Scottish artist David Mach has a major biblical-themed exhibition going on now at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. It’s called “Precious Light,” and it’s made up of more than 70 collages and six sculptures, taken from some of the Bible’s most epic stories.
Mach admits that he is not religious, but he is intrigued, he says, by the heavy, emotion-packed content of the Christian Bible, and its true-to-life portrayal of the human drama. “The Bible has it all—war, famine, sex, death, pestilence, jealousy, revenge. … Struggle, pain, love death—it’s all in there,” he said (here and here). “As an artist I think I would struggle to find a richer source of inspiration. … No single text has had such a profound effect on our language, culture, and thoughts as this book.”
The most compelling event chronicled in the Bible, the one to which all earlier stories point, is the crucifixion of Jesus.
David Mach, “Die Harder,” 2010. This photo was taken by the Daily Mail in July 2010, outside of St. Giles’ Church in Edinburgh. The piece is now on exhibit on the second floor of the Edinburgh City Art Centre.
The crucifix pictured above is unique in that it is made not of marble, bronze, or terracotta, but of repurposed coat hangers, welded together around a plastic positive and then nickel-plated. Continue reading
Sorry, guys—I’ve been out of commission for the last week while writing a paper for my book marketing course at BU. I’m writing about book trailers, and whether or not they’re effective marketing tools.
One book trailer that definitely impacted book sales is Rob Bell’s trailer for Love Wins (published by HarperOne). It was released five weeks before the book’s original on-sale date, and when it was, it ignited a national controversy. Watch it, and you’ll see why.
The City Church in Seattle launched a campaign last September called “Jesus Is ___,” which ran in tandem with a seven-part sermon series of the same name. The goal was to prompt people to think about who Jesus is to them. One of the campaign’s main components was a website, jesus-is.org, which is still up and running, inviting visitors to “fill in the blank.” Continue reading
Mark Ryden, The Piano Player, 2010. Oil on canvas.
Insert Jesus into an oeuvre that regularly features wide-eyed fairytale femmes, Abraham Lincoln, and raw meat, and you’ve got yourself a Mark Ryden painting. This guy’s work, kooky to the utmost, is exhibited worldwide and sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars (his collectors include Stephen King, Ringo Starr, and formerly Michael Jackson). His art belongs to what is (affectionately, not disparagingly) called the Lowbrow movement, or Pop Surrealism. Continue reading
Why doesn’t Jesus have any sugar?
Found at jesusneedsnewpr.net.
Hebrews 4:12 describes the Bible as sharper than any two-edged sword, in that it pierces the heart with its raw truthfulness, exposing our insides. If we were to transpose this verse into a modern idiom, “dagger” might be the more appropriate metaphor.
The Dagger Project is a San Diego-based ministry that was founded by Jim Houliston in 2007 to reach those people who are the most unlikely to ever read the Bible or step foot inside a church. Houliston and his team of volunteers spray-paint pocket-sized New Testaments with stenciled designs and distribute them in bars, tattoo parlors, skate shops, beaches, alleyways, and public schools. All of the designs are inspired by New Testament verses and have a distinctly contemporary appeal.
Jesus knows you as an individual—so well, in fact, that he knows how many hairs are on your head (Matthew 10:30).
This Dagger illustrates Jesus crying for his lost firstborn, the Jewish nation. Matthew 23:37: "O Jerusalem ... how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."
The above recording is an a cappella performance of the African American spiritual “Give Me Jesus” given by the Apex High School chorus in 2009. The soloists are Madison Nees, Bethany McGehee, and Emily Gardenhire.
This is one of my favorite Jesus songs of all time. The sentiment is pure, the notes and lyrics simple. It’s stripped of all the noise and flair that spoil a lot of other contemporary worship music, in my opinion. The prayer shows a certain yearning and assertiveness: don’t give me accolades or worldly security or success; don’t give me pleasures that satisfy only temporarily; give me you. Actually, the song is more a confession than a prayer, a confession before those who insist on clinging to what is temporal: “You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.” (Do what you will, but as for me, I’m sticking with Jesus!) Continue reading
The Jesus Question 