Crying for a Vision and Other Essays: The Collected Steve Scott Vol. One

posted in: Book Review, January 2013 | 0

Steve Scott: poet, musician, world traveler, song writer, and all around deep thinker. If you have wanted to dive into the mind behind the art, this book is a great place to start. So just what is in the mind of Mr. Scott? Well, two-thirds of the book is focused on examinations of artistic movements, thoughts, and principles. So if you are looking for something that goes into detail about his history with The 77s, Larry Norman, or other music-related topics, you won’t find a lot of that here. There is some – the last third is a great interview that does cover much of his musical / spoken word output. But that is really a minor (albeit interesting) part of the third section of the book. One major theme of the entire book is the need for multi-cultural awareness in church and art. We don’t need to be forcing the entire world to follow our Westernized way of doing things in any realm. But at the same time, Scott examines how the art world is straying down paths that ultimately lead to emptiness apart from God, and how Christians need to be bringing truth to the conversation in all venues and cultures. You will probably need to brush up on your art history (or at least have a browser open to Wikipedia) while reading parts of this book, as Scott can get into rather deep academic territory at times. But those willing to dig in will find gold at every turn. The interview in the third section of the book is very informative and well conducted by Gord Wilson. It pretty much covers Scott’s entire life and also hits on a wide range of topics – some that were covered in the book, and others that weren’t. If you are thinking that an interview is an odd addition to a collection of Steve Scott writings – wait until you read it. It makes perfect sense. Wilson also contributes a study guide for the first part of the book, with questions and activities appropriate for individual or group study (as well as ideas for art projects). This book may be only 130 pages long, but it will probably take longer for you to dig through all the meat here than most modern trilogies out there.

[2007 AuthorHouse | Purchase: alivingdog.com]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*