Richard Harries

Jesus was not depicted on the cross until the early fifth century. Since then this scene has been painted or carved in sharply differing ways. With the aid of over thirty full-page plates, The Passion in Art explores the historical contexts and theologies that led to such differing depictions. Because the first Christians saw the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus as different aspects of a unified victory over sin and death, scenes of the Passion are juxtaposed with some of the Resurrection, which again are highly varied in what they do and do not show. This is the first book to consider the Passion as portrayed in the whole sweep of Christian history. Each picture is considered both from the point of view of its context and its theological standpoint. Spanning the centuries, the images reproduced and discussed include: scenes from the Passion of Christ in the Catacombs of Domitilla, mosaics in Ravenna, the Rabbula Crucifixion and Resurrection, the Crucifixion Plaque from Metz, the Gero Crucifix, Cimabue's Crucifix, Giotto's Noli me Tangere, Piero della Francesca's Resurrection, the Isenheim altarpiece, Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus, Rembrandt's Christ on the Cross, Chagall's White Crucifixion, contemporary paintings by Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland, Nicholas Mynheer, and many more works of great acclaim.

The Passion in Art

Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, brings together his love of art and his Christian faith in a book that takes readers deeper into the Christmas story. Over 30 paintings, icons and sculptures are included, representing many different ages and cultures. The author shares his insights - artistic, historical, spiritual - in a way which captures the mystery and wonder of the nativity.

The Nativity of Christ

A Gallery of Reflections

George Every

Bishop Kallistos Ware

An anthology of treasures found in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican traditions.

Readings Through the Christian Year

The Time of the Spirit

Hearing God in Poetry is a lovely Lent book for 2022 from Richard Harries, that reflects on how some of the best-loved poems in the English language communicate a sense of God's presence.

Fifty Poems for Lent and Easter

Hearing God in Poetry

Norman Solomon

Timothy Winter

Abraham's Children brings together essays by leading scholars of each faith to address key issues for the faiths and to collaboratively identify common ground and pose challenges for the future. The book will inspire readers in the process of inter-faith dialogue, contribute clearly to vital religious issues of contemporary world concern and help readers to understand faiths that are different from their own.

Jews, Christians and Muslims in Conversation

Abraham's Children

Sidney Brichto

It is often that we live in a world that is becoming increasingly secularized. Religious believes are supposed to lament this fact and non-believers to applaud it. But suppose there are values in the secular stance that are essentially and profoundly religious? In which case, to write off the whole secular enterprise would be shallow in the extreme. In fact Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most devout and passionate Christians of the 20th century, who was killed for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler, did think that the secular movement that has developed since the 15th century should not be interpreted as anti-religious. On the contrary, it has been teaching people to live as fully responsible human beings aware of our strengths and what we can achieve as well as our weaknesses. However, from the perspective off a person with religious faith, the loss of a transcendent order giving a divine meaning and purpose to human existence cannot be contemplates without a poignant sense of loss. ... Our hope is that this book, written from a variety of standpoints, atheist, agnostic and religious and from within religion, from Judaism, Christianity and Islam, will provoke people to be more critical both about the alleged secularism of our times and also of our received religious heritage. We have to make up our own minds. We have no other option. But the contributors to this volume could go beyond this in agreeing that this freedom of choice is not just a necessity but a blessing. And this, I suppose, is why we would all, or nearly all, want to give two cheers for secularism. For the emphasis upon the liberty and profound responsibility of individual choice, is one of the most significant consequences of secularization. -- from Introduction (p. 7 & p. 10).

Two Cheers for Secularism

The Image of Christ in Modern Art explores the challenges presented by the radical and rapid changes of artistic style in the 20th century to artists who wished to relate to traditional Christian imagery. In the 1930s David Jones said that he and his contemporaries were acutely conscious of ’the break’, by which he meant the fragmentation and loss of a once widely shared Christian narrative and set of images. In this highly illustrated book, Richard Harries looks at some of the artists associated with the birth of modernism such as Epstein and Rouault as well as those with a highly distinctive understanding of religion such as Chagall and Stanley Spencer. He discusses the revival of confidence associated with the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral after World War II and the commissioning of work by artists like Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and John Piper before looking at the very testing last quarter of the 20th century. He shows how here, and even more in our own time, fresh and important visual interpretations of Christ have been created both by well known and less well known artists. In conclusion he suggests that the modern movement in art has turned out to be a friend, not a foe of Christian art.Through a wide and beautiful range of images and insightful text, Harries explores the continuing challenge, present from the beginning of Christian art, as to how that which is visual can in some way indicate the transcendent.

The Image of Christ in Modern Art

W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, William Golding, Elizabeth Jennings, C. S. Lewis, Flannery O'Connor, Stevie Smith. These are some of the great poets and novelists whose struggles with faith find expression in their works.

Modern Writers and the Struggle for Faith

Haunted by Christ

In 'Abraham's Children', distinguished scholars from all three faiths examine the key issues which either unite or divide Jews, Christians and Muslims today and offer constructive suggestions for developing mutual understanding, trust and co-operation.

Life is at once wonderful and appalling, beautiful and horrific. Although we can all give meaning to our lives by trying to live well, is there some given meaning to be discovered? Science cannot answer this question, and philosophical arguments leave the issue open. The monotheistic religions claim that the meaning has been revealed to us, and Christians see this is above all in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Described by Rowan Williams as ‘that rarity, a Christian public intellectual’, Richard Harries considers the Christian claim in the context of an in-depth discussion of the nature of evil and how this is to be reconciled with a just and loving God. Drawing on a wide range of modern literature, he argues that belief in the resurrection and hope in the face of death is fundamental to faith, and suggests that while there is no final intellectual answer to the problem of evil, we must all, believer and nonbeliever alike, protest against the world and seek to change it, rather than accept it as it is.

Richard Harries

Books

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