Theologian to Give Talk on Spirituality and the Arts at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – Alejandro García-Rivera, professor of systematic theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, will give a lecture titled “The Sense of Beauty and the Talk of God: Theology and the Arts” Monday, Feb. 18 at 4 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The event, sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, is free and open to the public.

“I will argue that talk of God finds its most profound depth in the sense of beauty,” explains García-Rivera. “By sense of beauty, I mean a spiritual sense of the beautiful that has not been recognized by philosophical aesthetes or art criticism. This sense is the basis of what some have called a theological aesthetics.”

García-Rivera will illustrate this with two examples: the holy card of St. Martin of Porres and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

He earned his B.S. from Miami University, his M.S. at Ohio State University, and his M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. García-Rivera is known for his innovative approach to teaching and is sought out for his ability to guide his students through their master's and doctoral degrees.  His research interests include interfaith aesthetics, theology and the arts, suffering and the human person, and the intersection between science and theology.

García-Rivera has won numerous awards for his writings, which include spiritual essays in publications such as U. S. Catholic and Momento Catolico and scholarly works such as St. Martin de Porres: The Little Stories, The Semiotics of Culture and The Community of the Beautiful: A Theological Aesthetics. He is currently working on a book titled A Wounded Innocence: Sketches for a Theology of Art.