Princeton Theological Review: Theology and the Arts

The new issue of the Princeton Theological Review, a student-run journal for which I am the co-general editor, is now available online thanks to the hard work of our webmaster, Chris TerryNelson. The new issue, on “Theology and the Arts,” includes articles by Gordon Graham, Bruce Benson, Matthew Milliner (of Millinerd), and yours truly. Our book review editor, WTM, did a fine job of putting together some excellent reviews. Chris has put together a nice list of articles by bloggers in this new issue.

My article, entitled “‘A Pre-Appearance of the Truth’: Toward a Christological Aesthetics,” was given as a paper at the Mid-Atlantic Regional meeting of the AAR on March 2 in Baltimore. While it does not quite live up to the proposal I posted online, I am quite happy with the final product. The article has three sections: (1) first, I examine Eberhard Jüngel’s relational-actualistic ontology of justification in order to elucidate the basic shape of his soteriology; (2) second, I offer a close reading of Jüngel’s essay on the beautiful to see how his soteriology and his theological aesthetics are interrelated; and (3) third, I draw from the comparison between the first two sections insights toward formulating a christological aesthetics rooted in the justifying work of Christ.