Henri de Lubac famously described Hans Urs von Balthasar as ‘probably the most cultured man in Europe’. On the evidence of the three volumes he has devoted to ‘the question of religious experience through culture and the arts’ (preface), David Brown is a plausible inheritor of this title. But the comparison with von Balthasar is relevant in other ways. Like the late cardinal, Brown's work sets in motion an extraordinarily wide-ranging and many-levelled conversation between the worlds of theology and the arts, taking the latter term in its very broadest sense. Everything is here, from Kabbalah to Graham Kendrick. However, Brown's basic trajectory is very different from that of von Balthasar, since he is less concerned to interpret the arts in terms derived from Christian revelation and correspondingly more interested in revivifying theology and religious life by looking at critical and creative forces at work outside the church. With specific regard to music his strategy is nicely summed up in the assertion that ‘I end this chapter by refusing absolute dividing lines either between church and concert hall or home, or between music and words’ (p. 221). Thus, although the second part of the book focuses very specifically on Christian liturgy and some of its contemporary problems, the discussion is ‘set up’ by the more wide-ranging survey of verbal, visual and musical images and metaphors drawn from what feels like every stratum of Christian and classical history. What Brown is especially ‘against’, it seems, are the efforts of both theologians and liturgists to impose a single ‘correct’ reading on sources that revel in multiple meanings: ‘Our language is richer than our prejudices, and so will on many an occasion afford new insights, if only we are open to new possibilities, so sometimes even where the context seems hostile, the end result may prove quite otherwise’ (p. 69). The point is immediately illustrated by reference to Hölderlin, but elsewhere it is applied, critically, to John Drury's work in the visual arts, to Coverdale's translations of the psalms, especially their use in liturgy, and to such unfortunate modern liturgical terminology as calling the eucharistic minister ‘the President’, whilst the same principle is put to effective work in discussions of musical history and style. Both this book in particular and the trilogy as a whole are an extraordinary tour de force and by the time this review will have appeared, St Andrews will have hosted a major conference on Brown's contribution to the field of theology, aesthetics and culture, which is indicative of its impact and significance.

It is very clearly written throughout, although Brown does not always make concessions to those who do not share his cultural fluency and, more generally, the book is clearly addressed not to religion's cultured despisers but to its very cultured and theologically well-informed friends. A difficulty is that, precisely because Brown commendably brings the argument back to particular examples, he makes himself vulnerable to those who do not share his aesthetic judgements. This reviewer, for example, finds the agnosticism of such modern church composers as Parry, Vaughan Williams and Howells only too evident in the music itself. However, Brown does note in conclusion that there are possibilities of negative responses that, for tactical reasons, he has not dwelt on. Finally, unlike many recent works of British theology, this is a work that can, simply, be read and read by those sufficiently prepared with pleasure. It serves both church and academy well, and keeps a constant eye (and ear) on the wider society beyond.