The Community of the Beautiful: A Theological Aesthetics Book

I'd put this book on my "to read" list a couple of years ago based mostly on a review I read in Christian Century (I think). It certainly seemed right up my alley -- "Theological Aesthetics," I'm all over that. The book started promisingly, too, with the author proposing to develop a theological aesthetic for the community of the beautiful based on his own experience as a Latino-American, finding the difference between his culture and that of the Norte Americanos who were his neighbors and colleagues, and referring to the Jesuit theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, some of whose work I have read, struggled with and ultimately enjoyed.

But, alas, the late Dr. Garcia-Rivera took a tack that left me cold. Rather than basing his work on a biblical theology, he bases it on some pretty arid 19th century philosophy and semiotics. Try as I might, I just never could get interested in his line of thought. I tried skimming the book to find his major points of argument and failed. It's probably my own lack of time for concentration and grounding in this type of philosophy but the book simply never spoke to me.