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The Image of God in an Image Driven Age
 

The Image of God in an Image Driven Age

Explorations in Theological Anthropology

Wheaton Theology Conference Series

Edited by Beth Felker Jones and Jeffrey W. Barbeau

The Image of God in an Image Driven Age
paperback
  • Length: 272 pages
  • Dimensions: 6 × 9 in
  • Published: March 08, 2016
  •  Print on Demand
  • ISBN: 978-0-8308-5120-1
  • Item Code: 5120
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Whether on the printed page, the television screen or the digital app, we live in a world saturated with images.

Some images help shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us in positive ways, while others lead us astray and distort our relationships. Christians confess that human beings have been created in the image of God, yet we chose to rebel against that God and so became unfaithful bearers of God's image. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus, who is the image of God, restores the divine image in us, partially now and fully in the day to come.

The essays collected in The Image of God in an Image Driven Age explore the intersection of theology and culture. With topics ranging across biblical exegesis, the art gallery, Cormac McCarthy, racism, sexuality and theosis, the contributors to this volume offer a unified vision—ecumenical in nature and catholic in spirit—of what it means to be truly human and created in the divine image in the world today.

This collection from the 2015 Wheaton Theology Conference includes contributions by Daniela C. Augustine, Craig L. Blomberg, William A. Dyrness, Timothy R. Gaines and Shawna Songer Gaines, Phillip Jenkins, Beth Felker Jones, Christina Bieber Lake, Catherine McDowell, Ian A. McFarland, Matthew J. Milliner, Soong-Chan Rah and Janet Soskice, as well as original poems by Jill Peláez Baumgaertner and Brett Foster.

REVIEWS

"Poetry, literature, visual art and deep theological thinking collide here! What better way to think about what it means to be made in God's image, and what it means to bear God's image, to a world beset with so many false images? Students, pastors and theologians alike will find here a meaty conversation and, better yet, an invitation to bear God's image well."

Jana M. Bennett, University of Dayton

"This is a fecund collection of essays on theological anthropology. In it one can find treatments of the image of God from biblical, systematic and constructive theology, but one can also find essays that reflect on the imaging of God in the arts: in poetry and in literary criticism. Here too there is reflection on our witness to the divine image in a culture of commodification and a world where the color of one's skin has displaced the divine image in which we are all created. These explorations of the doctrine of the image of God offer readers a rich and satisfying smorgasbord of essays and art that repays careful reading and reflection."

Oliver D. Crisp, Fuller Theological Seminary

"Bringing together art, literature and theology, these essays are a prism of Christian reflection on what is perhaps the most urgent question of our time: What does it mean to be a human being created in the image of God?"

Timothy George, Beeson Divinity School, general editor of the Reformation Commentary on Scripture

"The essays collected in this volume explore the intersection of theology and culture. With topics ranging across biblical exegesis, the art gallery, Cormac McCarthy, racism, sexuality, and theosis, the contributors offer a unified vision of what it means to be truly human and created in the divine image in the world today."

Interpretation, 70(4), 2016
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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Beth Felker Jones and Jeffrey W. Barbeau
Zola, Imago Dei, on Her First Birthday
Jill Peláez Baumgaertner
Whiteout
Brett Foster

Part I: Canon
1. ‘In the Image of God He Created Them’: How Genesis 1:26-27 Defines the Divine-Human Relationship and Why It Matters
Catherine McDowell
2. Poised Between Life and Death: The Imago Dei After Eden
William A. Dyrness
3. ‘True Righteousness and Holiness’: The Image of God in the New Testament
Craig L. Blomberg

Part II: Culture
4. Uncovering Christ: Sexuality in the Image of the Invisible God
Timothy R. Gaines and Shawna Songer Gaines
5. Culture Breaking: In Praise of Iconoclasm
Matthew J. Milliner
6. Carrying the Fire, Bearing the Image: Theological Reflections on Cormac McCarthy?s The Road
Christina Bieber Lake

Part III: Vision
7. What Does It Mean to See Someone? Icons and Identity
Ian A. McFarland
8. Image, Spirit and Theosis: Imaging God in an Image-Distorting World
Daniela C. Augustine
9. The God of Creative Address: Creation, Christology and Ethics
Janet Soskice

Part IV: Witness
10. The Sin of Racism: Racialization of the Image of God
Soong-Chan Rah
11. Witnessing in Freedom: Resisting Commodification of the Image
Beth Felker Jones
12. The Storm of Images: The Image of God in Global Faith
Philip Jenkins

Epilogue
Jeffrey W. Barbeau and Beth Felker Jones
List of Contributors
Name and Subject Index
Scripture Index

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BONUS MATERIAL

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ABOUT Beth Felker Jones

Beth Felker Jones

Beth Felker Jones (PhD, Duke University) is associate professor of theology at Wheaton College and former assistant professor of Bible and Religion at Huntington University. She is the author of The Marks of His Wounds: Gender Politics and Bodily Resurrection and Practicing Christian Doctrine: An Introduction to Thinking and Living Theologically. Jones is a columnist for the Christian Century and has written articles for publications such as Duke Divinity School's Faith and Leadership and Christianity Today's Her.meneutics blog. She lives in Wheaton, Illinois, with her husband, Brian (a United Methodist pastor), and their four children.

ABOUT Jeffrey W. Barbeau

Jeffrey W. Barbeau

Jeffrey W. Barbeau (PhD, Marquette University) is professor of theology at Wheaton College. He is the author or editor of several books, including Religion in Romantic England: An Anthology of Primary Sources; Sara Coleridge: Her Life and Thought; Coleridge, the Bible, and Religion; The Image of God in an Image Driven Age; Spirit of God: Christian Renewal in the Community of Faith; and Coleridge's Assertion of Religion: Essays on the Opus Maximum.

Barbeau holds graduate degrees in English literature, theology, and religious studies, and he writes and researches on British Romanticism, theology and literature, the nineteenth century, Methodist history, and Wesleyan theology. He is an active member and Sunday school teacher at Grace United Methodist Church in Naperville, Illinois, and lives with his wife, Aimee, and their children.

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