Imagination and Interpretation

Interpretation is tricky business. Music and art are among the most difficult ‘texts’ to interpret. And yet, today more than ever, the media are bombarding us with sounds and images that desperately need imaginative Christian minds to interpret. Is it possible to find traces of the transcendent in contemporary culture? Do we perhaps even find Christian modes of expression where we would least expect them? Or should Christians take a far more critical interpretive stance toward contemporary cultural art forms than they generally do? Consisting of three main sections, this collection of essays first asks how we should interpret the cosmos and the biblical story of salvation. The second part deals specifically with questions surrounding music and worship. The final section deals with the interpretation of contemporary art and mass media. This collection of essays is a helpful guide for those who are willing to engage the imagination as they face tough interpretive questions, particularly in the areas of music and the arts. Contributors to this volume: Jeremy Begbie . John L. Bell . Hans Boersma Dennis R. Danielson . Laurel Gasque . Wayne L. Roosa Quentin J. Schultze . Diane Sekuloff .
James K.A. Smith Hans Boersma (Th.D., University of Utrecht) is associate professor of religious and worldview studies at Trinity Western University. He has been appointed to the J. I. Packer Chair of Theology at Regent College. Boersma is also the organizer of the annual LambLight Lecture series sponsored by the Geneva Society and the author or editor of several books, including “A Hot Pepper Corn: Richard Baxter’s Doctrine of Justification in Its Seventeenth-Century Context of Controversy and Violence”, “Hospitality”, and the “Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition”.