Topic: Literature and the Arts
“Taking the chairs out—it’s a union of both architecture and music,” says National Cathedral director of music Michael McCarthy. More
The elite St. Olaf Choir is considered a pioneer in America’s a capella choral tradition, and for more than 100 years St. Olaf College, a small Lutheran college in Northfield, Minnesota, has held a Christmas musical festival that is known and loved around the world. More
The conductor of the St. Olaf Choir suggests that music “will somehow seep into the bodies of those performing and certainly those who are hearing, and if it makes them reflect and they think differently about themselves and the people with whom they live day in and day out and how they lead their lives, then I think we’ve done our job.” More
A new book by religion scholar Reza Aslan portrays Jesus as a Jewish revolutionary and just one of many in a line of “failed messiahs.” “It was a phenomenon that was quite widespread and that led to a number of rebellions and insurgencies throughout the first century,” says Aslan, “and the argument of the book is that those zealot ideals and principles are at the heart of Jesus’ teachings and actions.” More
“On the one hand, knowing what it is to worship Jesus has given me a profound sense of respect for the faith of Christianity…But I also, as a historian and a scholar of religions, have been able to look at Jesus in a sense unburdened by dogma and doctrine.” More
“I have a hard time conceiving of a God completely removed from suffering,” says Christian Wiman, a lecturer in religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. “Once I understand the notion of Christ participating in suffering, then it makes more sense to me.” More
“Poetry had always been the place where I’d experienced God and it’s still the place where I feel lifted out of myself and given something I could not understand in any other way.” More
A movie based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free man who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery, portrays the complex relationships between slaves, slaveowners, abolitionists, and religion. More
“It’s about remembering and never forgetting and understanding from the past and embracing your past in order to go forward into the future.” More
“A Franciscan told me once, ‘Don’t keep track of the score. The score will take care of itself.’” Writer James Lee Burke’s best-selling crime novels are full of biblical imagery, messianic language, the influences of his Roman Catholic boyhood, and a longing for redemption. More
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