Imaging the Story

""Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.""
(Emily Dickinson)
This course follows the contours of the salvation story through the lens of the arts. Putting visual art and poetry in conversation with the Bible, it seeks to engage the imagination. Rather than analyzing the narrative, the reader is invited to behold it and respond to it through ""making""--either verbally or visually.
At times, the church has treated the imagination like an embarrassing relative. Yet the Bible is image-rich, drawing widely on the imagination, and we are each made in the image of the creator God. It is time to bring the imagination out of the corner! ""For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."" (Eph 2:10 NIV)
Whether following it as a group or reading it alone, this course book will appeal to anyone with an interest in the salvation story and the arts. It is particularly for those who feel permission is needed to pick up a paintbrush--or any other creative medium--just for the love of it.

""There has been a much-needed coming together of theology and the arts in recent years--some might call it a resurgence. Gill Sakakini and Karen Case-Green have been very much a part of this, and provide here in Imaging the Story an original as well as practical guide in how to celebrate both word and image throughout the biblical narrative: from creation to consummation. The church, to whom the book is dedicated, desperately needs resources like this.""
--Ian Stackhouse, Senior Pastor, Guildford Baptist Church, UK; author of The Day Is Yours: Slow Spirituality in a Fast-Moving World.
 
""With deep roots in the literary and the visual arts respectively, the co-authors of this book bring an exceptional understanding of 'how art works' to their lively faith. They know from experience that the interaction of faith with art can be transformative, and this is a book that--with fresh, practical directness as well as sensitivity and insight--undoubtedly seeks to transform. Individuals and church communities will find their eyes and ears opened to God in new ways by this book, precisely as their hands are invited to pick up a pen or paintbrush. It is a book full of epiphanies.""
--Ben Quash, Professor of Christianity and the Arts, Director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred at King's, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College London
 
""Gill Sakakini and Karen Case-Green reawaken us to the astonishing story of the God who created us and who came among us in the flesh. With compelling tools, practices, and points of entry, they invite us into a daring journey: to behold the world and the God who has not abandoned it but who still seeks to take flesh in this world through us. They are visionary stewards of the sacred imaginations God has entrusted to us.""
--Jan Richardson, artist and author
 
""This marvelous book is not content to simply teach readers about the arts. Rather, it invites them to become artists themselves. And as it actively engages readers in this artistry, the book not only presents the biblical narrative, but invites us to become participants in it. This book, which is dedicated to the church, is a gift to the church indeed."" 
--Steven R. Guthrie, Professor of Theology, Religion, and the Arts, Belmont University

Gill C. Sakakini is an artist and teacher. She is a regular faculty member at the Grunewald Guild in Washington State, has taught at Carey Theological College, Vancouver, and is now training to be a Church of England priest.
 
Karen Case-Green is a preacher and writer based at Guildford Baptist Church. Karen lectured in English at The University of Surrey before training as a Baptist minister at Spurgeon's