new church life: jan uary / february 201 4
press for the sake of the dissemination of His Word; and looking at stunning
Renaissance tapestries.
Senior girls are treated to a medieval feast and present projects after
completing their study of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Art students studying
stained glass see demonstrations of how both medieval and Bryn Athyn glass
was blown, and use examples from Glencairn’s stained glass collection as
inspiration for their own created works of art.
College courses that integrate the Museum’s collections into their
curriculum range from Ancient, Early
Christian and Medieval art history, to
religion courses on the Pre-Christian Church
and the Torah, to history courses in the
classical world, Greek and Roman Religion
and the Middle Ages, to a course on Bryn
Athyn’s National Historic Landmark District
in which students do primary source research
in the Glencairn Archives, which house the
written records of the historic district, and a
new course on archives theory.
In Anthropology/History 211: Artifacts,
Archaeology and Museums (part of Bryn
Athyn College’s new public history minor)
students use the museum as their “laboratory”
and hear from a number of Glencairn’s staff
as guest lecturers on issues including collecting ethics, exhibitry design and
object interpretation.
When I taught medieval history we used objects from the collections to
gain a deeper understanding of how the medieval mind conceived of God and
how they believed they were supposed to live their lives. What does it mean if
we see God as the ultimate feudal lord, as the medieval Church depicted in this
window, (see image on page 76), to whom we owe duties and obligations out of
fear? Or an all-powerful, distant, vengeful judge, who seeks to damn us to hell
if not for the protection of the Virgin Mary, as visually reinforced through this
fresco? (See image on page 76.)
How do these views contrast with the idea of an all-loving, merciful Lord
who wishes all of us freely to choose a life of good and an eternal life in heaven
as presented in the Writings for the New Church? Are we to reject completely
the natural world, retreating from it to wage spiritual battle against temptation,
as was the ideal for the medieval monks who passed by this visual reminder
several times each day? (See image on page 76.) How does this compare to
what we are taught about living a life of charity and use?
One parent of a
visiting school
group wrote:
‘This was the
most educational
and spiritually
moving field trip
I’ve ever been on.’
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