Others I have found. . .

Doing some web searching, I have found the following:

Carl P. E. Springer, Professor of Classics and Chair in the Department of Foreign Languages at Illinois State University, published a paper called "The Hermeneutics of Innocence:Literary Criticism from a Christian Perspective." I haven't read the whole thing, but Springer seems to suggest that a Christ-centered criticism would be more affirmative than the negativity that permeates contemporary critical theory. In the essay, Springer claims that current critical theories are based on a "hermeneutics of suspicion" which is, essentially, "distrustful in its methodology." A Christ-centered methodology, on the other hand, would be a methodology "of innocence" that would take writers at their word; it would be a charitable reading of everything. 

While interesting, at this point all I can say is that this comes across as overly narrow for a Christ-centered critical theory. After all, Jesus did tell his disciples to be "wise as serpents" because he was sending his disciples out as "sheep in the midst of wolves" (Matt. 10:16), and something tells me sheep don't walk in the midst of wolves with any kind of wide eyed innocence or naivete.


There is also a book, Towards a Christian Literary Theory, by Luke Ferreter, published by in 2003 by Palgrave Macmillan. I haven't read it (it's pretty darn expensive on Amazon), but there is a really good review of the book by Susan E. Hill here.

Here, Dennis Taylor, a professor from Boston College, writes about "The Need for a Religious Literary Criticism." He argues that the lack of a religious voice in academic discourse has created "a great vacuum in discussions of spirituality in literature [. . .]" and provides some examples of what that might look like--or, at least, some examples of what the"vacuum" looks like, the questions that remain unanswered in literary criticism because there is no investigation of spirituality from the perspective of spirituality.

Also, I found a podcast on "Literary Criticism" at a site called The Christian Humanist. I haven't listened to or read any of it because--well, because I just started this and, at some point, I do have to get back to work! But I plan to.

Beyond these few, specific examples that I found (today), I also know that there are MANY academic journals on religion, but my question for them is: do they use religion as a critical lens, or do they use other critical lenses to investigate religion (or both)?

I really don't know that much about the religious journals, however--or religious studies, for that matter. I am not a scholar of religion. I am not a religious educator (except to my children and the occasional stint in Sunday School). I do not use religion overtly in my art.

Quite frankly, I never wanted to be a religious scholar, either. I don't speak any ancient languages, I have no special training in that field. 

I do, however, believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and the Son of God, and I am comfortable with my faith as a bedrock for behavior and morality. What is new to me is this idea that there might be some room for me, as a scholar and an artist and an educator, for Christ's teachings to no longer be a kind of appendage, but the foundation, of my work--making the stone that builders rejected become the head of the corner, so to speak.

I think that's should be an adequate place to start.