Architecture and Theology

Murray A. Rae is Professor of Theology at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

Preface 1. New Ways of Seeing: Doing Theology through the Spatial Arts 2. A Place to Dwell: Construing the World through the Construction of Place 3. Freedom and Rule: Conceiving the Law as a Realm of Freedom and Creativity 4. Making All Things New:Transforming the World through Adaptation and Renewal 5. A Foretaste of Heaven: Anticipating the New Jerusalem through the Civitas Terrena 6. Knowing and Dwellin: Considering Epistemology through Habitation and Homelessness 7. Presence and Absence: Discerning the Transcendent in the Realm of the Immanent 8. Places Full of Time: Marking Time through the Medium of Place 9. Building from the Rubble: Reaching for Redemption through Memory and Hope

In the course of his exploration of how architecture might engage theology, Rae provides an effective critique of modernity and its emphasis on individualism and rationalism, its rejection of history and tradition, and its dualistic rejection of the material world. -- Claude N. Stulting, Jr. -- Reading Religion Architecture and Theology opens with a lucid exploration of what 'dwelling' means for communities, and moves towards ways of understanding freedom, renewal, belonging, and time by showing how theological architecture is, and how architectural theology is. -- Ayla Lepine -- Church Times Murray Rae's most recent book, Architecture and Theology: The Art of Place , is a storehouse of insight. Though the book's title may seem to suggest an exclusive audience, thoughtful readers from all disciplines would find this work worth their time. For those with artistic sensibilities, Rae's work is an absolute delight. For others, for whom art and architecture are simply curiosities, his work is a warm invitation to look more closely at the world we inhabit as well as a guide for discovering wonders in the woodwork and 'angels in the architecture.' -- Jessica J. Schroeder -- Denver Journal Here is a book that repays attention. It ranges widely, and in the end it left me with the appealing thought that archi-tecture could well be an art form that articulates both our need for redemp-tion as well as our need to perceive that we dwell in an ordered cosmos. -- Christopher Irvine -- Art and Christianity Rae does indeed survey a remarkable number of architectural concepts, models for urban development, and spans the history of architecture from classical Greece to the still incomplete Sagrada Familia Basilica. That he does so without overwhelming the architectural novice is noteworthy; that he can simultaneously offer a thorough and thoughtful engagement with theology, ethics, and postmodern philosophy is nothing short of remarkable. -- Sara E. Evans -- Pacific Journal of Theological Research ...This impressive work draws not only on extensive reading of recent literature on the theory and history of architecture but also on the author's own early experience as an architectural student at Auckland in 1984. As such, it represents a sustained attempt to interpret architecture in terms of the theology that he now sees as his principal field of expertise. -- David Brown -- The Journal of Theological Studies