Abstract
In the midst of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, new unexpected and extraordinary scenes and sounds of aesthetical biblical and apocalyptic proportions are witnessed. Community and religious gatherings in public spaces are prohibited. Modern, conventional and traditional human achievements have become futile. One can describe the COVID-19 pandemic, and this new search for meaning as a juxtaposed tension of metaphorical apocalyptic vistas and metaphorical biblical vistas. The Bible holds the same juxtaposed tension which may help humanity to rediscover the semantics of biblical truth and hope – but it also espouses a metaphorical liberational vista of transcendence. Coronavirus could be a metaphor for something with extraordinary new possibilities. The biblical metaphors are being amplified in different metaphorical vistas to make it more discerning or accessible to the world population today. As a metaphorical liberation vista, it may offer new hope for a new kind of living, a new kind of humanity, a new kind of knowing and believing and a new kind of world order.Contribution: This article offers a Practical Theological contribution to the significance of the Bible within the COVID-19 pandemic context. Human suffering and divine metaphorical vistas encapsulate prospects for truth, hope and new meaning for the liberation of humanity.
Highlights
The dawn of the year 2020 characterises: [F]ear, ignorance, deep levels of panic and uncertainty
The aesthetics of crisis engendered by COVID-19 brought the Bible full blow and in plain public sight to the marketplace where it was all along supposed to feature, live and act – not in habituated, dominated or domesticated liturgies captured between church walls on a Sunday or denominations, but outside of the walls of the Temple in Jerusalem, outside the city, on an ash heap, where waist is gathered, where you will find the cross of the living Christ (Jn 19:17ff.; Lk 23:33)
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author
Summary
The dawn of the year 2020 characterises: [F]ear, ignorance, deep levels of panic and uncertainty. The name Anthony Noble warrants no introduction, because it has become enshrined in the minds, experiences, lives and psyche of so many people in the country His love and passion for the well-being of society makes him not just a role model of distinction but an instrument in God’s hand to yield awareness, discernment and an ongoing search for new meaning in and through aesthetical vistas. Noble does enact public educational art presentations as an end in itself (Noble 2018), he is constantly projecting faith-filled imagery and symbols as a proclamation of biblical truths within particular contextual realities, especially for those particular audiences who encounter existential or ontological challenges (Noble 2020a) His artistic skill and the quality of his artwork can be ascribed to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and his faith in the crucified Christ who died and rose as conqueror over strife, pandemics and death. Compare and experience the aesthetical vistas in the following video, If this time, by McCormack (2020) at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=FlNeXA-fRZE
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