Christian Humanist Profiles 246: Matthew Milliner

Tell me where you spend your Sunday mornings, and then where your grandmother spent her Sunday mornings, and I’ll venture a guess at what you think Christian art looks like.  In the realm of Christian art that involves basilicas and mosaics the icon holds a special place: by some accounts mainly a window through which one looks upon divine reality, the artistry of the icon nonetheless promises a different view of the world we inhabit, and the Virgin of the Passion, if Matthew Milliner is right, seeks nothing less than to set the world’s eyes back on the Christ who saves by suffering and whose passion does not begin on a cross but in his very infancy.  His book Mother of the Lamb: The Story of a Global Icon, from Fortress Press, tells the story of that icon, beginning as it does with an artist who departs an imperial city and continuing in our day as his work journeys everywhere people call out to the heavens.  Christian Humanist Profiles is glad to welcome Matthew to the show.