We don’t live in the garden of Eden, and art that attempts to do so quickly becomes flaccid and trivial. But art, like philosophy and politics, often swings the other way and determinedly responds to ugliness with more ugliness. So we are here on the fault line between those who refuse to recognize evil, on the one hand, and those who see nothing but evil on the other.

This presents a wonderful opportunity for Christians with an integrated worldview, and with a theology of both creation and new creation, to find the way forward, perhaps to lead the way forward, beyond such a sterile impasse…

…We should never forget that when Jesus rose from the dead, as the paradigm, first example, and generating power of the whole new creation, the marks of the nails were not just visible on his hands and feet; they were the way he was to be identified. When art comes to terms with both the wounds of the world and the promise of resurrection and learns how to express and respond to both at once, we will be on the way to a fresh vision, a fresh mission.