Essays

Every year when Christmas rolls around, familiar images of the season make their appearance. In the midst of our holiday fervor, when we...

The digital realm is fragile; it hovers like a delicate film over the stubborn, raw physicality of our material existence. This fact is...

With a deft hand and skillful use of digital technology, Paul Pfeiffer transforms ordinary sports and entertainment footage into...

Each day we hear about new ways AI technology can improve the way we do education, business, industry, health care, and communication. It...

Given our enchantment with the endless stream of innovations and immersive experiences offered up by the culture industry, any of us...

As a young adult I enrolled in an introductory astronomy course. I worried that it would require a lot of advanced math, but the...

The story of how Christianity first became a national religion is both enigmatic and strange. History tells of a runaway virgin,...

When I was growing up, I thought of faith and belief as synonymous. I never had the difference explained to me by a respected authority,...

The figure of David of Sassoun looms large in the Armenian imagination. In Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, the statue in honor of this hero...

Well before I ever stepped foot on the soil of my ancestral homeland, I was aware of the vital role the arts played in the life of...

The notion of the artist as prophet is a familiar motif. Once you recognize art’s spiritual dimension, it’s easy to see how both artists...

This essay, published in Christ and Popular Culture, is a companion piece to my recent essay on the same subject. Here, I continue and...

This essay, appearing in Mockingbird, was inspired by the movie "Air". In it, I discuss how consumer culture shapes our identities and...

This essay, appearing in Genealogies of Modernity, serves as a companion piece to my earlier work, "The Aura of Our Mechanical Arts",...

In this essay, appearing in Transpositions, I explore the profound influence of aesthetics and social media in the commercialization of...

Appearing in Ekstasis Magazine, this essay explores the intersection of photography, technology, and spirituality through the lens of...

In this essay, which appears in Pop Culture and Theology, I examine the symbolism of the title cards in the the Netflix series Ozark as a...

Philip Guston painted The Line (1978) late in life. It was eight years after he first exhibited figurative works that broke with his...

Ever since Marcel Duchamp introduced the readymade, the mass-produced object has played a key role in modern and contemporary art. As...

Grace has the character of an intimate flow that wells up gently, filling our broken places and bringing us closer to God. But,...

In this essay published in Radix Magazine, I discuss Biblical justice and how it applies to the current social and political context in...

It’s often been said that art reveals truth, though the question of how, or even what we mean by “truth” isn’t obvious. Antonio Palomino...

In the early part of our journey, we lean on the church’s authority. With our feet rooted firmly in belief, we must develop a healthy ego...

This essay was first published in The St. Austin Review . The khachkar, or cross-stone, is unique to Armenia, the first nation to adopt...

Caravaggio’s painting The Conversion on the Way to Damascus is a visual allegory for the figure of the holy fool, who surrenders to God...

In this essay, published in Genealogies of Modernity, I explore the themes of truth and humility through Alfred Stieglitz's iconic...

In this essay, first published in the Autumn/Winter 2021 issue of Tiferet Journal , I write about Caspar David Friedrich's Monk by the Sea...

This essay, which appears in Ekstasis Magazine, examines photographs of the homeless made by the contemporary artist Andres Serrano. I...

In this essay, inspired by writing from C.S. Lewis, I explore the representation of personality in our visual culture. The piece first...

When we speak of compassion we think of human relationships. But the Cosmic Christ includes compassion for all of creation. In this...

On the occasion of Eastertide, I felt compelled to draw together the story of the famous Armenian painter Arshile Gorky and the Christian...

I have always had a love for the paintings of Rembrandt and find the complexity of his career-long engagement with the genre of...

In this essay, published in Ekstasis Magazine, I reflect on the impact of the pandemic on outer and inner rhythm and the stay-at-home...

For my first essay to be featured in Contemplative Light , I explore Gian Lorenzo Bernini's The Ecstasy of St. Teresa from a...