The History of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion
The day after she graduated from Wesley in 1979 with a Master in Theological Studies Degree, Catherine Kapikian "marched into the Dean’s office" and proposed the establishment of an artist-in-residence at the seminary. J. Phillip Wogaman, then Dean, and President Jack Knight responded to her thesis that without the arts, "theological education was truncated" by assigning a modest space under the chapel as a studio. They also appointed her to teach a two credit course in the visual arts. And it was then, says Catherine, "that I was surprised to realize that I had a ministry in the arts on my hands."
Using phrases like "visual theological proclamation" and "authentic engagement with the creative process" Catherine tells about the enthusiastic response to the studio and to her art history course entitled "Catacombs to Citicorp". After that first year, the administration was impressed enough to move the studio to the large, central space that it now occupies. Thus, the arts studio with its "open door policy" became an established presence on the Wesley campus. When Douglas Lewis arrived as President in 1983, he embraced the arts enthusiastically. After considering initiatives that Catherine submitted, he called her to say that he wanted to establish a Center for the Arts and Religion and to ask her if she would direct it.
The next major step in the consolidation of the presence of the arts at Wesley came in 1985. In an overhaul of the curriculum, the faculty, sufficiently convinced of the role that the imagination can play in theological education made the critical commitment of requiring each student to take two credits in the arts.
By the end of the eighties, the administration made available space for a formal gallery where works done at "the intersection of art and religion could be lifted up." Arthur Dadian contributed a major gift that was matched by the seminary for the creation of a "state of the art" gallery. Named The Dadian Gallery in his honor, it completed the three part presence of the arts at Wesley - the studio with its resident artists, the courses, and the exhibit space.
It was always Catherine’s hope to include other arts. Since 1988 when drama was added to the curriculum, dance and literature have joined the rich and varied offerings in the arts alongside the long established music program.
The history of the Center for the Arts and Religion cannot be fully told without acknowledging the tremendous benefit that has been derived from the infusion of three Luce Foundation grants. These have not only enabled a deepening and an expansion of the program, they have been an affirmation to those pioneers, Catherine Kapikian and Douglas Lewis, that others saw the value of their enterprise.
Under Dean Douglas Meeks in the 1990s, the academic work of the center was consolidated into the curriculum as the Program in Theology and the Arts. And here the history pauses before the next adventurous phase that will inevitably emerge. For art carries within it its own God-given creative energy and momentum.
