eBookRevised, Revised Edition (Revised, Revised Edition)
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Overview
Imagine art that is risky, complex, and subtle. Imagine music, movies, books, and paintings of the highest quality. Imagine art that permeates society, challenging conventional thinking and standard morals to their core. Imagine that it is all created by Christians! This is the bold vision of Steve Turner, who has worked among a wide variety of artists for decades. He believes Christians should confront society and the church using art's powerful impact. Art can faithfully chronicle the lives of ordinary people and express the transcendence of God. And Christians should be involved in every level of the art world and in every medium. In this revised and expanded edition of a contemporary classic, Turner builds a compelling case for Christians in the arts. If Jesus is Lord of all of life and creation, then art is part of his cultural mandate. It can and should be a way of expressing faith through creatively, beautifully, and truthfully arranged words, sounds, and sights. Now includes study questions for individual reflection or group discussion.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780830894437 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | IVP |
| Publication date: | 12/28/2016 |
| Sold by: | Bookwire |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 188 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Steve Turner is an English music journalist, biographer and poet, who has spent his career chronicling and interviewing people from the worlds of music, film, television, fashion, art, and literature. He regularly contributes to newspapers such as The Mail on Sunday and The Times and his many books include Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts, Popcultured: Thinking Christianly About Style, Media and Entertainment, Hungry for Heaven: Rock and Roll and the Search for Redemption, U2: Rattle and Hum, Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now, and A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song. Originally from Northamptonshire, England, Turner's career as a journalist began as features editor of Beat Instrumental where he interviewed many of the prominent rock musicians of the 1970s. His articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, and the London Times, and he has also written several poetry books for both adults and children. He lives in London with his wife and two children.
Steve Turner is an English music journalist, biographer and poet, who has spent his career chronicling and interviewing people from the worlds of music, film, television, fashion, art, and literature. He regularly contributes to newspapers such as The Mail on Sunday and The Times and his many books include Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts, Popcultured: Thinking Christianly About Style, Media and Entertainment, Hungry for Heaven: Rock and Roll and the Search for Redemption, U2: Rattle and Hum, Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now, and A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song. Originally from Northamptonshire, England, Turner's career as a journalist began as features editor of Beat Instrumental where he interviewed many of the prominent rock musicians of the 1970s. His articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, and the London Times, and he has also written several poetry books for both adults and children. He lives in London with his wife and two children.
Table of Contents
Preface to Expanded Edition
Introduction
1. The Vision
2. The Church
3. The World
4. The Split
5. The Bible
6. The Mind
7. The Times
8. The Witness
9. The Life
Appendix: Useful Organizations and Festivals
Notes
Artworks and Media Index
General Index
Scripture Index
What People are Saying About This
"Drawing on years of experience, a first-rate poet sketches a Christian vision for the arts and artists in our time. With disarming directness he calls Christians out of their ecclesiastical ghettos to live that vision out. Readable, entertaining, and bold."
"I have long been a fan of Steve Turner's poetry and journalism--he has a way of illuminating the intersection of the sacred and the secular in our lives. Now, in Imagine, he lets us glimpse behind the curtain and see the philosophy that undergirds his work. Highly readable, insightful and provocative, Imagine draws on historical and contemporary examples and biblical insights to offer a refreshing and balanced perspective on how faith can inform our creativity. Turner challenges us to move beyond our ghetto mentality and engage our culture with art that is creative, authentic and relevant. His book should be required reading for every Christian interested in the arts."
— Terry Glaspey, author of Booklover's Guide to Great Reading and Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual Legacy of C. S. Lewis
"Put simply, it's the best of its kind. Like in 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears,' Imagine is neither too long nor too heavy, neither too short nor too light. It's just right: an accessible, smart, farsighted, and generous introduction to the basic questions a Christian may ask as he or she participates in the arts. It's the one book I gave all artists when I was a pastor. It's still the one book."
"Imagine: A Vision For Christianity & the Arts is a wake-up call to the Christian community to fulfill the cultural mandate and to develop a theology of creativity that both embraces our humanness and engages the world with 'muscular' Christianity. Author Steve Turner addresses the church and its involvement in the arts with a prophetic challenge--an appeal to be salt and light in our world instead of withdrawing into mere Christian subculture or pietistic retreat. But he is eminently balanced in his challenge to those of us who have accepted a call to be 'in the world' of arts/entertainment but not of it. He helps us break out of the compartmentalization and secular-sacred dichotomy that so often paralyzes the Christian artist and community from real impact on our world. As a screenwriter in Hollywood, my heart was exhorted with his warning of those who have gradually shipwrecked their faith through incremental assimilation of the very world they are trying to reach. With a strong and decisive commitment to Christ, Scripture and truth, he helps draw guidelines for avoiding the ignorance of all extremes when approaching the arts. If you are a Christian who consumes culture without discrimination, then you need to read this book. If you are a Christian who considers arts and entertainment to be worldly or a waste of time, then you need to read this book. And even if you are a Christian who thinks you want to serve the Lord by being a light in the darkness of any creative industry today, you need to read this book."
— Brian Godawa, screenwriter, To End All Wars
"Drawing on years of experience, a first-rate poet sketches a Christian vision for the arts and artists in our time. With disarming directness he calls Christians out of their ecclesiastical ghettos to live that vision out. Readable, entertaining and bold."
— Dr. Jeremy Begbie, Ridley Hall, Cambridge and University of St. Andrews
"Can you sing songs shaped by the truest truths of the universe in language the whole world can understand? For years I have been asking this question, and I first did so standing beside Steve Turner at the Art House in Nashville, answering questions from a roomful of young musicians. In and through his own art, he has lived into that question with unusual integrity, which is why for most of my life I have chosen to listen to him, learning to see the world through his words. A remarkably gifted poet, sometimes making us laugh and sometimes cry, he is an artist who writes about art with an honesty that is rare. Imagine is for everyone who longs for good faith and good art to be seamless—as they could be, as they should be."
"This book helps bridge the gap from when God said, 'Let there be. . .' to what we, his creation, were designed to create and enjoy. It should be read by anyone who appreciates or is influenced by art and media in all of its forms—that is, everyone. When I am asked by either the curious or the caustic what a Christian is doing working in Hollywood, I just want to hand them this book and say, 'Imagine this.'"
"Steve Turner is one of the most gifted writers of our time. I first encountered him through his poetry, with its deceptively simple and arresting lines, its illuminating commentary on all of life. Then I met Turner the rock 'n' roll historian. Hungry for Heaven is easily the best overview of this powerful soundtrack. Here, Steve's investigations extend to a host of individual musicians, bands, and genres. This volume, appropriately named Imagine, is a beautifully crafted defense of worldview thinking. It interacts with the arts but reaches far wider. Required reading for anyone wishing to make sense of the world. On all accounts, the book is an absolute treasure."
"The brevity and clarity of this beautiful little book belie the breadth and richness of its artistic, theological, and biblical content. Steve Turner's incisive exegesis of the nexus between popular arts and Christianity is unmatched, for he has equally inhabited these worlds his entire career. He is not afraid to tell the truth. A constant required text for one of our courses, an alumnus shared years ago how it changed his view of himself as an artist, and a new alumnus says he reads it over and over. Personally, I discovered within its pages the insight inspiring my own doctoral thesis. The revised version's addition of quotes you've always wanted to find, questions you've needed to ask, and examples of current artists seriously increases its value. It is simply the the most compelling, lucid articulation of what it is to be a Christian in the arts that I've found."
"Turner, in this well-rounded and thoroughly biblical book, issues a compelling invitation to everyone in the creative community to move redemptively as salt and light into the world of the arts precisely for Christ's sake."
— Michael Card, recording artist and author of A Violent Grace
"There are those who would ask, 'What has New York to do with Jerusalem? or the arts with religion?' Steve Turner answers that question as he calls the believing aesthete and the Christian church to come to the table, sit down and talk. In this informed and rare treatment, Turner challenges the Christian community to encourage the artist's voice to be heard and then challenges believing artists to allow their art to be influenced and enhanced by sound theology."
— Jim Thomas, musician and author
"What I found so compelling about the first edition of Imagine was not simply that Steve Turner was calling the church to reimagine its approach toward the arts and its artists. After all, a growing chorus of voices was saying much the same and continues to do so today. Instead, what I found most compelling was that Turner was calling artists to take up their vocation in a way that moved them out into the world while remaining tethered to the very community of faith that gave birth to them in the first place. In this revised edition, Turner doubles down on this clarion call, reminding us all that, perhaps now more than ever, the church desperately needs its artists to be artists. But so too do artists need the church."
"Culture, calling, and the arts. This trio of concerns has perplexed and troubled faithful Christians in the West for many centuries. But in recent decades, a small yet potent art and faith movement has been gaining force. In some Christian circles, the art is getting better and the understanding of culture more nuanced. Steve Turner was an early and thoughtful voice in this movement, and the reissue of his book Imagine is a solid point of beginning for those eager both to understand its contours and then find their way forward in it."
"This affirming book says all the things I'd like my friends to understand about me as an artist. At the same time it challenged me to be more actively engaged with our culture through artmaking infused with the gospel."