The End of Art
Posted by tom | Nov 25, 2008Some friends ask me what faculty book discussion groups take time to consider. If you've been following Groshlink you know that C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters takes center stage at PSU-Harrisburg's C.S. Lewis Seminar. Letters to a Skeptic by Greg Boyd and C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity are their previous readings.
At Carnegie Mellon, they're in The Reason For God by Tim Keller. This group has existed for a number of years. Over the past year they've read Polkinghorne's Quantum Physics & Theology, Stephen Williams' The Shadow of the AntiChrist, Gregory R. Peterson's Minding God: Theology and the Cognitive Sciences). But I received an email that this week the faculty are discussing The End of Art, an excellent piece.
If you have an interest in Art, I'd recommend you block out some free time over the Thanksgiving break to work through The End of Art. Warning: It's intense, so you'll need to focus as you reflect upon it. Would love to hear some thoughts from friends in the arts ;-)
Man is the sort of creature whose nature is to delight in art and aesthetic experience; I believe that he is also, by nature, a religious animal—a creature who becomes who he really is only by acknowledging something that transcends him. These different aspects of humanity will often conspire, but we do both a disservice if we blur or elide their essential difference.
