Dr Paul Allen

Devil or fool? Several churches in Germany have stained-glass windows portraying Adolf Hitler. Who were the artists and what are the artworks all about?  Weil der Stadt is a town of about 20,000 people in southwestern Germany, west of Stuttgart. At the Catholic church of St. Peter and Paul, pastor Anton Gruber has been welcoming his congregation as well as many curious visitors for the past 11 years. Some people stop by the church because it is right on a popular bike path, while others have come to peer at one particular stained-glass window. They often say "the features of Hitler are recognizable," Gruber told DW. "Most people are simply curious, no more and no less," the clergyman says about the pane that dates from 1939/40. Personified evil It is part of a larger window of nine panels depicting scenes from the life of Jesus. The pane on the far upper right depicts temptation, with the devil testing Jesus' faith — and the artist JoKarl Huber has clearly given...

Self-Portrait, Spring 1887, Oil on pasteboard, 42 × 33.7 cm., Art Institute of Chicago (F 345). (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Vincent van Gogh aspired to become a Calvinist pastor, like his dad. He pursued ministry in the Dutch Reformed Church until he hit a roadblock by failing his academic training, and then experienced what personal failure often breeds: disillusionment. He became disenchanted with pastoral ministry and then left the church for good in 1880 at the age of 27. From that point on van Gogh redirected all his ambitions to art. Of all van Gogh’s famous works, I’m most struck by a painting he feverishly finished in one day: “ Still Life with Bible ” (1885). The symbolic painting features two books. The large book in the background is the Bible of van Gogh’s pastor-father. The Bible is opened to Isaiah 53 . The yellow book in the foreground is a French novel by naturalist Émile Zola . The book is titled La Joie de Vivre , or in English, The Joy of Life (1884). So w...

Gédéon (vers 1550), huiles sur bois de Martin van Heemskerck, au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg. A l'origine, un tableau (perdu)avec la Vierge était placé entre les deux panneaux. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) In the winepress we find a trembling, perspiring coward hiding for his life when the Angel of the Lord appears to Gideon and calls him a “mighty man of [fearless] courage.” At first those words almost sound like cruel sarcasm, but there was no smirk on the angel’s face. God was not mocking Gideon, nor did He have Gideon confused with someone else. God saw something in Gideon that no one else saw, including Gideon himself. How comforting it is to know that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. Oh, my friend, when you understand what God sees when He looks at you, it will change your life. Let me explain it this way. In the early 1500s a twenty-five-year-old artist and sculptor labored tirelessly with hammer and chisel over a colossal blo...

It may come as surprise that when Yale University was founded on this day, October 16, 1701, it was by Congregationalist ministers Image via Wikipedia  unhappy with the growing liberalism at Harvard. It wasn't called Yale then, of course, but rather the Collegiate School . The ministers donated forty books and declared their objective, that "Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences who through the blessing of God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church and Civil State." The huge campus of today, with over one hundred buildings was not conceived. In fact, the first classes were held in the residence of Rev. Abraham Pierson , its first rector. Not until 1745 was the school moved to New Haven and renamed Yale. The name change was in honor of Elihu Yale, a successful merchant who made a donation of goods valued at $2,800. This was equivalent to the annual income of about fourteen medical doctors. The purpose of the renamed school was "To plant ...