Sanctifying Art: Inviting Conversation Between Artists, Theologians, and the Church - Paperback

by Deborah Sokolove (Author), Bruce C. Birch (Foreword by)

As an artist, Deborah Sokolove has often been surprised and dismayed by the unexamined attitudes and assumptions that the church holds about how artists think and how art functions in human life. By investigating these attitudes and tying them to concrete examples, Sokolove hopes to demystify art--to bring art down to earth, where theologians, pastors, and ordinary Christians can wrestle with its meanings, participate in its processes, and understand its uses. In showing the commonalities and distinctions among the various ways that artists themselves approach their work, Sanctifying Art can help the church talk about the arts in ways that artists will recognize. As a member of both the church and the art world, Sokolove is well-positioned to bridge the gap between the habits of thought that inform the discourse of the art world and those quite different ideas about art that are taken for granted by many Christians. When art is understood as intellectual, technical, and physical as well as ethereal, mysterious, and sacred, we will see it as an integral part of our life together in Christ, fully human and fully divine.

Author Biography

Deborah Sokolove is the Director of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary, where she is also Professor of Art and Worship. She received her BA and MFA from California State University at Los Angeles; a MTS from Wesley; and a PhD in Liturgical Studies from Drew University. Before coming to Wesley as Artist-in-Residence in 1994, she taught art, design, and computer animation at the university level. Her book, Sanctifying Art: Inviting Conversation Between Artists, Theologians, and the Church was published in 2013 by Wipf & Stock/Cascade Books; Calling on God: Inclusive Christian Prayers for Three Years of Sundays, co-authored with Peter Bankson, was published in 2014. She has contributed articles to ARTS, Image, Call to Worship, and Lectionary Homiletics; prayers for several Sundays in each volume of the Abingdon Worship Annuals since 2011; and for several books on religion and the arts as well as the "Art, Studio" entry in the Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Her paintings have been shown locally and nationally, and are represented in numerous collections. Sokolove is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the North American Academy of Liturgy, Christians in the Visual Arts, and is on the Board of Directors of the Society for Religious and Theological Studies. She is a Steward of Seekers Church, an intentional Christian congregation in the tradition of Church of the Saviour, where she serves on the worship-planning group and frequently preaches and leads worship.