Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age

by Gregory Wolfe (Goodreads Author)

4.3 of 5 stars 4.30 · rating details · 50 ratings · 11 reviews

Culture, Not Politics

We live in a politicized time. Culture wars and increasingly partisan conflicts have reduced public discourse to shouting matches between ideologues. But rather than merely bemoaning the vulgarity and sloganeering of this era, says acclaimed author and editor Gregory Wolfe, we should seek to enrich the language of civil discourse. And the best way to d...more Culture, Not Politics

We live in a politicized time. Culture wars and increasingly partisan conflicts have reduced public discourse to shouting matches between ideologues. But rather than merely bemoaning the vulgarity and sloganeering of this era, says acclaimed author and editor Gregory Wolfe, we should seek to enrich the language of civil discourse. And the best way to do that, Wolfe believes, is to draw nourishment from the deepest sources of culture: art and religious faith.

Wolfe has been called “one of the most incisive and persuasive voices of our generation,” and this penetrating and wide-ranging book makes a powerful case for the importance of beauty and imagination to cultural renewal. He begins by tracing his own journey from a young culture warrior bent on attacking the modern world to a career devoted to nurturing the creation of culture through contemporary literature and art that renew the Western tradition. Along the way, Wolfe finds in Renaissance Christian humanists like Erasmus and Thomas More—and their belief that imagination and the arts are needed to offset the danger of ideological abstractions— a “distant mirror” in which to see our own times.

Beauty Will Save the World offers a revealing introduction to the artists and thinkers who are the Christian humanists of the modern era, from well-known figures like Evelyn Waugh and Wendell Berry to lesser-known authors like Shusaku Endo, Andrew Lytle, and Geoffrey Hill. A section on visual artists Mary McCleary, Fred Folsom, and Makoto Fujimura (accompanied by reproductions of their works) demonstrates that there are artists who can reimagine the Western tradition in strikingly contemporary terms. Finally, Wolfe pays tribute to the conservative thinkers who served as his mentors: Russell Kirk, Gerhart Niemeyer, Marion Montgomery, and Malcolm Muggeridge— all of whom rejected rigid ideology and embraced culture and tradition.

At a time when our public discourse has come to be dominated by warring factions with little regard for truth, Wolfe’s affirmation of beauty as a redemptive force is both refreshing and encouraging.(less)

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published June 15th 2011 by Intercollegiate Studies Institute

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Books I will, God willing, read in 2012

70th out of 122 books — 28 voters

Liberation Theology by Robert McAfee Brown

A Guide for the Perplexed by E.F. Schumacher

Books I will read, God willing, in 2012, redeux

55th out of 100 books — 2 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 218)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

May 05, 2012 D.M. Dutcher rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

A collection of essays and short biographical sketches loosely organized into a book. Only half of the book is directly devoted to the premise listed in the title, and it's not very good. Too much focus on the author himself and too much repetition. (count the times you see T.S. Eliot mentioned in the first two chapters.) Even then, he seems far more interested in doing brief literary biography and criticism of specific writers than making a lucid or serious manifesto about how beauty will save...more A collection of essays and short biographical sketches loosely organized into a book. Only half of the book is directly devoted to the premise listed in the title, and it's not very good. Too much focus on the author himself and too much repetition. (count the times you see T.S. Eliot mentioned in the first two chapters.) Even then, he seems far more interested in doing brief literary biography and criticism of specific writers than making a lucid or serious manifesto about how beauty will save the world.

The second part he just gives up and profiles artists, writers, and others he likes. It's much better because he's decent at criticism and chooses non-standard artists for the most part. However if you are buying it for the premise, you quite possibly already know about or have read the artists listed. This would make a much better book for a bright young religious "high" artist-the kind who reads literary fiction, can appreciate modern art, and is a bit of a classicist while not being conservative to the point of close mindedness. But I tend to be a "low" writer who can appreciate kitsch and makes no pretensions to literary merit, and even I know who Shusaku Endo, Evelyn Waugh, Wendell Berry, and many of the people he writes of are. There's really only a small amount of high Christian artists in recent history, so many people may not find the book adding much to their knowledge of them.

If anything, you might find yourself a little tired of some of them he does select. I for one think it must be a part of the Catholic Catechism to always mention Walker Percy or Flannery O'Connor in any book having anything to deal with the arts. It's also pretty obvious the author is a trad Catholic from his selections, the bulk of the writers or examples are Catholic. Not a deal killer or anything, but there's a certain sensibility you may have encountered before.

If you look at it as an introduction to something that is alien to you, it's meh.
The New Religious Humanists by him is a better book for that. I don't recommend it otherwise, but it's not offensive enough for me to dislike it.(less)

like · see review

Nov 25, 2011 Matt Bianco rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: political

Over the summer, I was sitting in a hotel lobby reading Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child while waiting for the opening ceremonies of a conference on classical education. A young man approached me and commented how much he liked that book. I told him that it might be my favorite book of 2011 once I finished it. He responded that it could be, but wondered if I had read Beauty Will Save the World--his favorite book of 2011. I hadn't.

Now I have. I think it would be fair to distingui...more Over the summer, I was sitting in a hotel lobby reading Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child while waiting for the opening ceremonies of a conference on classical education. A young man approached me and commented how much he liked that book. I told him that it might be my favorite book of 2011 once I finished it. He responded that it could be, but wondered if I had read Beauty Will Save the World--his favorite book of 2011. I hadn't.

Now I have. I think it would be fair to distinguish something about these two books before I say which is my favorite.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child is witty and fun. It is the type of book that causes one to evaluate how he has/is/will raise his children. It does so in a positive way.

Beauty Will Save the World is a slower read. It is the type of book that will cause one to think about how he approaches politics and ideology, literature and the arts.

On that note, they are each my favorite in their respective categories. BWSTW has led to many the philosophising and pantagruelizing sessions with friends. I have begun reevaluating how I try to put truth into the souls of my children and those with whom I have the opportunity to interact. I suppose there are many examples we can think of where spouting data at a person has not had the impact we desired, while telling them the same truth as a story has. The Bible is primarily narrative, with only a minority of didactic passages. Historically, the abolitionist movement in America took off after Uncle Tom's Cabin was published and not because of the statistical arguments of the abolitionists.

BWSTW initially makes arguments for the importance of beauty (the arts: literature, poetry, paintings, and letters) in teaching and conveying truth to the culture. It then moves into examples of Christian humanists from each of the above categories. As author Gregory Wolfe discusses each artist, he takes an example (or two as the case may be) from each artist and dissects it, showing how it promotes truth through beauty. For that fact alone, the book would make a great tool for the study of any one or all of the artists. Additionally, it is a thought-provoking book towards the argument being promoted. As I said, it led to many thoughtful conversations with friends, conversations I suspect will continue for some time. It has changed the way I think about conveying truth, especially as I teach my eleventh graders.

All in all, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is willing to rethink teaching truth through beauty.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Jul 24, 2011 Kim Neve is currently reading it

The author of "Beauty will save the world" gets his quote from Dostoevsky. He says, on page one, "The phrase stuck in my mind, and found corroboration in my studies of the role of the imagination in the social order. Like Solzhenitsyn I have been won over by Dostoevsky's wisdom. Whereas I once believed that the decadence of the West could only be turned around through politics and intellectual dialectics, I am now convinced that authentic renewal can only emerge out of the imaginative visions of...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 06, 2013 Katie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book. I especially liked the chapters on authors and political figures. I think my favorites were Wendell Berry and Russell Kirk, because I was fascinated with them to begin with, but didn't know much. I also liked the section on Flannery O'Connor, because it helped me understand why I can't get comfortable in her stories.

Parts of the book were rough going. Sometimes I had trouble following his arguments. Other times I struggled with my own lack of theoretical literary knowledge. I...more

like · see review

Dec 12, 2012 Aeisele rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a very interesting collection of essays from the editor of the magazine Image. He tries to rehabilitate the need for artistic beauty. It is interesting because Wolfe is a conservative who attended Hillsdale College, the center of intellectual conservatism, but became disillusioned with much that past as "conservatism" in the wake of Reagan's election. He thus sets out to argue for a vision of conservatism that has affinities with Christian artists (or is it an artistic vision that has af...more

like · see review

May 05, 2012 Jeremy Purves rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: own

"There is a large body of believers who have essentially given up on contemporary culture; they may admire a few writers here or there, but they do not really believe that Western culture can produce anything that might inform and deepen their own faith. One might almost say that these individuals have given in to despair about our time. For me, the most depressing trend of all is the extent to which Christians have belittled or ignored the imagination and succumbed to politicized and ideologica...more "There is a large body of believers who have essentially given up on contemporary culture; they may admire a few writers here or there, but they do not really believe that Western culture can produce anything that might inform and deepen their own faith. One might almost say that these individuals have given in to despair about our time. For me, the most depressing trend of all is the extent to which Christians have belittled or ignored the imagination and succumbed to politicized and ideological thinking."
- pages 18-19

If you have never read Image Journal, it's high time you started. There is a large sense in which modern day Christianity has completely given up on the Arts. Just look at the architecture of modern day churches, and then compare that to old Christian churches built hundreds of years ago. The difference you see there is between a Christianity that believed that beauty was valuable and a modern version of Christianity that simply doesn't care anymore. Image is one of the only collections of current writers that I know who absolutely reject this modern trend. (Don't you wonder if the lost, the poor, and the needy used to be drawn to some churches simply by the veritable beauty of the windows and the architecture of the building itself? A building of which the construction itself was an act of worship?) The purpose of the Image quarterly journal is to focus on modern day artists (authors, poets, filmmakers, etc.) who are passionate about bringing back the old Medieval and Renaissance viewpoint once contained within Christianity that the good and the beautiful originate from God, and therefore, the creative imagination can produce works that point us in the right direction. The book, Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age, is written by the man who founded Image. His name is Gregory Wolfe.

If you enjoy thinking, Wolfe has thoughts and developing questions in this book that could keep you thinking and exploring a few fascinating ideas for a lifetime.

As you begin reading, it becomes obvious that the main insights that we are given in the book were only reached and crystallized by Wolfe after years of thought, experience and study. It may seem like a truism to some. But I doubt that many of us (and in my experience, hardly anyone who believes Christianity is true) have realized the full extent and consequences of one of his main ideas. The idea is this. In spite of politics (with the power to change laws that control our lives), in spite of religion (with the power to insulate us within protected and self-contained sub-cultures, even if we attempt to convert others from the outside into our own sub-culture), and in spite of education (with the power to shape the minds of the young), one of the most powerful ways to reach anyone and everyone (no matter what political party, religious creed, or educational background one happens to possess) is through the arts and humanities. In other words, through culture itself ...

http://redemptiosehnsucht.blogspot.co...(less)

1 like · like · see review

Aug 17, 2011 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-of-2011

I really liked this because of its message that the truth needs to be shown and seen as beautiful, in other words, that a raw, ideological message will not win the day. The clue is if you are preaching in fatigues and heavy boots (+ dark glasses), then you are probably off of the mark!

There are specific chapter on Evelyn Waugh, Russell Kirk, Wendell Berry,as well as a list of lesser known writers and artists. The general thrust is Catholic in the Roman sense, but there is plenty here for robust...more

like · see review

Mar 20, 2013 Lew added it

In my own search for a practical means by which my art-making can influence culture for the common good, Gregory Wolfe has given me tremendous counsel. It's one thing to identify and name a problem. It's quite another to demonstrate a remedy. Wolfe does so with tremendous insight, intelligence, and tangible, practical counsel. This book has earned its place on my Artist's Bookshelf as a life-reference work to be read and re-read.

like · see review

Dec 06, 2012 Lauren rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ah, if only Gregory Wolfe actually explained why beauty would save the world

like · see review

Dec 21, 2011 Bo White rated it 3 of 5 stars

Didn't like the structure as much (thought it was more unified than it is), but some of the insights and essays are good.

like · see review

Dec 15, 2012 Caitlin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Uneven, but the good parts are really good.

like · see review

May 12, 2013 Rachael Welch marked it as to-read

May 10, 2013 Katy is currently reading it

May 07, 2013 Besmir Hajnaj rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 06, 2013 Thoughtmix marked it as to-read

May 02, 2013 Brian marked it as to-read

Apr 30, 2013 Katrina marked it as to-read

Apr 29, 2013 Hannah marked it as to-read

Apr 22, 2013 Scott Cripps marked it as to-read

Apr 22, 2013 Julia marked it as to-read

Apr 17, 2013 Ryan L Blacketter rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Apr 13, 2013 Janet Tuck marked it as to-read

Apr 09, 2013 Audra marked it as to-read

Apr 07, 2013 Gregory Wolfe added it · (Review from the author)

Apr 06, 2013 Blossom marked it as to-read

Apr 06, 2013 Denise is currently reading it

Apr 01, 2013 Dakota marked it as to-read

Mar 31, 2013 Alessandra marked it as to-read

Mar 31, 2013 Chris Linebarger is currently reading it

Mar 29, 2013 Bethany marked it as to-read

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (1)

Genres

Non Fiction

4 users

Religion > Theology

3 users

Art

3 users

Philosophy

2 users

Culture

2 users

See top shelves...

About Gregory Wolfe

Gregory Wolfe is the founder and editor of Image, one of America’s leading quarterly journals. He serves as Writer in Residence and Director of the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Seattle Pacific University. His imprint, Slant, publishes literary fiction. Wolfe’s books include Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age, Intruding Upon the Timeless: Medi...more

More about Gregory Wolfe...

Books by Gregory Wolfe

God with Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas

Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith and Mystery

Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of Image

Circle of Grace: Praying with--and for--Your Children

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Beauty Will Save ...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age
avg rating	preview: Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age Goodreads rating: 4.30 (50 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10771378-beauty-will-save-the-world?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1302568909l/10771378.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10771378-beauty-will-save-the-world?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age by Gregory Wolfe[/url]

Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

combineOther Editions (1)

Genres

About Gregory Wolfe

Books by Gregory Wolfe

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About Beauty Will Save ...

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (1)