the religious experience familiar to the non-Japanese observer. This personal, immediate, aesthetic experience has been excluded from argumentation for its subjective inclination. It is argued, though, that our judgment always settles between discursive knowledge and aesthetic experience, both influencing each other.This paper will trace the inversion of the discourse on Japanese religion from Ōnishi Hajime’s diagnosis that Japanese religious tradition was insufficient for the establishment of national art, up to Richard B. Pilgrim’s claim of a ‘religio-aesthetic tradition of Japan’. It is then argued that this gradual acknowledgement of the aesthetic dimension in religious experience can be beneficial for cross-cultural understanding since it provides access for religious outsiders and since aesthetic subjectivity can itself become a basis for objective statements if it is recognized as inevitable basis for descriptive categories.

Re-enchanted by beauty. On aesthetics and mysticism

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

The article investigates the potential of mysticism to revitalise theology. It firstly traces howaesthetics was understood in theology and provides reasons for this view. It then investigateshow the predominant epistemological approach in theology privileged conceptual knowledgeand relativised aesthetics as being subjective and therefore unreliable. It gives special attentionto this epistemology by spelling out how the intellectualisation of contemporary theologyintensified the process of obfuscating and sidelining aesthetics. In a third part, the article spellsout the consequences of this position by analysing how theology is becoming a disenchantedenterprise. The article then investigates how aesthetics often is taking over the role of theologyand its formative role in social discourse. It focuses on the epistemological nature of this turntowards aesthetics, arguing that aesthetics with its profound notion of beauty (with goodnessand joy as its corollaries), is increasingly reappr...

Aesthetics of Religious Authority: Introduction

This special issue brings together anthropologists in the field of religion with the aim of exploring the aesthetic dimensions of authority in religious leadership.* Taking aesthetics to refer to the range of sensory forms and experiences that shape the relation between religious practitioners and leaders, the contributing authors set out to explore the role of aesthetic forms and performative practices in the making of religious authority. What kind of shifts and changes can be observed in religious leadership practices? In what particular situations and encounters is religious leadership produced? What does the use of media do to the nature and diversity of such encounters? What do particular contestations over the public representation of religion reveal with regard to the making of authority and its transformations in recent years? How do novel forms of mediation and authority production speak to registers of authenticity and sincerity? This introduction situates these questions in the context of recent scholarly discussions on aesthetics, mediation, and the senses and outlines three angles from which the authors explore them: (1) changing sources of religious authority, (2) the dynamics of leadership and (3) the anthropology of events.