The Art of Embodied Faith

I'm really looking forward to giving a talk at this symposium on "Embodied Faith and the Art of Edward Knippers," taking place September 20-21 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Led by Wesley Vander Lugt and hosted by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, it'll be an amazing opportunity to connect with fellow presenters, such as Natalie Carnes, Steve Prince, Bruce Herman and the rest, and to meet pastors, artists, educators, art historians, theologians, and lay people (and dancers!) who care deeply about the dynamics of embodiment in the life of faith

Having written a book on the body, I not only care about these ideas, I care even more so about the ways in which we live out these ideas.

I also believe that the arts, in this case, the visual arts, can become a form of theological reasoning through which we may gain great clarity about aspects of our faith that the usual analytical forms of theological discourse may struggle to define or describe.

It's not, to be clear, that Knippers' art illustrates theological ideas about the body. It's rather that his art does theology. It engages in a kind of visual exegesis of the biblical texts and introduces a visual grammar for our understanding of the Incarnation (amongst other things).

To borrow language from my friend Jonathan Anderson who teaches at Regent College, such an engagement of visual art represents a form of constructive theological reasoning which operates not primarily in verbal terms but specifically in and as visual-spatial modes of reasoning.

In my case, I’ll be looking at the exchange of touch (or almost touch) between Thomas and the resurrected Christ in John 20 and will suggest that Knippers’ work performs an invaluable theological service to the viewer by showing something about Christianity that scholars and visual artists historically struggle to tell about the “strangeness” of Jesus’ risen body.

Beyond that, it’ll be a blast seeing old friends and meeting new ones, all of whom take seriously the holy task of engaging the work of contemporary artists with great care.

So if you don’t have anything on your calendar for September 2024, do consider making a trip to beautiful Charlotte, North Carolina. It’ll be amazing.