Hi Jack, thanks for your post which has been helpful. I was hoping someone would write something like this for new Christian’s and frankly old too!
I’m exploring imagination as an artist and spiritual director on my own Substack called the Ministry of Imagination. Not everything we imagine is imaginary. Faith, hope and prophecy require imagination. As Christian’s our imagination’s can be Spirit led and biblically inspired. Tested too. I like the quote from - Garret Green, Imagining God: Theology and the Religious Imagination:
‘Imagination, properly understood as the name of a basic human ability, one of the things that people do in the course of living in, acting on, and thinking about the world identifies that specific point where, according to Christian belief and experience, the Word of God becomes effective in human lives. More formally: imagination is the anthropological point of contact for divine revelation. It is not the "foundation," the "ground," the "preunderstanding," or the "ontological basis" for revelation; it is simply the place where it happens, better, the way in which it happens.’
Totally, no matter how long you’ve been reading the bible it’s good to remind yourself of those key things.
Imagination is super interesting as a theological concept - I think I need to think through that quote a little more because I’d be interested to understand how he defines some of those concepts (one to add to the reading list!)
Interesting read Jack…. We at KSCC are going through the book of Exodus in our Monday Bible Study group - currently we have passed those chapters that you have quoted, we around chapter 18 now!!!
I think I’ll pass your writing on to some in our group!!
Thanks for writing this Jack! I keep hearing about more and more young people engaging with Scripture for the first time, so it’s great to see proper theologians creating content that outlines what Scripture is and what it isn’t ☺️
Hi Jack, thanks for your post which has been helpful. I was hoping someone would write something like this for new Christian’s and frankly old too!
I’m exploring imagination as an artist and spiritual director on my own Substack called the Ministry of Imagination. Not everything we imagine is imaginary. Faith, hope and prophecy require imagination. As Christian’s our imagination’s can be Spirit led and biblically inspired. Tested too. I like the quote from - Garret Green, Imagining God: Theology and the Religious Imagination:
‘Imagination, properly understood as the name of a basic human ability, one of the things that people do in the course of living in, acting on, and thinking about the world identifies that specific point where, according to Christian belief and experience, the Word of God becomes effective in human lives. More formally: imagination is the anthropological point of contact for divine revelation. It is not the "foundation," the "ground," the "preunderstanding," or the "ontological basis" for revelation; it is simply the place where it happens, better, the way in which it happens.’
Perhaps a contribution to the conversation.
Thanks so much for reading!
Totally, no matter how long you’ve been reading the bible it’s good to remind yourself of those key things.
Imagination is super interesting as a theological concept - I think I need to think through that quote a little more because I’d be interested to understand how he defines some of those concepts (one to add to the reading list!)
Interesting read Jack…. We at KSCC are going through the book of Exodus in our Monday Bible Study group - currently we have passed those chapters that you have quoted, we around chapter 18 now!!!
I think I’ll pass your writing on to some in our group!!
Please do - Exodus is so fascinating! Lots of interesting things happening
Thanks for writing this Jack! I keep hearing about more and more young people engaging with Scripture for the first time, so it’s great to see proper theologians creating content that outlines what Scripture is and what it isn’t ☺️
Tbh I think even if we’ve been reading it for a while it’s good to remind ourselves of some of the key things!
Interesting read and I am jealous of your friend, Jonny’s genius too!
Interesting read and I am jealous of your friend, Jonny’s genius too!
Thanks! Yeah I wish naturally that funny