Allegory and the Body as Icon: Evelyn Underhill and Barbara Brown Taylor

When faith traditions confront postmodern uncertainties regarding historical liturgical practices, political and cultural ideologies, the self and sacred space, the assurance of truth claims, allegorical readings and interpretations of sites where divine presence is found are equally questioned. Can...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Walker, Maxine (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2022
In: Feminist theology
Year: 2022, Volume: 30, Issue: 2, Pages: 179-196
IxTheo Classification:CB Christian life; spirituality
CE Christian art
FD Contextual theology
KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history
KDE Anglican Church
Further subjects:B Evelyn Underhill
B Icons
B Barbara Brown Taylor
B faith traditions
B reading strategies
B Postmodern
B Allegory
B via media
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:When faith traditions confront postmodern uncertainties regarding historical liturgical practices, political and cultural ideologies, the self and sacred space, the assurance of truth claims, allegorical readings and interpretations of sites where divine presence is found are equally questioned. Can allegorical interpretations offer a valuable strategy in postmodern understandings for identifying how Divine presence is embodied? One possibility is to discover how two Anglican women embody their faith community’s via media and in turn these women may be read as an “open icon.” To provide contrasting views, Orthodox Icons are particularly noted for their allegorical certainties that identify and point with sharp clarification to Tradition and the Church’s sacramental understandings. An allegorical frame “closes” the Orthodox icon. In a postmodern view, allegory “opens” said frame to a vast horizontal landscape that discovers spaces, places, and persons in which the Holy Spirit works mysteriously and unexpectedly. Both Evelyn Underhill and Barbara Brown Taylor writing almost a century apart and each encountering their respective historical reactions to “modernism,” trace the margins of their faith along the Anglican understanding of the via media. In doing so, both suggest the notion of “open” icon—the body itself.
ISSN:1745-5189
Contains:Enthalten in: Feminist theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/09667350211055450