Wes Vander Lugt graciously joins us on The Artistic Vision today. Full disclosure: this was the first interview we did, so you’ll see some real amateurs in action. We’re floundering; Dr. Vander Lugt is great. We talk about art, agriculture, his work at Gordon Conwell, and his new book, Beauty as Oxygen.

Wesley Vander Lugt
Wes currently works as the Acting Director of the Leighton Ford Center for Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness and Adjunct Professor of Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte. He is also the Co-Founder of Kinship Plot, a community of learning and practice imagining and embodying resonant relationships of every kind. Wes holds a PhD in Theology, Imagination, and the Arts from the University of St Andrews and enjoys writing and speaking on a variety of topics including beauty, spiritual formation and the arts, discipleship in the theodrama, slow faith, pastoral ministry, kinship, and creativity. His publications include Living Theodrama: Reimagining Theological Ethics (Routledge, 2014), Theatrical Theology: Explorations in Performing the Faith (Cascade, 2014), and Beauty is Oxygen: Finding a Faith that Breathes (Eerdmans, 2024).

The Artistic Vision
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Jessica Hooten Wilson joins Gary and Alex today on The Artistic Vision to talk about art, creativity, and especially one of our favorites: Flannery O’Connor. O’Connor’s literary theory is central to our understanding of the artistic vision, and Dr. Hooten Wilson sheds light on how that vision could be beneficial for you.

Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University. She is the author of several books, most recently Flannery O’Connor’s Why Do the Heathen Rage?: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress. Her book Giving the Devil his Due: Flannery O’Connor and The Brothers Karamazov received a 2018 Christianity Today book of the year in arts and culture award and The Scandal of Holiness received a 2022 Award of Merit. Most recently, she completed the unfinished novel of Flannery O’Connor called Why Do the Heathens Rage.

The Artistic Vision
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Today, on The Artistic Vision podcast, Gary and Alex welcome the famed contemporary artist and author Makoto Fujimura to talk creative practice, the relation between faith and art, and how suffering can shape an artist.

Makoto Fujimura is an artist, arts advocate, writer, and speaker, and the founder of the International Arts Movement. He is the author of many books, most recently Art and Faith: A Theology of Making (Yale University Press, 2021). Fujimura graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bucknell University, then studied in a traditional Japanese painting doctorate program at Tokyo University of the Arts. Fujimura’s art has been featured in galleries and museums around the world.

The Artistic Vision
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In this episode of "The Artistic Vision" Gary and Alex interview the Rev. Dr. Hans Boersma. Boersma speaks of artists having a Sacramental vision in an asymbolic age, and how seeing the world in this way influences artistic practice. He describes the ultimate task of the artist as drawing others into the presence of God--artists are instruments of grace.

Hans Boersma
Dr. Boersma is a prolific and internationally noted theologian, came to Nashotah House in 2019. Prior to this, he taught at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada for fourteen years. Dr. Boersma also taught for six years at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC, and served several years in the local church as a pastor. Along the way, Dr. Boersma has emerged as a leading voice among Protestant and evangelical theologians exploring and appropriating the riches of the Catholic tradition.

Dr. Boersma’s interests range across a variety of areas: patristic theology, twentieth-century Catholic thought, and spiritual interpretation of Scripture. In each of these areas, he sets out to retrieve the sacramental ontology of the pre-modern tradition. This retrieval (ressourcement) of the Great Tradition’s sacramental view of reality has been at the heart of his publications over the past fifteen years.

Dr. Boersma and his wife Linda have five children and thirteen grandchildren (and their Golden Retriever Penny deserves special mention). Dr. Boersma serves as a priest in the Anglican Church in North America.

The Artistic Vision
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Winfield Bevins guest hosts this episode of the Artistic Vision. Alex and Gary give a post Helene update and discuss the role of art in the midst of suffering, and the sort of creativity that emerges from grief. Also, a new initiative will be announced that focuses on artists who have been affected by the storm.

The Artistic Vision
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This week, our guest is Jennifer Allen Craft. We talk about the theological significance of place and the role of arts in shaping our places.

Jennifer Allen Craft (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is associate professor of humanities and theology at Point University in West Point, Georgia, where she teaches courses in theology, philosophy, and the arts.

Buy her book on Placemaking and the arts here: https://www.ivpress.com/placemaking-and-the-arts

(Dr. Craft also contributed to our book with a reflection on how artists can contribute to churches).

The Artistic Vision
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Today on the The Artistic Vision podcast, we have Professor of Art History at Wheaton College, Matt Milliner. We talk about how he’s grown to appreciate modern art, a shift he labels, subverting the subversion. He also discusses the often forgotten art of the indigenous people and the neglected person of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

Dr. Milliner holds an M.A. & Ph.D. in art history from Princeton University, and an M.Div from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is a six-time appointee to the Curatorial Advisory Board of the United States Senate, and has written for publications ranging from The New York Times to First Things. He was awarded a Commonwealth fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and is author most recently of The Everlasting People: G.K. Chesterton and the First Nations and Mother of the Lamb: The Story of a Global Icon.

Check out his website with links to his books here: https://www.millinerd.com/p/books.html

Also, be sure to subscribe to his newsletter at Comment Magazine called Material Mysticism here: https://comment.org/columns/material-mysticism/?hsCtaTracking=853c71f6-6902-4e7d-9b1a-9c3f925d8e1a%7C2a13daac-4090-4b1f-a16e-3aa6fe94d580

The Artistic Vision
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In this episode, David Taylor talks about the arts and the church. We discuss pastoring artists, worship music in the church, embodiment, and how the arts “work” in worship.

W. David O. Taylor

David Taylor is a theologian, author, speaker, priest, and director of initiatives in art and faith. A professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, he has lectured widely on the arts, from Thailand to South Africa. He has written for The Washington Post, Image Journal, Theology Today, Worship, Religion News Service, Christianity Today, and Books & Culture, among others. He lives in Austin with his wife Phaedra, a visual artist and gardener, and his daughter Blythe and son Sebastian.

Check out his website, including his books, here.

And for added bonus, here’s his interview with Bono.

The Artistic Vision
Find the book HERE!