Date: April 12, 2023
It is a major theme of our current strategic plan. We need more art on this campus. I have spent much of my professional career believing that persons can be “argued” into faith. Now I tend to think that “experience” or “feel” is the central step in moving from skepticism to faith.
So, we come to a MDiv dissertation. Annmarie Dinan Hansen has decided that her dissertation is an invitation to experience faith through art. She has spent the last four months working hard to produce some “community art” in Bicentennial Hall. It is amazing to watch the space converted from a home for the Reliefs (they are, of course, still there) to this invitation to experience different aspects of the spiritual in each alcove.
I was so moved as I walked around the different experiences that one is invited to participate in. I strongly recommend that you make the journey. Talk to Annmarie – eat the raisin and experience everything from nature to death – and participate in this unique moment.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and President of The General Theological Seminary