Languages That Shape The Soul

Saturday, November 6, 2004
10am - 4pm
The House of the Redeemer
7 E 95th St
New York, NY

Art does not set out to make us feel good although it may inspire us. Theology's objective is not to comfort but to enlighten. Each involves the spiritual and intellectual search. Both are inspired by discovery and revelation. The beauty of art lies profoundly in the rigor and vision which makes the ordinary extraordinary, in the transcendence of the banal by design. Does similar process occur in theology in its efforts to seek God even in the mundane? Does the spirit enter in only when allowed by intellect or does the rigor of intellectual search ultimately lead to spiritual revelation? Why is it that these two crucial areas of human endeavor, so often intertwined and interdependent in the past, seem to have become so distant from each other, even to the extent of hostility? Is there something about the contemporary arts that is anathema to theology? Is there something about theology that is inimical to the arts? Why do artists and art teachers so often find inspiration in religious themes, yet many theologians seem to be ignorant of the inspirational value of the contemporary arts? Our program addesses such questions and more.

Patrick Quinn
Co-chair, ARC
Program Committee

Program:

9:15 a.m. Registration/Coffee

9:45 a.m. Welcome - Orlando Brugnola

9:50 a.m. Introduction to the Theme - Patrick Quinn

10:00 a.m. Mark Taylor

11:00 a.m. Response - Claudio Carvalhaes

11:15 a.m. Conversation

12:00 Lunch

1:15 p.m. Lisa DiFranza - Work and Action: A Full-died Exploration

2:00 p.m. Barbara DeConcini

3:00 p.m. Response - Eric Ziolkowski

3:15 p.m. Panel - A look back and a look ahead of the series on the Arts in Theological
Education with William Conklin, Charles Henderson, Mary Jean Irion, Allen LeVines, and Anik Pearson

4:00 p.m. Conversation

4:30 p.m. Wine and Cheese Reception

For more information about the program participants

Registration information:

Members/Fellows $45
Non-Members  $50; Students $15
Fee includes continental breakfast, lunch and reception.
($5.00 extra at the door.)

To register
 please contact Charles Henderson
chashenderson@mindspring.com or 
Tel: 212-870-2544

To discuss this or other ARC programs, please check our message board

ARC Message Board

More about ARC
including membership information and news about our recently published book:
 The ARC Story

From time to time the Board of Directors elects as Fellows individuals it identifies as having made a distinguished contribution to their respective fields. The list of Fellows elected over a period of nearly four decades thus exemplifies what the Society understands as the necessary and vital connections between art, religion and culture.

ARC Fellows

PROGRAM ARCHIVE

Spring 2004
The Moving Image

Winter 2004
Religion and the Visual Arts

Fall 2003
Theology and Music

Spring 2003
Theology and Poetry:
Languages that Shape the Soul

Winter 2003
Tracing the Garden

Fall 2002
Drawing on the Human
Spirit

Spring 2002
MoMA's PAPA:
Alfred Barr and
the Religious Dimension of Modernism

Winter 2002
A Theology of Beauty

Fall 2001
Lifting the Veil

May 2001
Utopia/Dystopia

February 2001
Antigone
Performance and Symposium

November 2000
Illuminations & Transformations:
Cross-Cultural Spiritual Dynamics 
in Music, Text, Dance and Film

May 2000
Alternative Readings: 
Sacred Text Embodied in Visual Art

February 2000
The Meaning of Myth

November 1999
Myth, Ritual and the Mediation of Violence

May, 1999
Writers' Ways with Loving and Dying

February, 1999 
The Divine Image
Implications for a changing image of God.

October, 1998 
Uneasy Constellations of Meaning
Theological Perceptions and Visual Images in Sixteenth Century Europe &
The Religious Art of Andy Warhol

May, 1998 Meeting
AYNI: The Andean Concept of Reciprocity

Webpage design courtesy CrossCurrents
Charles Henderson, Executive Director