DEMEANING FAITH NOT AN ARGUMENT

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Demeaning faith not an argument

FO Hipwell's letter (Mailbox July 3) appears to seek evidence of existence of God and fails to note that religion is 'a faith or belief' not 'a fact'.

Atheism is neither a religion nor an ideology or a doctrine. It is a-theism, ie lack of religious faith. It does not present any system of ideas, nor does it promise any salvation. In this sense it is a "negative" or "impoverished" stance.

Of course, spirituality in the intellectual, cultural, or moral sense is common to believers and non-believers in various degrees.

By way of illustration, I would say that very many survivors of the atrocious conditions in Russian death camps, both in the 1930s and during the Second World War, have stated that only religion made them hold the very strong belief that there would be an end to their suffering – and their belief resulted in their survival.

In their opinion, lack of faith would have resulted in their deaths.

Religion is also a part of our Christian culture.

If, as is suggested, religion is a myth, what is one to do when one studies the biographies of Pythagoras, Galena (accused of witchcraft because he was a successful doctor), Averroes (logic in Islamic philosophy), Paracelsus, Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus (a famous free thinker), Newton, Goethe….? They all declared their faith in God. As did many a poet, composer and sculptor.

What are we to do with the works of these famous people in a secular world?

Already children know very little about these people and many other historical figures.

When asked, they look blankly at you and ask 'You what?"

Knowledge of Shakespeare's religion is important in understanding the man and his works, because of the wealth of biblical and liturgical allusions in his writings.

Demeaning people of faith does not advance Mr Hipwell's argument. One can only sympathise with his own "personal experiences" which led him to hold his current views.

Michael Myers, Leicester

ART & DESIGN DEGREE SHOW AT DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY, 2012

At De Montfort University this evening for the Art and Design Degree Show. I've been invited by Rosemarie Fitton, Senior Lecturer in Interior Design (and member of Leicester Council of Faiths). She introduces me to Evadine Okoye, one of the students whose work is on show here. That's Evadine in the photo above, in front of the display of her work (Rosemarie is on her left).

Evadine has worked on a project that combines spirituality and mental well-being: Restore, a Spiritual Healing Facility. This is a theme that's been a thread running through my post and through this blog.

Here's Evadine's page in the Interior Design catalogue (in which she lists her likes as Afrobeats, Jesus and mango juice; and her dislikes as rainy days, yam, public transport)

When considering an interior, I view it as a very important aspect especially when it comes to an individual and how they connect with a building and its spatial attributes. I believe that the interior space has a significant influence and also plays a vital role in determining a person's feelings as well as the environment they are in. While studying at De Montfort University I have gained a key interest in Theatrical/Set Design and recently, the ideology of Holy and Spiritual Places. My passion for both of these areas stems from the desire to understand the connection users have with the space and how they interact with the environment they are placed in.

Restore: A Spiritual Healing Facility 

Civilisation today offers various facilities and services such as Retreats, Rehab centres and Mental Institutions. These facilities require their own unique system, methods and schemes that are available to patients who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia; offering them the help and support they need. However a question that generally arises is how can we find another unconventional mechanism to assist, aid and support those who have been discharged from institutional units and are still desperate for a solution?

"For many living with schizophrenia, religion and spirituality have an important and positive role ... religion plays a central role in the processes of reconstructing a sense of self and recovery." (Dr D. Cornah, on behalf of the Mental Health Foundation, 2006)

Restore as a spiritual intervention within mainstream health care is a concept that has been designed to help aid the restoration of discharged schizophrenic patients who are still on the road to recovery. By using the practices of Christianity as a catalyst, it becomes an inspiration for the design that reinforces and penetrates a purity of hope and healing through the facility. With the concept relying on the sun path as the main source of lighting, the facility is emphasised as a place to seek a positive future for all sufferers.

KANDINSKY IN GOVAN

Alastair McIntosh's Face to faith column from today's Guardian:

A century ago this month, Wassily Kandinsky finished a little book called Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Today in Govan, a hard-pressed part of Glasgow, we are celebrating the Russian artist's ideas in a conference on art, spirituality and the future.

What was Kandinsky then, and why is it as relevant as ever today? 

Born in 1866 and living until 1944, Kandinsky grew up in a Russia where the consequences of modernity and nihilistic thought were hotly debated. 

The old certainties of state, church and the soul in the human condition were in turmoil. At the same time, there was excited hope of a spiritual renaissance led by the influx of new ideas from the east. As Kandinsky said: "The nightmare of materialism, which has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game, is not yet past; it holds the awakening soul still in its grip." 

As if in anticipation of some of today's Britart, he deplored art that "becomes the satisfaction of vanity and greed … a scramble for good things … of excessive competition, of over-production … this aimless, materialist art". 

He denounced the narcissistic wallow of "art for art's sake" – "this neglect of inner meanings … this vain squandering of artistic power" with its consequence that "hungry souls go hungry away". 

Instead, he urged, art must "feed the spirit" by revealing "the internal truth of art, the soul". This is its prophetic calling in serving society. The artist must "be priest of beauty". Beauty itself is that "which springs from the soul", being anchored in the sacred. 

It was Kandinsky's friend Paul Klee who said that "art does not render the visible; it renders visible". But how? 

Kandinsky's answer was through abstraction. Here I find myself more critical of him. The role of the artist, he suggested, is to separate out the spiritual from the material. Art should be an "advance into the kingdom of the abstract". 

We see this in the geometric abstraction of his later work. Largely gone are the scintillating salsas of dancing colour that made his earlier paintings so magical. 

We might ask: can the spiritual be abstracted from the material? Kandinsky, to his enduring credit, affirms the spiritual on the artistic map, but did he, at the same time, lose the plot by going too far down the road of abstraction? 

Can the incarnate – the infusion of spirit and matter – really be rendered disincarnate? Or has the time come to move towards a new spiritual realism – to art that can represent the outer world (and be able to paint and draw!), but which simultaneously reveals its interiority, its spirituality? 

But why does this matter? There is a local saying that if you throw a stone over a wall in Govan you'll hit an artist. 

The most vulnerable to suffering and with it, to evasions like addiction, are often the sensitive souls, the canaries down the toxic coalmines of our society. 

Such people need art – not pretentious elite art that is up its own backside – but art that recovers meaning, that calls back the soul. 

When I ask hard-pressed folks what they want of art I don't hear calls for the likes of Damien Hirst's For the Love of God with 8,601 diamonds glued to a human skull as "bling on bone". 

I hear people yearning for what Kandinsky saw as prophetic art. Art that reveals hope. Art that breathes the flow of life into the veins.

Alastair McIntosh (photo above) is a Quaker, writer and curator of Kandinsky in Govan.

Talk about bad timing, faithful reader! I have long loved Kandinsky and I used to live in Govan (it’s my ancestral homeland, if you like – as well as being the first place I lived in as a married man). I just came back from a week in Glasgow yesterday! I hadn't heard of this conference, nor had I heard of Govan Folk University, which is hosting it. Might have been a bit hard to persuad Harry (11) and Grace (9) to tag along though.