C. S. Lewis once said that “All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.” That is to say that if, when all is said and done, what we’ve said or done hasn’t had much of an effect on what goes on in Heaven or Hell, then we haven’t had much of an effect at all. This is true of course, but unfortunately the Church has taken this kind of teaching and drawn from it some dangerous conclusions concerning the role of the artist in the Kingdom of God.
One conclusion that the Church has reached is that time spent absorbing a work of art is time wasted. For example, I once heard a pastor preach on the dangers of wasting time, using the Disney/Pixar movie, Finding Nemo as an example of a time-waster. He had enjoyed the movie very much, he said, but he felt guilty watching it, thinking of the things he could have been doing in the meanwhile that would have counted for eternity. He could have been praying for people or witnessing, and instead he was watching a movie.
One other view the Church seems to have is that art crafted by Christians has only two possible purposes: It should be used either to stir a Christian’s emotions about Jesus or other Christians, or as a witnessing tool. Beyond this limited range, the Church tells us, Christian art has no place in the Kingdom of God, and its creator is, like Nero, simply fiddling as the world turns to burning rubble around him.
Now it might seem to some in the Church that the task of trying (as I am in this paper) to discern whether or not these ideologies are true is a frivolous one. They wonder what good it is for the Church to debate the merits of plays or paintings while such issues as hunger, war and poverty need to be addressed. The concerns of such people or are legitimate, and I agree wholeheartedly that the Church is not in a position to waste time, but such apathy towards the question of art on the part of the Church is deadly. What of those believers who feel that they have been called to the life of an artist? For these brothers and sisters the issue is not mere philosophical hairsplitting; it is, on the contrary, of gravest importance. The Church must help her artists to know whether what they’re doing is really meaningless or not. And as the Church is given an opportunity to instruct, she must consider carefully before teaching her artists that God’s only intent for art was that it be used as evangelical propaganda. Why? Because there is, I suspect, more to art than that. Art is communication, and good communication goes beyond propaganda cutting straight to the message which is at the heart of all things.
To explore this issue fully, let us go back before the fall, before the creation of man or the garden or angels. Even before the creation of time itself. Before all of this, was God; God as he was expressed in the Trinity. Take special note of that word: Trinity. (The Bible is so eager to promote this idea of God-as-Trinity, that the first time God is referenced in Scripture - Genesis 1:1 - he is referred to in plural form.) The Trinity displays that which I will be upholding throughout this essay as an example of perfect communication. (Though, I guess also you could also say, of perfect communion - I’m choosing to use the word “communication” because of the direction I intend to take this essay).
The communication that existed within the Trinity was perfect in that there was a message that was being communicated without any tinge of falsehood. The communication of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit was and is unadulterated by lies, by contradictions, or by masking, untinged by even a hint of posturing or posing.
Aside from this element that the message was communicated purely is the element that the message itself was pure, for the message was (in a sense) God. How could he communicate anything else? For God cannot worship anything other than himself, and communicating something goes hand in hand with worshiping it - what we worship we communicate, what we communicate we worship (if you don’t believe me, simply spend a few hours with a Trekkie and you’ll see its true). God is the ultimate message; everything that exists screams of God, and even God communicate himself for there is no higher thing to communicate.
In summery we see that the communication within the Trinity was and is perfect in that (1) the message that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were communicating with each other was communicated flawlessly, without any deceits or half-truths, and (2) the message itself was not a half-truth, the message was the only Whole-Truth there is, God himself.
In response to the perfection within the Trinity, I would say to the Church, let us no longer pressure our artists to communicate Christ in a way that feels false, so as to keep from communicating that God is fake. Let us instead seek to grasp this idea of the way things were meant to be, and, with it in mind, let us nurture and encourage our artists to glorify God by becoming like Christ, the greatest communicator of all.
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9 comments:
That is one of the best written arguments for the promotion of art within Christianity that I have ever seen. How long did it take you to write that?
I can't wait to see future posts!
BTW, your little bit about the church and the way it disdains art communicated exactly the way I feel sometimes. And I don't neccessarily think it's only the church that has that mindset. I think it's the people within consumeristic Christianity that actually call themselves artists, but at the cost of what I like to call incarnational art. I think that's a major problem as well. Christian art used to be the finest and greatest in the world, and spirituality used to bring about brilliance. Nowadays it brings about this idealism that art for Christ must be limited to what the consumer culture as a whole likes.
The true Christian artist, or the "incarnational" artist, recognizes that true art comes from being a co-creator with Christ, not a Christian copy machine. Just as Christ brought life into the world, we also have been freed to bring every part of our lives to life through art, and when we live our lives incarnationally, we bring life to everything we touch.
Sometimes it's hard to put our fingers down on what exactly the good, the true, and the beautiful is, because in the end it comes down to living a God-filled life, which lends itself to being abstract and not exact. The tendency for Christians is to put God in a box, because when God is in a box, then we have our lives in a metaphorical box, safe, with four walls and a roof to protect us from the elements. But God doesn't fit in a box, and when we finally realize that God is uncontrolable, we find ourselves outside with nothing to protect us, exposed and vulnerable, and at the mercy of this God who, though we thought we knew, our preconceptions of Him were really just shadows on the wall, coming through a murky window, which seemed tame and harmless until you walked outside and saw the real thing. For the true artist, in a really weird way, we have to get to that place where we can't control God, because when we are in that place, we understand how mysterious and awesome God is, and how we can't truly know him without being caught up into the whirlwind that real Christianity is.
It's all a big mystery to me. But mark my words, I'll be a loyal follower of whatever you post on this blog, because I am willing to risk stepping outside my box to see what awaits me on the other side.
Oh, and for reference, since we're talking about art, I AM using that storm idea for a short story. I'll post it somewhere when it's finished!
Wow, so many thoughts are in my head. First how many times have you spent a few hours with a Trekkie? :-)
Seriously though, I wholeheartedly agree that this is an issue the church needs to address. There is nothing more sad to me than sitting in church and realizing that art and beauty are not always found or welcomed there. Its austere and sad.
Art does communicate so well to our hearts. We don't need to be afraid of showing art that reflects pain or discomfort or even joy and love. Sometimes the sheer beauty of art reminds me that our God is an awesome creator, and that is shown to us in the people he has gifted with the ability to create art.
Thanks for starting this... I look forward to reading and discussing it more.
Sorry for being so obscenely long but here is what this led me to:
This led me on a frantic search for a quote I had read a while back that made me want to cry (and perhaps I did, and if not I at very least yelped for joy!), for it felt like I had been released from the fear of man and his condemnation and from the fear of not fitting in at this strange thing called "church" where I was only starting to feel comfortable and where, more often than not, I often feel very different and strange -- I had been released to the freedom to do that which I felt God has wanted me to do and be who it was that God had creatted me to be. For God truly gives us the desires of our hearts!
It had me sifting through all the books I'm currently reading which yes, Foolish Knight, I keep a ramshackle stack of them not just in one place but many various localities. I was googling "art" and "Christianity" and "creativity" and every other key word I could think of. So now I'm sitting with my many books strewn every where like bread crumbs and that most familiar despair is sinking into the pit of my stomach that alas I will not be able to finish all of them this night or for many many nights. The sum of this quest is this: I'm not sure if the aforementioned quote is actually listed below but these are just as beautiful.
--
Schaeffer
Christianity is not just "dogmatically" true or "doctrinally" true. Rather, it is true to what is there, true in the whole area of the whole man in all of life.
The ancients were afraid that if they went to the end of the earth, they would fall off and be consumed by dragons. But once we understand that Christianity is true to what is there, including true to the ultimate environment -- the infinite, personal God who is really there -- then our minds are freed. We can pursue any question and can be sure that we will not fall off the end of the earth. Such an attitude will give our Christianity a strength that is often does not seem to have at the present time.
But there is another side to the Lordship of Christ, and this involves the total culture -- including the area of creativity. Again, evangelical or biblical Christianity has been weak at this point. About all that we have produced is a very romantic Sunday school art.
We do not seem to understand that the arts too are supposed to be under the Lordship of Christ.
I have frequently quoted a statement from Francis Bacon, who was one of the first of the modern scientists and who believed in the uniformity of natural causes in an open system. He, along with other men like Copernicus and Galileo, believed that because the world had been created by a reasonable God, they could therefore pursue the truth concerning the universe by reason. There is much, of course, in Francis Bacon with which I would disagree, but one of the statements which I love to quote is this: "Man by the Fall fell at the same time from his state of innocence and from his dominion over nature. Both of these losses, however, can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by the arts and sciences." How I wish that evangelical Christians in the United States and Britain and across the world had had this vision for the last fifty years!
The arts and the sciences do have a place in the Christian life -- they are not peripheral. For a Christian, redeemed by the work of Christ and living within the norms of Scripture and under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, the Lordship of Christ should include an interest in the arts. A Christian should use these arts to the glory of God -- not just as tracts, but as things of beauty to the praise of God. And art work can be a doxology in itself.
--
Schaeffer
As evangelical Christians, we have tended to relegate art to the very fringe of life. The rest of human life we feel is more important. Despite our constant talk about the Lordship of Christ, we have narrowed its scope to a very small area of reality. We have misunderstood the concept of the Lordship of Christ over the whole of man and the whole of the universe and have not taken to us the riches that the Bible gives us for ourselves, for our lives, and for our culture
--
Schaeffer
The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars.
--
Lewis
If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
--
Tozer
If the Holy Spirit should come again upon us as in earlier times, visiting church congregations with the sweet but fiery breath of Pentecost, we would be greater Christians and holier souls. Beyond that, we would also be greater poets and greater artists and greater lovers of God and His universe.
Ah,I am not sure of what to say except I think I understand what you are saying. I feel such a lack of the beautiful in the Christen life today. As the Church we are to reflect the light of God to the world. And so often it seems we reflect the world and put God's name on it (such as all the Jesus junk we have made in the past years), I can see God saying on the last day, "I am the creator of all things, seen and unseen, and you chose to show me to the world on an eraser that does not evan erase. Do you think that communicates who I am?"
Thank you guys for your encouragement! I have a bunch of geniuses for friends. Which I think is cool.
Eucharisto, it took about two weeks of procrastination to get this thing written. Say, what storm idea are we talking about here? What did I miss?
Katie, you through right through me of course. I know no genuine Trekkies, only those who's lives have been touched by the power Kirk through the lives of others. So there I go making up life experiences again.
h-i-p, I find your quotes fantastically cool. I think I like the Tozar one best; it's good to here a respected theologian making a direct connection from the Holy Spirit's work to the work of an artist. And not just crazy people like me.
Midsummer, you're RIGHT ON about the "Jesus junk" thing; what the heck do people think they're doing anyway? Do they really think that some little kid's gonna fall on his knees and accept Christ as his Lord and Savior because a little pencil says "Smile! God loves YOU!"?
Sheese, now you've got me going.
Thanks again guys! Next post coming soon!
Right. Sorry there, I was alluding to the comment about how we put ourselves in a box, when God is so much bigger, and when we walk outside our door, we are blown away by Him. So I'm going to turn it into a story with the idea of a person living comfortably and safely in a box (house). But there is an approaching storm, threateningly becoming louder all the time. The person wants to stay inside, but is drawn to see what's happening outside. The storm comes closer and closer, and begins to stream light and shadows through a window in the house, and the shadows on the wall that he sees slowly but surely become what he perceives the storm to be. The problem is that for one, the shadows are only a reflection of the real storm, and the window is dirty, so everything is muddled coming through it. But eventually, when the noise becomes to much, the person walks outside against his better judgement, to see what's going on. As soon as he walks through the door, he realizes what the storm really is; a raging, enormous tornado bearing down on him and his house. The story will end with him being blown away by the tornado, and the last few seconds as he watches the whirlwind blow his house to bits.
Seems like an interesting metaphor, if I can write it well. I'll keep you posted.
One of these days I'll comment a comment of significance, but suffice it to say that this has been excellent and relevent reading material, thanks!
"I am the creator of all things, seen and unseen, and you chose to show me to the world on an eraser that does not evan erase. Do you think that communicates who I am?"
Midsummer, I don't know if you realized this, but your quote has far more depth than just a reference to a piece of "Jesus junk". Too many Christians feel it's their only duty to go about the world trying to erase the effects of sin with a big God-colored eraser—which is far less effective than we will readily admit—rather than accept people as the fallen creatures that we are, reflecting the love of the perfect God who created us all.
Of course, we should not tolerate the sin that has blackened this earth; but to try to fight it with our own arguments is futile. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12
Shall we pray?
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