;)
Deconstructing Christian Art
Posted by Rastis in News & Culture
There is a tension between life and art. While avoiding the dispute as to which is the chicken and which the egg, art tells us much about our desires, fears, and values. While the Christianized American Dream and the problem-less lives of people who pray are every present in movies, books, and paintings, they are simply too easy a target.
Art graphically and audibly depicts our worldview with it’s assumptions and tensions. While many of the assumptions present in our art are good (Good and Evil exist and evil should be stopped), some are theologically muddled. We accept these muddled assumptions in our art because they are in line with how we think and feel. They affirm what we assume, or desire, to be true. In essence, these kinds of art provide us with comfort. It is not that there is anything wrong with comfort. We take comfort in remembering the past–nostalgia–or in dreaming about the future–hope. A problem occurs, however, when our nostalgia and hope intimate to the watching world that God’s plan is either not good enough or we don’t trust him to fulfill it. At this point, nostalgia is a rejection of the world God has made and hope is a rejection of the one He is building. These rejections are idols of the mind.
There are three recurring themes, particularly in recent days, reinforcing faulty presuppositions about the world, past, present, and future. There is nothing wrong with the fact that we engage in these tensions. The world in which we lives thrusts them upon us. But when we answer the questions we must do so from biblical foundations.
Sacred vs Secular
There is a strong reaction against the secular world in Christian art. Consider the picture David Rogers posted a post or two back. As a political conservative, this picture agrees with the basic way I have grown up seeing the world. There are the good guys: the preachers, the founding fathers, the military heroes who protect freedom, the republican giants (Regan), the farmers, and the working man. Then there are the bad guys: lawyers, politicians, the media, judges, professors, actors, Hollywood, and democrats. While this categorization is factually incorrect (there are some godly lawyers, judges, professors, etc, as there are some founding fathers who were corrupt.), the problem is that in attempting to correct secularization, the artist accepts secularized presuppositions. Secularization is simply the separation between religious things and the rest of life. One can secularize anything and everything. To paint actors into the bad category is to accept the secularized world as normal. The world says to the Christian to stay out of public life (or at least keep it to himself). When the Christian accepts this role and choses to demonize and oppose them, he has already accepted the thing he is attempting to fight.
Theologically, Christians who categorize the parts of world as either overtly and innately godly/Christian or overtly and innately evil have failed to give God his proper place. The earth is the Lord’s (Ps. 24:1). When believers black list certain legitimate employment venues as overtly evil, then they condemn them to be thus. This does not mean that God has subscribed to the same platonic spirituality. God is creator and lord of all. As his people we are to live in light of his lordship over all creation in fulfilling one of our earliest commandments; subdue the earth.
Modern vs Tradition: older is better.
The forces of globalization and the rate of change and advancement in the field of technology scare many of us. The peoples of the world are on our door steps. Even small towns are receiving growing transplanted populations of people from many countries. The laws are shifting in favor of the secularists. Even the church is changing in many ways. This causes many people to long for the good old days. There is something within everyone which says that the older days were somehow better than these in spite of the fact that Solomon warns us against such thinking (Ecc 7:10). Post-fall, there has always been all manner of evil on the earth. Chronology has nothing to do with it. Perhaps in the good old days we were simply shielded from it, but it was there none the less. There was nothing more holy about the 50′s or the 40′s than about today. Surely those who were the elders then longed for the holier days of the 20′s or 10′s. Man has always been evil. It is true that there are many corrupt lawyers today. It is also true that there have always been corrupt lawyers. The problem lies not in older vs younger lawyers or even the category of lawyers itself, but in the fact that we tend to simply reject those who fall into the bad category and retreat to our safe depictions of the fictional Christian world where we only have minor problems as we trod through these wicked later days on our way to glory. The days are indeed evil, as they have always been. We must seek to be God’s agents of redemption to the world. Of all people, we are the ones who should be longing for the future and not the past.
Complex vs Simple: technology is the devil.
We watch the world around us with all of its modern adaptations and see young people who have never known a time without cellphones, computers, internet. Soon there will be a generation that has never been without facebook, myspace, and twitter. One wonders if this is a positive thing. While there certainly problems associated with the internet/technology subcultures the problem lies not it the technology and complexity itself, but in people. One of the prime ways this tension plays out in the world today is through urbanization. There is something inherent in being American to despise crowds and cities. The very existence of America as a country is a result of people attempting to be left alone. The westward expansion was simply an extension of that. It is rare to meet someone who wishes their neighborhood was a little more crowded. When people retire, their destination of choice is typically the beach or the mountains, not the city. Not only is the complex rejected in Mcnaughton’s art, but there are a host of paintings and songs (secular as well as sacred) which long for the good old simple days. Don’t believe me? Just do an image search on Thomas Kinkade. There is a nostalgic sentimentality that while is alluring, should be repulsive. It is not the real world. God doesn’t simply want more white steeped churches (sans projectors!) nestled into snow capped mountains being filled with parishioners arriving in horse-drawn sleighs (though if such a church exists and is looking for a pastor, send me an email). God wants to redeem the most corrupt of the world’s urban spaces for his kingdom. To reject the complexity of urbanization is to reject God’s sovereign control over times, borders, and rulers (Acts 17:26-27).
As the people of God we should lead the way into the changing world giving people hope of how the redeemed world is supposed to look. We must embrace the plan that God has set out and our time and place in that plan. There is comfort in what we know–the past, the familiar, the simple–but there is reward for following God into the real future.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
I like what you said.
My mind went to Phil 4:8 for the life portion of what you said- “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things.”
Then it went to 1 John 2:16 for the art portion – “For all that [is] in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”
I beleive the tension comes in for me where the flesh (what I see) and spirit (what I think in my heart) cross each other.
Thanks Bruce.
The trouble–or the difficult thing–with the arts and other forms of culture is that many times they are not visible forms. They are certainly real entities but they are more subtle than obvious actions. In looking at the 1 john passage, “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” are all very real entities though they are not necessarily physical/visible. Thus it is hard to look at a profession like acting or being in the media and say that in and of itself those things are bad. Being an actor for the pride of life–much like being a pastor, missionary or seminary proff–is bad according t o1 john. But it isnt necessary to be any of those for the purpose of the pride of life. And that is where redemption comes in.
We have a couple of pictures on the wall. I’ve never stopped to consider if these paintings elicit a non-Christian worldview due to “shallow nostalgia” or a “misplaced hope”.
My wife is from Iowa. We have some prints we bought at the Grant Wood museum in Cedar Rapids Iowa that are hanging in our hall and dining room. One of the pictures we have up is “American Gothic”. Another has a picture of cornfields where the fields are represented as a stylized “Grandma Moses” type design.
There are all sorts of ministries – they are where the people are at no matter where they live.
While there are many more people in the cities than in rural areas, there are people who need the Lord in both – with the effectual call of God on His servants to be led to their respective ministry positions.
What happens when all those gadgets quit? What if life becomes unbearable in those urban “cess pools” and the people wish to escape from them looking for answers? The future is a bit opaque to know what exactly will happen under the sovereign will of God. Then those little picturesque buildings with steeples and Gods people will be ready to share hope to the hopeless like they always have.
Rob
I thought I was really going to like this, but if you are going to diss Thomas Kinkade, I will have to break fellowship with you! He was good enough for Paul and Silas, who had one of his prints in the Philippian Jail.
I think it goes beyond just the paintings in the church sometimes. I pass a church daily that is located in the country on a large 15 acre tract of land with an older brick church building that seats about 150 people in the center of the property. They have built a prayer garden that is about 25′ X 25′ in front and to the left about 200′ from the front doors of the church so it doesn’t obstruct the view of the church building. It has a picket fence around it and has been landscaped well. There are three (3) crosses at the back symmetrically aligned for the passersby to see. The gate is located toward the road in the middle and there is a curved walkway from the concrete parking lot to the gate. It is a work of art because all anyone does is look at it. Now, like most churches with any artwork of any kind, it has become a shrine and has religious significance. Sad, but true.
Ecclesiastes 7:10 (English Standard Version)
Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”
For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.
There is nothing wrong with the image of the isolated country church; some of them do in fact serve God’s purpose for their locale, while others are just “museums,” and the same can be said for churches (church buildings at least) anywhere. The problem that I hear Rastis identifying is the idealization of the small rural church in a mythical “golden era” without regard for the problems churches faced back them–and perhaps created some of. I would also suggest that this is a myth of the conservative white American church also, one consequently that African-Americans as a whole do not subscribe to. And all this leaves aside Thomas Kincade’s artistic abilities or the lack thereof (which my daughter, an artist and published illustrator, has no problem articulating).
John