New Book, Toronto, Crete, Chicago, etc.

some upcoming events and publications

I’m excited to have signed a new book contract. As the Publisher’s Weekly announcement put it, I will “show readers how, in a world of visual overload, to draw on art history and Christian wisdom across traditions to help navigate our visual age.” Look out, C.S. Lewis, my working title is Mere Iconography. Look out, Jordan Peterson, my working subtitle is “12 Principles of Christian Visual Wisdom in the Digital Age.” Of course, I expect to exceed the sales of both Mere Christianity (4 million copies sold) and 12 Rules for Life (10 million) COMBINED. With 14 million copies guaranteed, I’ll soon be rich enough that I can afford right now give away my marketing strategy (only to readers of this Substack of course) FOR FREE:

Also, if you’d like to join us at the University of Toronto for the Larkin-Stuart lecture entitled “Toronto the Holy” later this month, please do. There are several events surrounding the 70th anniversary of the sumptuous Trinity Chapel by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. I’ve managed to squeeze a lot into this Canadian cocktail of an address: Henri Nouwen, Inuit art, Emily Carr, Ojibwe Christianity, Piero della Francesca, even the meta-historical Fall. It’s free but if you’d like to attend you must register here. The conference the next day looks wonderful and I’ll be there for all of it.

Toronto (photo via wiki)

Right after that I’ll be the Orthodox Academy of Crete for a conference on Entangled Christianities. The rush of a research breakthrough is quite the thrill, and for this paper, I’m glad to say I think I made one. I am therefore especially excited to present on unexpected places that Church of the East (a.k.a. “Nestorian”) Syriac influence appears in the frescoes of Cyprus, frescoes which remain the key to all theologies (more on those frescoes this book of course).

On the local end, if you’d like to come by on Dec. 8 to learn about a string of Marian “Miracles on Roosevelt Road” here in Chicagoland at the good ol’ Wheaton Public Library, you can register here. You can watch this one online as well, but to have you in person would be wonderful.

Also, please stay tuned for an article in Mockingbird Magazine on the Precious Moments Chapel (wherein kitsch will be redeemed), and for this month’s Material Mysticism which will be entitled “Evangelicalism: A Love Story” (you can sign up, as always, here).

Thank you as ever for reading.