Religious aesthetics : a theological study of making and meaning /

The aim of this scholarly work is "to locate important aesthetic and religious phenomena. . . pointed to by these terms (aesthetic,' artistic,' and religious') and others of the kind, and. . . to employ such terms with sufficient care that we can attain new insights into what is religiously meaningful within aesthetica." The author points out that the method used is "an unorthodox combination of the analytical, the phenomenological, and the hermeneutical" while seeking to modify and to rid each of its "more technical trappings." This study, developed in stages over seven chapters, includes the role of aesthetics within theology (Christianity); nature of aesthetics, varieties of religious aesthetic experience (in Christianity), etc. This work is a serious study of the aesthetic component of the religious experience and will challenge the contemporary theories of formalism or purism that have been so much a part of "modern aesthetics." There are notes for each chapter together with suggested readings and an index. Levels: graduate and upper-division undergraduate. -T. M. Pucelik, Bradley University