Teaching Guide for <em>Beyond the Written Word</em>: Exploring Faith through Christian Art

Only in the past few hundred years has reading been the primary way of teaching religion. For centuries, religious education relied on hearing and seeing. Religious education can benefit by returning to the ages-old methods of hearing and seeing to complement reading. Beyond the Written Word: Exploring Faith Through Christian Art and this teaching guide enable you to make one of the old ways--seeing--available to twenty-first-century students. This teaching guide offers a brief history of Christian art, an explanation of the value of art in religious education today, a survey of Beyond the Written Word and some hints for starting out.

"This is a book about deepening our understanding of our faith. In times past, when people could not read, it was through pictures that they came to realize the glory of God's world and the meaning of the Good News that is the Gospel. The more we learn about God, the more we understand our own selves. As a happy bonus, this fine book also educates us in the history of art and in its significance. All teachers will profit from this book, and so will all those who can teach themselves."
--Sister Wendy Beckett, author of The Story of Painting and Sister Wendy's American Collection, both seen on PBS; plus Art and the Sacred, 1000 Masterpieces, and other books