It seems fitting to publish Eden after the ravages of 2020, with the Coronavirus vaccine rollout well underway and an ending to the pandemic in sight. After what was for many of us a dark year, a latent hope for renewal has begun to emerge. For Christians, Eden has long been emblematic of the core hopes expressed in our faith: the perfection of the world, freedom from sin, and unity with God.

As Genesis relates, human beings are made in the image of God, and we share in God's desire to design, imagine, and produce beautiful things. In this way, human beings are ekphrastic - we are both art and artist. Though modernity is a long way removed from the garden of Genesis, as Christians, we believe that God will restore our world, and that the Edenic vision will be fulfilled in the fullness of time. At the end of the ages, the human story will be book-ended by a perfect creation on the new earth. Until then, we will continue to explore Eden through our art.

The works in this issue explore themes of creation, renewal, and hope that are present in the Edenic vision. Artists and writers from Wheaton's orbit wrestled with these topics and more as they contemplated Eden in their own unique ways. I pray that the reader will enjoy the pieces presented in this issue, and be called to reflect on Eden themselves.

Bennett Killough

Editor-In-Chief