Date: December 12, 2024
Yesterday morning, I was delighted to listen to Dr. Stephen Cook weave together art and theology in a deeply imaginative and inspiring way. The dance was the theme: from the poetry of Isaiah to the art to the music of Jazz, Dr. Cook moved thoughtfully through these three worlds inviting us all to participate in the dance of wisdom. The sermon was both a challenge to materialist accounts of brain and a deep affirmation of the traditional faith.
I confess I partly loved this sermon because it affirmed a theme embedded in my latest book. Art and the Experience of the Divine was co-written by Anne Searle Bent and me. My contribution to the book was an opening essay called “Theology and Art”. Stephen Cook’s achievement was that he modeled the theme of that chapter. Art truly can be a glimpse of the divine.
The joy of VTS is that Stephen is often in lunch. Do reach out to him and talk to him about how your can preach from the Bible to art. He managed to do this in such a way that I have never seen it done better. Thank you Stephen. I am still living with your sermon.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and the President of The General Theological Seminary