Description: ""Can poetry matter to Christian theology?"" David
Mahan asks in the introduction to this interdisciplinary work. Does
the study of poetry represent a serious theological project? What
does poetry have to contribute to the public tasks of theology and
the Church? How can theologians, clergy and other ministry
professionals, and Christian laypeople benefit from an earnest
study of poetry? A growing number of professional theologians today
seek to push theological inquiry beyond the relative seclusion of
academic specialization into a broader marketplace of public ideas,
and to recast the theological task as an integrative discipline,
wholly engaged with the issues and sensibilities of the age.
Accordingly, such scholars seek to draw upon and engage the
insights and practices of a variety of cultural resources,
including those of the arts, in their theological projects. Arguing
that poetry can be a form of theological discourse, Mahan shows how
poetry offers rich theological resources and instruction for the
Christian church. In drawing attention to the ""peculiar
advantages"" it affords, this book addresses one of the greatest
challenges facing the church today: the difficulty of effectively
communicating the Christian gospel with increasingly disaffected
""late-modern"" people. Endorsements: ""Can poetry matter to
Christian theology? To this question, David Mahan's book comprises
a resounding 'yes.'With acute sensitivity and painstaking attention
to literary detail, the author shows how Christian wisdom is hugely
enriched by three major word-crafters. Far from muddying the waters
of theological rigor, 'poetic performance' renders theology more
precise, lucid, and faithful. An immensely important book,
demonstrating just how badly the theologian needs the artist
today."" --Jeremy Begbie, Thomas A. Langford Research Professor of
Theology, Duke University ""The engagement of theologians with the
poetry of recent times has usually consisted of giving theological
warrant to beauty and aesthetic gratification, of finding analogies
between poetry and theology, or of discovering Christian themes in
Christian and non-Christian poets alike. David Mahan, in An
Unexpected Light, has achieved something distinctly new and
different. He has taken three examples of Christian conviction
inhabiting the contemporary world in the form of poems by Charles
Williams, Micheal O'Siadhail, and Geoffrey Hill. With lovingly
close attention to both form and content, he has brought to our
attention the 'inscape' of these examples of Christian inhabitation
in poetic form. And he has judiciously asked what Christian
theologians can learn from a close reading of these poems for their
own way of inhabiting our world today. It's an admirable
achievement "" --Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor of
Philosophical Theology, Yale University. ""David Mahan is a superb
close reader of poetry and also a rich theological thinker. This
book shows how poetry and theology can come together to light up
the great questions of human life today. Above all, his profound
engagement with three fascinating poets--O'Siadhail, Williams, and
Hill--will expand the circle of those who recognize their great
significance for the twenty-first century."" --David F. Ford,
Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge ""David Mahan
sheds'unexpected light' on poetry as a Christian discourse. He does
this by deftly elucidating common intellectual ground shared by
poets and theologians. Where he shines, however, is in showing how
a poem means, how ideas actually become incarnate in texts. Mahan
offers beautifully lucid analysis of demanding poets who, in his
sure hands, become accessible, though never merely easy. He
challenges us to see their work as not only speaking to our
particular historical condition but, in quirky and reticent ways,
as evangelizing our imaginations."" --Peter Hawkins, Professor of
Religion and Director of Luce Prog
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