God's Beauty-in-Act

Description:
Jürgen Moltmann and others contend that Christian theology and the church face a dual crisis--one of relevance and the other of identity. Despite making this pronouncement nearly forty years ago, the church in the West continues to struggle with this crisis. Several proposals have been espoused, from the way of wisdom to the way of ecclesial praxis. Yet, little attention is given in Protestant theological discourse to the role God's beauty plays in bringing theology and ethics together. By neglecting God's beauty for theological discourse, we risk diminishing Christian worship, witness, and wisdom.

God's Beauty-in-Act addresses these issues, in part, by arguing that the redemptive-creative suffering and glorious resurrection of Christ are the nexus of God's being, beauty, and Christian living. God's beauty, understood as the fittingness of the incarnate Son's actions in the Spirit to the Father's will, radiates God's glory and draws perceivers into the dramatic movements of God's triune life. These movements serve as the patterns that shape the imagination, enabling participants to perform their parts creatively and fittingly in God's drama of redemption. In doing so, human beings flourish as they jettison false identities and realities of their own making that are incommensurate with God's purpose found in Christ by the Spirit.


Endorsements:
""Garrett's book is an altarpiece with two panels and a hinge, a fitting structure for a work that depicts the cross as the enactment of God's beauty. . . . This study of Trinitarian theology presents the Son as the expression of the Father's glory, and the Spirit its impression. God's Beauty-in-Act describes how Christ's cross transforms our imaginations, enabling the church to participate in the dramatic movement that defines the beat of God's own heart.""
--Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Research Professor of Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

""Stephen Garrett has provided us with a deftly constructed and compellingly argued case for the centrality of beauty for a faithful doctrine of God, and indeed for the whole theological project.""
--Samuel Wells, Visiting Professor of Christian Ethics, King's College, London

""Stephen Garrett presents a thoughtful Protestant appropriation of the work of Balthasar, which stresses the supreme importance of imagination in the contemplative reception and ethical imitation of the beauty revealed in the cross of Christ. Of particular value is the deeply scriptural and resolutely Trinitarian context of Garrett's reflections. This work is rich in ecumenical potential and makes a significant contribution to the task of shaping Christian ethics in light of the beauty 'ever ancient, ever new.'""
--Francis Caponi, Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, Villanova University


About the Contributor(s):
Stephen M. Garrett, PhD, is an Academic Fellow with the International Institute for Christian Studies and Lecturer/Researcher of Public Theology and Philosophy of Religion in the Social Communications Institute at Lithuania University of Educational Sciences.