Regent College Lecture Outline for INDS501

Dr. Jennifer Allen Craft

The Art of the Story: Christian Faith and the World of Images (Early Church through the Reformation)

I. Introduction and Key questions

a. How has art shaped the Christian faith? How has the Christian faith shaped the arts and
culture? What are the ongoing impacts for the church and culture today?
II. The Early Church
a. Symbolic and spiritual function for the visual arts
b. Key Examples:
i. Old Testament themes
ii. Classical influences
III. The Medieval Period
a. Didactic and Liturgical Functions combined spiritual story-telling
b. New communal way of seeing
c. Formative and divisive theological themes
i. Incarnation
ii. Salvation
iii. Key examples: Holy icons and Crucifixion images
d. Space as a key feature of stylistic changes and public experience of the arts
IV. Reformation Period
a. Theological changes and the dismissal of the visual arts in worship
b. Individual ways of seeing and their new artforms/spaces
c. The Image and the Word
i. Practical purposes for the visual arts
V. “Takeaways” and contemporary application
a. Artistic concerns with space and its transformation
b. Storied theology and the visual image