Overview
Only in the past few hundred years has reading been the primary way of teaching religion. For centuries, religious education relied on hearing and seeing. Religious education can benefit by returning to the ages-old methods of hearing and seeing to complement reading. Beyond the Written Word: Exploring Faith Through Christian Art and the accompanying teaching guide enable you to make one of the old ways—seeing—available to 21st-century students.
Product Details
Copyright: March 16, 2005
Format: Paperback
Size: 6 x 9
Length: 32 pages
Weight: 0.150lbs
Item number: 1330
ISBN: 978-0-88489-849-8
ISBN-10: 0-88489-849-0
Customer Reviews
By Richard Viladesau, STD, professor of theology, Fordham University; author, Theological Aesthetics and Theology and the Arts.
Beyond the Written Word provides a splendid means for teachers of religion to engage the imaginations and minds of young students through Christian art. The use of art as a religious "text" opens opportunities for encounter with themes of the Scriptures, doctrine, morality, and Christian history. The artworks presented, from various eras and styles, invite the expansion of students' sensibilities to the aesthetic realm on three levels: as a means of human symbolic communication, as an instrument for mediating the sacred, and as an embodiment of beauty. The teaching guide provides excellent direction for developing the skills needed to use art effectively in teaching and in provoking discussion. This book is a great gift to religious educators on the high school level.
By Thomas H. Groome, professor of theology and religious education, director of the Boston College Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry; author, What Makes Us Catholic
For many centuries our Catholic faith was carried and passed on through Christian art. Then came the Enlightenment, and we soon wallowed in a sea of verbosity. Eileen Daily now offers the Church an effective way to retrieve its artistic legacy. This book will help us teach our faith again through the arts and with aesthetic sensitivity.
By Sister Wendy Beckett, author of The Story of Painting and Sister Wendy's American Collection, both seen on PBS; plus Art and the Sacred, 1000 Masterpieces, and other books
This is a book about deepening our understanding of our faith. In times
past, when people could not read, it was through pictures that they came
to realize the glory of God's world and the meaning of the Good News
that is the Gospel. The more we learn about God, the more we understand
our own selves. As a happy bonus, this fine book also educates us in
the history of art and in its significance. All teachers will profit from
this book, and so will all those who can teach themselves.
