Peter Boorman

I spot a recent obituary of Peter Boorman, organist of St Davids. It is of chief interest here for the fact that Boorman was perhaps the first organist to introduce girls' voices into a cathedral choir, in an emergency in 1963, and on a permanent basis from 1966. He seems also to have had some involvement in developments that were eventually to issue in Songs of Praise.

The Pope and the artist

I note with interest the recent appeal of the Pope for a new relationship with artists, beginning with an event at the Vatican in November, although it isn't clear what the agenda for that meeting is. (See the National Catholic Reporter of Sept 11th.) This seems to pick up some of the themes of John Paul II's Letter to Artists of 1999.

Myfanwy Piper

I note a recent piece by Frances Spalding on Myfanwy Piper in the Guardian, in advance of her forthcoming OUP book on the two Pipers. More information on Spalding may be found on her pages at Newcastle University, including further references on Piper and Coventry Cathedral.

Antonio Pacitti

I note obituaries of the sculptor Antonio Pacitti in the Times and the Church Times. He is of note here for a number of religious works, including a Madonna and Child for the new church of St Thomas More in Patcham, East Sussex, in 1964. Helpful lists of his works and exhibitions are available at churchart.co.uk

Leonie Cohn

I note another obituary, this time of the radio producer Leonie Cohn, who worked on numerous programmes on the arts for the Third Programme in the Fifties and Sixties.

Noel Vincent

I note a recent obituary of Canon Noel Vincent: he was of most interest for the purposes of this blog in his work as producer of Songs of Praise, from the mid 1970s until his retirement.

Rowan Williams on George Bell

Rather belatedly, I find the text of the Archbishop's lecture on Bell, given last year at Chichester as part of the anniversary events. It strikes me as a most useful and important piece, relating Bell's concern with the arts with his stance on ecumenism and international relations. It also makes specific mention of the Canterbury plays, in one of which I am myself particularly interested (see earlier post on John Masefield.)

Muriel Spark

I note several reviews of Martin Stannard's new Life of Spark, including Jonathan Bate in the Telegraph and John Carey in the Sunday Times. Most of the reviewers give space to the importance of her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1954.
Stannard himself is based at the University of Leicester and has also published extensively on that other 'Catholic novelist', Evelyn Waugh.

God and Mystery in Words - Review

David Brown
God & Mystery in Words. Experience through Metaphor and Drama
Oxford, OUP, 2008: 978-0-19-923183-6

[A review first published in Anvil 26;2 (2009). It is republished here by kind permission of the Reviews Editor.]

Natural and revealed theology, argues David Brown, are in a state of crisis, and the only way out of that crisis is to pay greater attention to the cultural embeddedness of both. The volume under review is the third in a series which examines religious experience as mediated by culture in general, and by the arts in particular. God and Enchantment of Place (2004) considered the ways in which religious experience has been found in religious architecture, in the urban built environment and in gardens. God and Grace of Body (2007) continued the investigation, and the present volume concludes the series with metaphor and drama. Brown notes the tendency in recent religious history towards a narrowing of the spheres in which religious experience might be found, and advances ample historical evidence that it was not always so.

Both parts of the book employ the same approach: to begin with a broad historical examination of metaphor or drama, and to proceed to an examination of their use in specific contexts of worship. Part One, on metaphor, seeks to recover the potential of language to function sacramentally. Part of the legacy of the confrontation between ‘science’ and biblical criticism in the last two centuries has been to force much theology into a defensive reduction of language to its literal descriptive function. Brown would like to see the church recover the power of verbal image to point beyond itself, and lead us to further reflection. Water, for instance (68-9) can be symbolic of cleansing, but also of inundation and destruction, or of refreshment and the quenching of thirst. There is much to be lost in the flattening-out of metaphor, and in the rush to premature closure. Along the way, Brown has stimulating and at times trenchant things to say to hymn writers; to those charged with revising hymn texts; to preachers; and to biblical translators. Brown is however careful to stress that such an acknowledgment of the ‘inexhaustibility’ of metaphor need not necessarily be mere obfuscation; a cloak behind which to avoid doctrinal commitment.

Part Two proceeds in similar manner to examine drama. Brown argues for regarding church music not only as a vehicle for words, but as having an important dramatic and structural function in liturgy in its own right. Liturgical dress and movement, church architecture and internal ordering are all considered, reinforcing Brown’s plea that these all be allowed the space in worship to function sacramentally. The impulse to explain and define ought not to be allowed to force an important minority of potential worshippers to seek a sense of the numinous almost anywhere but in church.

In sum, this volume handsomely repays attentive reading, being elegantly written, lucid and admirably concise. Specialist historians of worship or language are unlikely to be surprised in matters of detail; however, the range of material employed, across genres, periods and countries is dazzling and some highly suggestive historical insights are offered. Brown is scrupulously even-handed in his treatment of different artistic styles, and there is no trace of any particular churchmanship being brought to bear. For this reviewer, it suggested questions about how to understand the work of the Spirit through created things; questions sometimes sidelined through distrust of an over-powerful natural theology and for fear of possible idolatry or creeping immanentism. Although Brown does not address the work of the Spirit directly, he provides a fascinating basis on which to begin doing so.

David Mellor

Slightly belated, I note this obituary of the designer David Mellor. He is interesting in this connection as one with affinities with Arts and Crafts thinking on the right integration of work, art and life. He was also married to Fiona MacCarthy, biographer of William Morris and Eric Gill, amonst others. He was also something of a cult figure amongst a certain type of Sheffielder in my time there.