Imaginative Engagement

Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

Today's entry was written by Mark Sprinkle. Mark Sprinkle is Senior Fellow of Arts and Humanities for The BioLogos Foundation. A painter, craftsman, and writer living in Richmond, Virginia, Mark received his master’s and doctorate from the College of William & Mary, studying how artworks are experienced and come to represent complex relationships within domestic environments.

Just over six months ago we began a new emphasis in the Sunday posts on the creative arts (musical, visual, poetic) as means both of worship and of understanding how modern science can and should inform the life we live as the Church. Behind that new emphasis was a belief that both the arts and sciences are facets of the same distinctively human posture of “faith seeking understanding,” and a desire to work against the cultural trend of seeing each field of endeavor—science, the arts, theology, or even Christian ministry—as distinct, autonomous magisteria divorced from the others.

In the first segment of this video, I discussed how metaphors are inherent to scientific thinking and discourse. In this video blog, I suggest that coming to terms with such marvelously complicated things as the universe and our own cultures sometimes requires methods of inquiry that are less precise, rather than more precise, and I note that art has a way of helping us see the complexity of the world while simultaneously appreciating its beauty. Additionally, as they provide invitations to engage with the world and with each other rather than propositions to be proved or disproved, the creative arts call us towards community even in the midst of our most contentious debates.

By engaging scientists, but also biblical scholars, theologians, pastors, artists and laypeople, the BioLogos Foundation expresses our belief that all aspects of creation including human culture are under the Lordship of Christ, and that those who call upon Jesus as savior have the additional joy and burden of submitting to each other in love as part of our life of worship. We hope and pray that these creative works will aid in that process of seeking unity, and continue to help us engage deeply with what it means to be human—to be made in the image of God.