To Set the World Aflame: How Artists Bear Witness to the Fullness of God's Creation - Hardcover

by W. David O. Taylor (Author), Sandra McCracken (Foreword by)

Artists are more than creatives; they are stewards of truth, goodness, and beauty.

In To Set the World Aflame, W. David O. Taylor offers artists a vision for their vocation and encouragement in their life and work. He explores how artists help us to come fully alive and make sense of our world in deeply meaningful ways.

Drawing together insights from Scripture, history, theology, aesthetics, missiology, and spiritual formation, To Set the World Aflame explores how artists are called to be

● caretakers of the imagination, custodians of the emotions, and stewards of the senses;
● makers of life who shape the imaginations of others and serve the common good;
● wholly alive and wholly themselves; and
● witnesses to creation as the theater of God's glory and grace.

Artists infuse our lives with aesthetic vibrancy and invest it with meaning in a way that enables us to enter into the fullness of God's re-creative purposes for our world. They set the world aflame with their creative activities and thereby reflect the glory of God's own artistry.

To Set the World Aflame shows artists how all that they make--from art installations and moving pictures to graphic novels, gourmet meals, and Gothic cathedrals--brings us into an intentional and intensive experience of the aesthetic aspect of our lives. Here readers will find a theology of art and beauty that calls Christian creatives to their highest purpose.

Back Jacket

A Vision for the Calling of Artists

Artists are more than creatives; they are stewards of truth, goodness, and beauty. They infuse our lives with aesthetic vibrancy and invest it with meaning in a way that enables us to enter into the fullness of God's re-creative purposes for our world.

In To Set the World Aflame, W. David O. Taylor explores how artists help us to come fully alive and make sense of our world in deeply meaningful ways.

"As a pastor-theologian, David Taylor has spent a lifetime encouraging artists. Here, in this fine book, we witness his ability to make the mystery of art accessible and the complexity of being an artist real."
--Makoto Fujimura, artist and author of Art Is: A Journey into the Light

"With both theological rigor and pastoral tenderness, David Taylor offers artists a robustly trinitarian vision of our calling. Beyond simply affirming the value of artistic work, David challenges us to explore biblical models of making, to pursue virtues and disciplines that allow for flourishing, and to consider the communal, missional vitality of what we do."
--Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt, Covenant College; author of Look like a Lady: Five Visual Tropes of Womanhood and How to See Ourselves Differently

"This is unlike any other book. It is at once a manifesto and a tender work of pastoral care. It is a comprehensive theological vision wrapped in the beauty of the arts (and beguiling prose). Here is the voice of a teacher who cares."
--James K. A. Smith, Calvin University; author of You Are What You Love, Imagining the Kingdom, and Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark

Author Biography

W. David O. Taylor (ThD, Duke Divinity School) is associate professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. An Anglican priest, he has lectured widely on the arts, from Thailand to South Africa, and has written for The Washington Post, Religion News Service, Image Journal, and Christianity Today. His books include Open and Unafraid, A Body of Praise, Prayers for the Pilgrimage, and Glimpses of the New Creation. In 2016, Taylor produced a short film on the psalms with Bono and Eugene Peterson. He lives on twenty-one acres of land east of Austin, Texas, with his wife and children.