When Joseph Smith read the written text of James 1:5, he followed the trail of letters to a quiet grove on the family farm. On an early spring morning, he had an experience so rich it overflowed the capacity of his mortal senses. More than once, Joseph wrote down what happened in that grove. Each attempt, while useful in its context, couldn’t fully capture the meaning of the events of that day.
The meaning of a religious experience is always more than can be conveyed through words. What other forms do we have to describe our encounters with God? In our own young religious tradition, we have examples of artists, musicians, playwrights, and filmmakers who have made use of their particular forms to offer their own religious experiences and interpretations.
This kind of artistry engages all our senses to create a powerfully instructive experience of divinity. Our religious art is a potent source of theology, in part because it is a shared experience of new ways of seeing, hearing, and imagining life. When together we behold God in these new ways, as we do in our temple worship and regular meetings, we enter a sacred space of communion.
What image in the distinct tradition of Latter-day Saint art best represents the visual expression of our theology? Wayfare asked this question of several artists and scholars. What follows is a collection of essays exploring this question. Each author has thought deeply on how Latter-day Saint art has both interpreted and expanded our beliefs. Join us as we experience a theology beyond words, a theology of color, composition, and light.
Reflections on J. Kirk Richards's "Breath of Life"
I’m not convinced that Latter-day Saints can ever have true and traditional theologians. We can theologize—and I do believe that is what we’re doing when we “seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). But members are a part of an institution, a church,
Stilling the Storm
The degree to which I still identify with Mormonism and Mormon theology has become increasingly fraught in the past decade. But the visual arts sometimes pull me back, not only as reminders of the faith tradition I once loved but also as expressions of the complications within that tradition that I still find evocative and compelling—even from a post-re…