164 - Icons of the Present: Some Reflections on Art, the Sacred and the

Icons of the Present: Some Reflections on Art, the Sacred and the
By Edward Robinson
SCM Press, 1993,146 pp. Pounds 12.50.

Sculptor and lay theologian Edward Robinson bridges the gap between art and theology, asking how each informs the other. He holds that, while the role of both religion and art is to challenge the standard view of things, institutional religion tends to be too comfortable and static, partly because it ignores the artistic impulse. To recapture religious vitality requires icons of the present, not of the past.

Robinson makes a key distinction between the sacred and the holy. The sacred is, to some degree, created by humans: a thing, a place, an occasion-whatever can be sanctified or made sacer. The holy is not subject to human judgment or authorization, does not have to be sanctioned; it belongs to God alone. Idolatry is the worship of the sacred, the desire to be safe.

The holy is always moving beyond yesterday's sacred, and art points the way to new apprehensions of it. Robinson spells out how the artistic imagination can open religion to the holy. "If we do as our fathers did, we do not do as our fathers did." But a great deal that is culturally derived or religiously safe will have to go.

Teachers, administrators and other keepers of the tradition, beware: This little book could change your life.

William F. Fore
Yale Divinity School
New Haven, CT.