Considering Beauty in a World in Turmoil

Sarah Stewart-Kroeker

Abstract

Is beauty relevant to the ethical challenges facing humanity in light of the current ecological crisis? This text links aesthetic reflection to an eschatological imagination that integrates all of creation into the resurrection. Moving from Plato and contemporary philosophers like Alexander Nehamas and Mavis Biss—who all affirm a relationship between beauty and ethics—this article develops a theological aesthetics of the resurrected wounds of Christ’s body. An eschatological imagination that affirms the presence of these wounds on the resurrected body holds humanity accountable for disfiguring violence in the present. At the same time, such a vision offers hope for transfiguration. Might this eschatological vision of resurrected wounds be extended to all of creation in a way that incites human beings to act with care for a suffering world?
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