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Good Taste, Bad Taste, & Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life

Online ISBN:
9780199849567
Print ISBN:
9780195158724
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Good Taste, Bad Taste, & Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life

Frank Burch Brown
Frank Burch Brown

Frederick Doyle Kershner Professor of Religion and the Arts

Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis
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Published online:
3 October 2011
Published in print:
20 February 2003
Online ISBN:
9780199849567
Print ISBN:
9780195158724
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Christians frequently come into conflict with themselves and others over such matters as music, popular culture, and worship style. Yet they usually lack any theology of art or taste adequate to deal with aesthetic disputes. This book offers a constructive, “ecumenical” approach to artistic taste and aesthetic judgment—a non-elitist but discriminating theological aesthetics that has “teeth but no fangs.” While grounded in history and theory, this book takes up such practical questions as: How can one religious community accommodate a variety of artistic tastes? What good or harm can be done by importing music that is worldly in origin into a house of worship? How can the exercise of taste in the making of art be a viable (and sometimes advanced) spiritual discipline? In exploring the complex relation between taste, religious imagination, and faith, this book offers a new perspective on what it means to be spiritual, religious, and Christian.

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