Congratulations to Current contributing editor Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt! She received a Christianity Today “Award of Merit” in the “Culture and Arts” category for her book Redeeming Vision: A Christian Guide to Looking at and Learning from Art.
Here are the words of one of the judges:
Our Christian faith should inform and affect how we see the world around us. That includes the art we look at, whether in a museum, on a computer screen, or with our smartphone. With engaging prose, Redeeming Vision begins by equipping its readers with some basic analytical principles and vocabulary. The rest of the book—divided into two sections: “Love the Lord Your God” and “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself”—encourages us to respond to art not with a detached disinterest but with a readiness to love God and neighbor, a willingness to analyze, and an openness to be changed by what we see.Â
Back in March, we celebrated the launch of Redeeming Vision with this piece at The Arena. Weichbrodt wrote:
I wrote Redeeming Vision: A Christian Guide to Looking at and Learning from Art to fill a gap in the literature on faith and art. There are numerous, rich texts that propose philosophical and theological reasons for why Christians should engage the visual arts. And, there are works that use a Christian worldview as a lens for evaluating art and critiquing culture more broadly. But what we don’t have is a practical guide that equips the everyday viewer to look at art and images in a productive way.
Redeeming Vision is an invitation to learn from, not just about, artworks by looking closely and curiously. The first three chapters introduce readers to foundational practices for looking at art and visual culture, providing vocabulary, first steps, and helpful questions. The remainder of the book explores different categories and genres of art, using case studies to model a variety of ways that we can respond productively to all kinds of images.
Elissa’s book is not the only 2024 Christianity Today book award winner to be featured in some way at Current. Here are a few more:
Karen Swallow Prior was a finalist in the “Culture and Arts” category for The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis. Check out our interview with her in Episode 115 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast.
Lucy S.R. Austen was the winner in the “History/Biography” category for Elisabeth Elliott: A Life. Check out Austen’s writing at Current as well as Michael Jimenez’s review of her award-winning biography.
Nancy Koester received an award of merit in the “History/Biography category for We Will Be Free: The Life and Faith of Sojourner Truth. Check out our interview with Koester in Episode 109 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast.
Hannah Nation and her co-editor J.D. Tseng were finalists in the Missions/Global Church category for Faithful Disobedience: Writings on Church and State from a Chinese House Church Movement. Check out Nation’s Current piece, “Separation of Church and State, China Style.”
Congratulations to all the winners!