I am really excited about the latest Credenda, which is off to the printers today. Iffn you haven’t ordered your copy of it (under our new system), there is still time to redeem yourself. Go here and click on whatever seems obvious.
The writing in this issues is done by — besides my scribblings — Toby Sumpter, Ben Merkle, Ben Palpant, Joost Nixon, Nancy Wilson, Mitch Stokes, Jay Ryan, Joe Rigney, and Nathan Wilson.
Here is a teaser from one of my articles, called The Art of Art.
“Any biblical discussion of art has to begin with a fundamental rejection of the false ideal of originality. This is because a false idea of origins lies behind a false idea of originality, and a false idea of origins is a false genesis, a false doctrine of creation. If we get things wrong at the beginning, we can have a terrible time getting them back on track later on. If we take the wrong turn at the intersection, for all our subsequent industry in travel, we are still on the wrong road. If we have creation wrong, then we have the Creator wrong. And if we misunderstand Him, then how can we get anything right? If we do not know the Creator, then how can we grasp what creative means?
Because of the doctrine of creation, art is a true imitation of some aspect of that creation, and so striving for absolute originality by a creature is the surest way for an artist to set himself up in the manufacture of tired clichés. But an imitator, suffused with humility, comes across as strikingly original, and the original and very daring artiste, striving for the autonomous glory of a Nebuchadnezzar (“that I have built . . .”), winds up just as Nebuchadnezzar did, thinking the great thoughts of a moo cow in the royal pastures of Babylon . . .”
Go. Click. Purchase. Read. Grow. Click some more.