FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK
by Kimberly Vrudny, Senior Editor
Many changes are upon us in the theology and the arts community.
At United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, Dr. Jennifer Awes-Freeman, assistant professor of arts and theology, has been appointed director of The Intersection: Wilson Yates Center for Theology and the Arts—an initiative that had been devotedly run by the Rev. Dr. Cindi Beth Johnson after the Center’s establishment in honor of Wilson Yates, who taught at United from 1967–2005 and who is President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Religion, Society, and the Arts.
David Brinker, who was a museum assistant almost from the museum’s founding, and who most recently was the assistant director, has been appointed director of the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) at St. Louis University. After directing MOCRA since its founding in 1993, Fr. Terrence Dempsey, S.J. has retired from his post.
Dr. Aaron Rosen has been appointed director of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary where he will also serve as professor of religion and visual culture. Rosen previously was a lecturer in Sacred Traditions at King’s College in London, where he directed the Centre for Arts and the Sacred.
After founding director Catherine Kapikian’s retirement, the second director, Deborah Sokolove, has retired her post.
After the untimely passing of Doug Adams, Elizabeth Peña continues the directorship of the Center for Arts and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, which was founded in 1987, and which added the Doug Adams Gallery in his memory in 2009. She is also a senior lecturer in art, anthropology, and museum studies at the Graduate Theological Union.
The ARTS journal, as well, is undergoing change. When Wilson Yates retired from the journal in 2014, I picked up the reins as Senior Editor. I had been with the journal in some capacity since 1995—first as an editorial assistant as I worked my way through graduate school, then as assistant editor when I was finishing my graduate studies and beginning my teaching career, and eventually as associate editor. When I took my first sabbatical, I stepped away from editing the journal for a few issues—but returned when Wilson announced his retirement and when the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies appointed me the journal’s senior editor.
For the last five years, I have been working closely with a fabulous team of associate editors to streamline our review process, build our reputation as a peer-reviewed journal, grow our readership, and stabilize our funding stream. With the help of John Shorb, who has served as a consultant behind the scenes and who has contributed such pieces in every issue as the portfolio and “in the gallery” interviews, I am proud of how far we have come. And I am even more excited about where we are going.
Last March, I attended a meeting of ARC: Arts | Religion | Culture, the group that was formed in 1962 by Paul Tillich and company, and which has merged with the Theopoetics group in the religious academy. Something wonderful was happening there. The people who were assembled for the conference represented, I think, where the field is going. Sessions treated topics ranging from “Gangsta Theology” to the power of poetry in teaching practical theology. The group that assembled in Oakland was diverse in every way—age, gender, ethnicity, religious perspective, economic background, sexuality, and so on, and everyone was committed to the subversive power of the arts to mobilize change.
The conference was organized by one of ARC’s co-executive directors, Callid Keefe-Perry. I attended the conference as something of a talent scout, hoping beyond hope that I could find someone who was not only willing to take the journal into its future—but someone who had a vision for the future of theology and the arts, a future not disconnected from the journal’s past. First by observing the range of speakers he had been able to assemble for the conference, then listening to him articulate his vision for the field, and finally talking with him and various people associated with ARC as well as with the folks at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, which publishes the journal, I recommended him to our publisher, the folks at The Intersection: Wilson Yates Center for Theology and the Arts at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, and we eventually invited Callid to become the Senior Editor of ARTS. After a period of discernment, he said yes.
This shift will enable me to give energy to the writing projects that have been put on hold so that I could edit the good work that readers were submitting to the journal all of these years.
In this issue, four poets contribute poems fitting for the autumnal season. Jacquelynn Price-Linnartz writes of a distinctly Wesleyan contribution to theology and the arts rooted in the affections. Mary Lane Potter reflects on how her encounter with moonstones in Cambodia enabled her to overcome an acute case of writer’s block. James Romaine provides a spiritually rich reading of the incomprehensibility of Rachel Whiteread’s works by likening her visual scheme to that of El Greco. Christopher Pramuk explores the spiritual terrain of the icon as traversed by Fr. William Hart McNichols. We round out the issue with Timothy Carson’s review of Deborah Sokolove’s latest book, and with three book notes by Mark McInroy.
As happy as I am to think about new vistas opening for me personally and about new energy that will be infused into the journal, some endings are bittersweet—and this one is no exception. I remember applying for admission to United Theological Seminary in 1993 after learning about its program in theology and the arts because it was one of only a couple seminaries in the country back then offering serious coursework on the intersections between theology and the arts, due in no small part to the presence there of one of the leading voices in the field at the time: Wilson Yates. Only a couple of months into the program, I learned that the journal was looking for someone with experience in design and layout—skills I had acquired during my previous “gap” year. I remember my excitement a few years later when it was possible to send proofs to authors through a computerized faxing system, and eventually by attachment to email. Copyrights that previously could take months could now take weeks or even days. A new era was upon us—and we have tried to remain agile while maintaining academic integrity through all of the opportunities and challenges posed by the online environment. Another chapter began when the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies was formed in 2002, adopting ARTS as its journal. To this day, the journal shares a website with SARTS, where our online platform continues to make the scholarship of the journal open and accessible. This is possible only because our 300-plus subscribers have remained loyal for all of these years. It is time for a new generation of scholars to guide the conversation into the future. I do hope you’ll enthusiastically renew as a means of saying, together with Wilson and with me, “Welcome, Callid. We’re excited to be on this journey with you.”
At United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, Dr. Jennifer Awes-Freeman, assistant professor of arts and theology, has been appointed director of The Intersection: Wilson Yates Center for Theology and the Arts—an initiative that had been devotedly run by the Rev. Dr. Cindi Beth Johnson after the Center’s establishment in honor of Wilson Yates, who taught at United from 1967–2005 and who is President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Religion, Society, and the Arts.
David Brinker, who was a museum assistant almost from the museum’s founding, and who most recently was the assistant director, has been appointed director of the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) at St. Louis University. After directing MOCRA since its founding in 1993, Fr. Terrence Dempsey, S.J. has retired from his post.
Dr. Aaron Rosen has been appointed director of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary where he will also serve as professor of religion and visual culture. Rosen previously was a lecturer in Sacred Traditions at King’s College in London, where he directed the Centre for Arts and the Sacred.
After founding director Catherine Kapikian’s retirement, the second director, Deborah Sokolove, has retired her post.
After the untimely passing of Doug Adams, Elizabeth Peña continues the directorship of the Center for Arts and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, which was founded in 1987, and which added the Doug Adams Gallery in his memory in 2009. She is also a senior lecturer in art, anthropology, and museum studies at the Graduate Theological Union.
The ARTS journal, as well, is undergoing change. When Wilson Yates retired from the journal in 2014, I picked up the reins as Senior Editor. I had been with the journal in some capacity since 1995—first as an editorial assistant as I worked my way through graduate school, then as assistant editor when I was finishing my graduate studies and beginning my teaching career, and eventually as associate editor. When I took my first sabbatical, I stepped away from editing the journal for a few issues—but returned when Wilson announced his retirement and when the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies appointed me the journal’s senior editor.
For the last five years, I have been working closely with a fabulous team of associate editors to streamline our review process, build our reputation as a peer-reviewed journal, grow our readership, and stabilize our funding stream. With the help of John Shorb, who has served as a consultant behind the scenes and who has contributed such pieces in every issue as the portfolio and “in the gallery” interviews, I am proud of how far we have come. And I am even more excited about where we are going.
Last March, I attended a meeting of ARC: Arts | Religion | Culture, the group that was formed in 1962 by Paul Tillich and company, and which has merged with the Theopoetics group in the religious academy. Something wonderful was happening there. The people who were assembled for the conference represented, I think, where the field is going. Sessions treated topics ranging from “Gangsta Theology” to the power of poetry in teaching practical theology. The group that assembled in Oakland was diverse in every way—age, gender, ethnicity, religious perspective, economic background, sexuality, and so on, and everyone was committed to the subversive power of the arts to mobilize change.
The conference was organized by one of ARC’s co-executive directors, Callid Keefe-Perry. I attended the conference as something of a talent scout, hoping beyond hope that I could find someone who was not only willing to take the journal into its future—but someone who had a vision for the future of theology and the arts, a future not disconnected from the journal’s past. First by observing the range of speakers he had been able to assemble for the conference, then listening to him articulate his vision for the field, and finally talking with him and various people associated with ARC as well as with the folks at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, which publishes the journal, I recommended him to our publisher, the folks at The Intersection: Wilson Yates Center for Theology and the Arts at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, and we eventually invited Callid to become the Senior Editor of ARTS. After a period of discernment, he said yes.
This shift will enable me to give energy to the writing projects that have been put on hold so that I could edit the good work that readers were submitting to the journal all of these years.
In this issue, four poets contribute poems fitting for the autumnal season. Jacquelynn Price-Linnartz writes of a distinctly Wesleyan contribution to theology and the arts rooted in the affections. Mary Lane Potter reflects on how her encounter with moonstones in Cambodia enabled her to overcome an acute case of writer’s block. James Romaine provides a spiritually rich reading of the incomprehensibility of Rachel Whiteread’s works by likening her visual scheme to that of El Greco. Christopher Pramuk explores the spiritual terrain of the icon as traversed by Fr. William Hart McNichols. We round out the issue with Timothy Carson’s review of Deborah Sokolove’s latest book, and with three book notes by Mark McInroy.
As happy as I am to think about new vistas opening for me personally and about new energy that will be infused into the journal, some endings are bittersweet—and this one is no exception. I remember applying for admission to United Theological Seminary in 1993 after learning about its program in theology and the arts because it was one of only a couple seminaries in the country back then offering serious coursework on the intersections between theology and the arts, due in no small part to the presence there of one of the leading voices in the field at the time: Wilson Yates. Only a couple of months into the program, I learned that the journal was looking for someone with experience in design and layout—skills I had acquired during my previous “gap” year. I remember my excitement a few years later when it was possible to send proofs to authors through a computerized faxing system, and eventually by attachment to email. Copyrights that previously could take months could now take weeks or even days. A new era was upon us—and we have tried to remain agile while maintaining academic integrity through all of the opportunities and challenges posed by the online environment. Another chapter began when the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies was formed in 2002, adopting ARTS as its journal. To this day, the journal shares a website with SARTS, where our online platform continues to make the scholarship of the journal open and accessible. This is possible only because our 300-plus subscribers have remained loyal for all of these years. It is time for a new generation of scholars to guide the conversation into the future. I do hope you’ll enthusiastically renew as a means of saying, together with Wilson and with me, “Welcome, Callid. We’re excited to be on this journey with you.”