Journal: Conspectus
Volume: CONSPECTUS 40:1 (Oct 2025)
Article: Book Review: "Evangelical Theological Aesthetics: A Theology Of Beauty And Perception"
Author: Anonymous

SATS 40:1 (October 2025) p. 96

Book Review: Evangelical Theological Aesthetics: A Theology Of Beauty And Perception

Currie, Ryan. 2025. Evangelical Theological Aesthetics: A Theology of Beauty and Perception. Eugene: Pickwick Publications. xvii, 300 pp. ISBN: 979–8–3852–1945–2. Approx. 832.50 ZAR (44.77 USD). Ebook.

It is exciting to see a rising trend of theological monographs written by evangelical scholars drawing insights and wisdom from the Church universal, both outside of their tradition and across the centuries, to nourish their own tradition toward a greater love for God and his creation. When such a book is about beauty from a protestant perspective, it has the potential for making a substantial contribution.

Evangelical Theological Aesthetics: A Theology of Beauty and Perception is such a work. Its author is Ryan Currie, who holds a Ph.D. from the South African Theological Seminary. He is an Assistant Professor of Bible and Theology and is the Dean of Students at Gulf Theological Seminary in the U.A.E. Evangelical Theological Aesthetics was written in conversation with historical thinkers from Athanasius to Martin Luther and Karl Rahner, but also in a rich dialogue with Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. It contains a Foreword by Samuel G. Parkison, an Introduction, six chapters that develop the main idea of the book, a Conclusion, and a rich bibliography. It is a work of integrative systematic theology and thus very conversant with various theological and philosophical disciplines, and to an extent with the arts.

In the Introduction, Currie discerns two dominant approaches to theological aesthetics, one influenced by Karl Rahner’s theology, and the other developed by Hans Urs von Balthasar. Currie opts for Balthasar and appropriates his theological aesthetic as a first step to developing an evangelical theological aesthetics. In chapter two, the author shows “How Evangelicals Have a Theology of Beauty,” pointing his readers to various protestant theologians (e.g., King, Parkison, Begbie) who developed a particularly evangelical theology of the arts. Even though evangelicals usually do not “perceive beauty as a theological category” (p. 4), Currie notes that there are notable exceptions among evangelical thinkers who think deeply on this topic (e.g., Lewis, Witmer, Wolterstorff, Vanhoozer). Two crucial evangelical contributions to theology of beauty are its emphasis on the Fall and the worldview approach to arts.

Chapter three reviews “Theological Aesthetic Concepts in Historical Theology,” from church fathers to Balthasar’s 20th-century contemporaries. Currie tackles the question of the tension between spiritual and physical beauty (pp. 46–47). The Church Fathers believed that the source of this ...