The Operation of Grace
Further Essays on Art, Faith, and Mystery
by Gregory Wolfe
An incisive collection of essays by Gregory Wolfe, literary critic and editor of the journal Image, exploring the interface between art and faith, aesthetics and spirituality.
The Operation of Grace collects a decade’s worth of essays by Gregory Wolfe taken from the pages of Image, the literary journal he founded more than a quarter century ago. As he notes in the preface, his Image editorials, while they cover a wide range of topics, focus on the intersection of art, faith, and mystery. Wolfe believes that art and religion, while hardly identical, offer illuminating analogies to one another – art deepening faith through the empathetic reach of the imagination and faith anchoring art in a vision beyond the artist’s ego. Several essays dwell on how aesthetic values like ambiguity, tragedy, and beauty enlarge our understanding of the spiritual life. There are also a series of reflections that extend Wolfe’s campaign to renew the neglected and often misunderstood tradition of Christian humanism. Finally, there are sections that contain more personal meditations arising from Wolfe’s involvement in nurturing and promoting the work of emerging writers and artists. The Operation of Grace demonstrates once again why novelist Ron Hansen has spoken of Wolfe as one of the most incisive and persuasive voices of our generation.
- By (author) Wolfe Gregory
"Greg Wolfe has done something remarkable for both the Christian community and the fractured, fractious culture we inhabit in the North Atlantic world. These essays amply show how a theologically informed perspective can generate a serious, adult, joyful inhabiting of creation."Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury"Each of these essays is an invocation - an act of summoning, a preparation for transfigurations yet to come."Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"It's tempting to read Greg Wolfe as a voice speaking to us from an earlier age, when faith and culture were not antagonists, but two sides to the same coin. This would be a mistake: the humane, intelligent essays in The Operation of Grace exist to remind us that that time isn't past at all."Christopher Beha, author of What Happened to Sophie Wilder"These occasional pieces in fact add up to a marvellous whole - an erudite, provocative whole, at times winsome and at times bracing. They are, in short, a gift."Lauren F. Winner, author of Girl Meets God
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