An American Virgil

Among the more adventurous sallies in church décor in recent memory is the dancing saints sequence at San Francisco’s Saint Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, where Hypatia, Charles Darwin and William Blake among others have been drafted into the communio sanctorum. Perhaps the program is less a declaration than a prayer, illustrating Hans Urs von Balthasar’s dictum that universalism is a hope though not a doctrine.  But if so, wouldn’t a message of God’s universal love necessitate the inclusion of a figure or two who would rankle San Francisco Episcopalians? Still, there are many in the sequence who should long ago have been visualized in the context of Christian worship, and one especially justified inclusion is the Native American visionary Nicholas Black Elk (1863-1950).

Read more at First Things
(Hat tip: KimR)