The Artist Alive

Are songwriters, painters, filmmakers, and other artists modern-day prophets in society and church? Can art be a vehicle of hope, stirring that wondrous if elusive capacity in human beings to imagine a more just, humane, and joyful future?


Through critical and contemplative engagement with classics in music, film, literature, and visual arts, Christopher Pramuk’s The Artist Alive: Explorations in Music, Art & Theology invites us to explore these and other questions. Attentive to the deep longings of the human and spiritual journey, Pramuk posits the arts as a doorway into the life of spirit and sacred presence. Rather than proposing “answers,” he outlines a way of seeing, hearing, and praying through some of life’s most enduring spiritual and theological questions. With more than a dozen case studies featuring various artists, prompts for contemplative practices, and a focus on today’s most urgent social and spiritual issues, The Artist Alive weaves a spirituality of wonder, resistance, and hope: a prophetic response to the utilitarian and militarized, marketplace vision of reality that bears down on and dehumanizes so many in our time. Through loving examination of artists and their art, Pramuk convincingly conveys the possibility of a more humane and joyful way of being in the world.