Attunement, Theology, Aesthetics & Gender - A Conversation with Natalie Carnes

The conversation with Natalie Carnes that you are about hear, picks up where a previous conversation I had with iconographer Kelly Latimore left off—we talk about iconography, iconoclasm, theology, Christology, and a whole lot more. So, I’ll avoid giving you a long preamble, and simply revisit a quote from Jacques Ellul’s 'Humiliation of The Word' to frame what’s ahead:

"I am not trying to minimize the importance of the image. I mean only to specify its domain and understand its limits. The image is an admirable tool for understanding reality. In the social or political world, it can even be explosive and terribly efficacious… A documentary film of a riot enables us to penetrate the world of another better than any speech could. But an image is explosive only if the spectator knows what it represents and if it is taken for what it is: a faithful representation of reality."

What I appreciate about Natalie’s work, and what I think will come across to you in our conversation, is her attentiveness to the respective domain, effects, and limits of aesthetics, and how all of this inherently shapes and is shaped by our theologies and senses of who we—who people—are.

Bio

Natalie Carnes, PhD is Professor of Theology at Baylor University. She's a constructive theologian invested in questions that cross the fields of aesthetics, feminism, and systematics. She finds her systematic questions are at the same time aesthetic ones, like: How does God come to us in our material existence? Or: How do we in our material lives honor or betray divine life? Similarly, her feminist concerns about idolatry, authority, and hermeneutics are preoccupations of systematic theology, even as these concerns are also explored and expressed in the aesthetic investments of feminist theology.

Links

Website: https://nataliecarnes.com/

Baylor Faculty Webpage: https://religion.artsandsciences.baylor.edu/person/natalie-carnes-phd

Baylor Initiative for Theology and the Arts: https://bica.artsandsciences.baylor.edu/

Attunement: The Art and Practice of Feminist Theology: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/attunement-9780197765623?cc=us&lang=en&#

Image and Presence: A Christological Reflection on Iconoclasm and Iconophilia: https://www.amazon.com/Image-Presence-Christological-Iconophilia-Encountering/dp/1503604225?SubscriptionId=AKIAIOCEBIGP6NUBL47A

Motherhood: A Confession: https://www.sup.org/books/religious-studies/motherhood

Additional Resources

Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: https://www.amazon.ca/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-Theyre/dp/0140139966

Mark Doox, Our Lady Mother of Ferguson: https://www.stjohndivine.org/about/blog/1/posts/239/museumfromhome-christian-icons

Communal and Contemplative Art - A Personalist Manifesto(s) Conversation with Kelly Latimore: https://personalistmanifestos.substack.com/p/communal-and-contemplative-art

International Jacques Ellul Society 2026 Conference Info and Call for Papers: https://ellul.org/