There is something "perilous" about beauty and we are aware at some deep level of intuition or, better yet, at some vague awareness of a moral reality or "calling" that Beauty has within it the power to "change" us at some profound and ontological level of our existence. To follow a "trail' that leads to "the Golden Wood" where one will knowingly encounter Beauty is one that requires courage and calls forth the...
Aesthetics
Smuggling for God: What the Emerging Church Movement Can Learn from C. S. Lewis’ Incarnational Aesthetic
Ten years ago, at a gathering at Lambeth Palace, an “alternative worship” service was vividly described as follows: “On the first visit to a service, the main impression is visual. Screens and hanging fabrics, containing a multiplicity of colours, moving and static images continuously dominate the perceptions. There are other things: the type of music, often electronic, whose textures and range seem curiously attuned to the context of worship, smells, the...
Physics and Christian Theology: Beauty, a Common Dialect?
As the literature for this Oxbridge 2005 conference notes, “C.S. Lewis once said, ‘the sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing…to find the place where all the beauty came from.’” Lewis is not alone in his quest. While one might expect such company as writers, artists, musicians, and philosophers it might be surprising to discover a stellar contingent of Nobel Prize winners and other significant physicists along for the journey. It...
Emancipating Architecture: Toward a More Serious Aesthetic
Contemporary architecture has been trivialized spurred on by a profit-driven construction industry on the one hand and aspiring intellectual designers on the other. At a time of increasing social inequality, threats of nuclear proliferation, widespread spiritual and moral fatigue, disintegration of the social nucleus, lifestyle- and environment-dependant illnesses of epidemic proportions, alarming frequency and intensity of natural disasters, terrorism, global warming, deforestation, air pollution, acid rain, ozone depletion, the extinction of species, limited natural...
Stewardship as Architectural Aesthetic
At the current point in history, there is an appropriate concern for the environment, global warming, pollution, and the consumption of natural resources. Although the theories vary and multiple causes are cited, very few people would promote an absence of any environmental goals. Most people care enough about future generations to accept the notion of sustainability as presented by Gro Brundtland: “Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future...
Inspired by the life and legacy of C.S. Lewis, the C.S. Lewis Foundation is dedicated to advancing the renewal of Christian scholarship and artistic expression throughout the mainstream of our colleges and universities, and by extension, the culture at large.
In this spirit, the Foundation offers this online, peer-reviewed journal to stimulate discussion concerning the relationship of Christianity to the academy and the arts.
