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William A. Dyrness, dean emeritus and senior professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, is a founding member of Fuller’s Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts. This conversation at the CICW annual grants event in 2019 marked the end of his twenty-year service on the Vital Worship Grants Advisory Board.
The hour-long conversation included discussions about developments in theology and arts over the last few decades, how people experience the arts in worship, and insights from Dyrness’s many books.
Dyrness said his interest in teaching theology and the arts predated most institutions’ readiness to address the topic. After earning his doctor of theology degree from the University of Strasbourg in France, he sent letters to many institutions to inquire about teaching theology and the arts. “I think I mystified people,” he said. Instead he served for years as a youth pastor, a missionary to the Philippines at Asian Theological Seminary, and dean at Fuller Theological Seminary.
In 2000, about the same time he joined the CICW grants advisory board, Dyrness finally got the chance to teach theology, culture, and the arts at Fuller’s new Brehm Center. His book Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue came out in November 2001. "My teaching and writing since then has been informed in part by CICW. Reading grant applications is like doing on-the-ground research," he said in his June 2019 conversation with Witvliet.
Dyrness said that when he first began evaluating worship grant proposals, few involved the arts. In the most recent round, however, nearly a third of proposals dealt with worship and visual arts.
Related book: Senses of the Soul: Art and the Visual in Christian Worship, reviewed here
Related book: Poetic Theology: God and the Poetics of Everyday Life, reviewed here
Dyrness recommends that Christians and churches use the full range of their God-given gifts as well as learning from non-Christians such as Colm Tóibín, whose powerful novel The Testament of Mary can help Christians think deeply about how to portray her.
Why and how did psalm singing become such a hallmark of Reformed worship? Join Dr. Karin Maag for a fascinating journey through time, from Reformation Geneva to Scotland and from the Netherlands to New England, exploring the roots and impact of metrical psalm singing. Along the way, we will hear the voices of early modern Christians as they learned how to sing the psalms, both in unison and in harmony.
Sister Kathleen Harmon of the community of the Ohio province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Dayton, invites us to be transformed by the psalms and experience them as the whole story God is revealing to us. As we keep praying and singing them, the psalms interpret us, and that’s when the transformation comes.
Vinroy D. Brown Jr.—conductor, musicologist, educator, and minister of creative worship and music at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City—explores the vibrant intersection of Black sacred music and the psalms. He talks about Black composers and how they have reimagined the psalms through choral music, spirituals, and the gospel tradition for the benefit of everyone.
Why and how did psalm singing become such a hallmark of Reformed worship? Join Dr. Karin Maag for a fascinating journey through time, from Reformation Geneva to Scotland and from the Netherlands to New England, exploring the roots and impact of metrical psalm singing. Along the way, we will hear the voices of early modern Christians as they learned how to sing the psalms, both in unison and in harmony.
Sister Kathleen Harmon of the community of the Ohio province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Dayton, invites us to be transformed by the psalms and experience them as the whole story God is revealing to us. As we keep praying and singing them, the psalms interpret us, and that’s when the transformation comes.
Vinroy D. Brown Jr.—conductor, musicologist, educator, and minister of creative worship and music at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City—explores the vibrant intersection of Black sacred music and the psalms. He talks about Black composers and how they have reimagined the psalms through choral music, spirituals, and the gospel tradition for the benefit of everyone.
John Goldingay, an Anglican priest and the senior professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, posits the psalms are the densest material in the entire Old Testament. They expound the nature of God as the compassionate, faithful, and committed one, but also as the one who makes demands upon us. The psalms help us talk to God, even about difficult things—and when we do, we are talking to someone who is in a position to do something about it.
