From a Christian Point of View What Is the Purpose of Art
How should Christians glorify God in the ways we interact with the arts and express our artistic bent?
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Is at that place a legitimate place for the appreciation of art and beauty in our lives? What is the human relationship of civilization to our spiritual life? Are not art and the development of aesthetic tastes really a waste product of time in the light of eternity? These are questions Christians often ask near the fine arts.
Unfortunately, the answers we often hear to such questions imply that Christianity tin can role quite nicely without an aesthetic dimension. At the heart of this mentality is Tertullian's (160-220 A.D.) classic statement, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? The University with the Church? We accept no demand for curiosity since Jesus Christ, nor inquiry since the evangel."
This bold exclamation has led many to fence that the spiritual life is essential, just the cultural inconsequential. And today much of the Christian community seems inclined to approach aesthetics in the same hurried and superficial manner with which nosotros live nigh of our lives. This attitude was vividly expressed recently in a drawing portraying an American rushing into the Louvre in Paris. The caption read, "Where's the Mona Lisa? I'm double parked!"
Art and Aesthetics
What is aesthetics? Let u.s. brainstorm with a definition. Aesthetics is "The philosophy of dazzler and art. It studies the nature of beauty and laws governing its expression, as in the fine arts, as well as principles of fine art criticism"{1}. Formally, aesthetics is thus included in the study of philosophy. Upstanding considerations to decide "good" and "bad" include the artful dimension.
Thus, beauty can be contemplated, divers, and understood for itself. This critical process results in explaining why some artists, authors, and composers are cracking, some merely skilful, and others not worthwhile. Aesthetics therefore
". . .aims to solve the problem of beauty on a universal basis. If successful, it would presently replenish u.s. with an explanation of the quality common to Greek temples, Gothic cathedrals, Renaissance paintings, and all good fine art from whatever identify or fourth dimension."{2}
At the heart of aesthetics, then, is human creativity and its various cultural expressions. H. Richard Neibuhr has defined it as "the work of men'due south minds and hands." While nature (as God's souvenir) provides the raw materials for human expression, culture is that which man produces in his earthly setting. Information technology . . . "includes the totality and the life pattern–language, religion, literature (if any), machines and inventions, arts and crafts, architecture and decor, dress, laws, community, marriage and family structures, government and institutions, plus the peculiar and characteristic ways of thinking and acting."{3}
Artful gustation is interwoven all through the cultural fabric of a society and thus cannot be ignored. It is therefore inescapable—for society and for the private. Human creativity volition inevitably express itself and the results (works of fine art) volition tell us something most its creators and the society from which they came. "Through art, we can know another's view of the universe."{4}
"As such, works of art are often more than accurate than any other indication most the country of affairs at some remote but crucial juncture in the progress of humanity. . . . Past studying the visual arts from any society, we tin can usually tell what the people lived for and for what they might be willing to dice."{5}
The term art can hateful many different things. In the broadest sense, everything created by man is fine art and everything else is nature, created by God. Yet, art usually denotes skillful and beautiful things created by mankind (Note: A major point of argue in the field of aesthetics centers around the definition of these two terms). Even crafts and skills, such every bit carpentry or metal working have been considered by many as arts.
While the works of artisans of earlier eras have come to be viewed like fine art, the term the arts, withal, has a narrower focus in this outline. We are here particularly concerned with those activities of flesh which are motivated past the creative urge, which go across immediate material usefulness in their purpose, and which express the uniqueness of being human. This more limited use of the term fine art includes music, dance, painting, sculpture, architecture, drama and literature. The fine arts is the study of those human activities and acts which produce and are considered works of fine art.
Aesthetics then is the written report of man responses to things considered beautiful and meaningful. The arts is the study of human being actions which attempt to arouse an aesthetic experience in others. A sunset over the mountains may evoke aesthetic response, but it is not considered a piece of art, considering it is nature. A row of phone poles with connecting power lines may have a beautiful appearance, only they are not art considering they were non created with an artistic purpose in mind. It must be noted, however, that even those things originally fabricated for non-artistic purposes can and take later come up to be viewed as art objects (i.due east., antiques).
While art may take the secondary result of earning a living for the artist, it ever has the master purpose of artistic expression for describably and indescribably homo experiences and urges. The artist's purpose is to create a special kind of honesty and openness which springs from the soul and is hopefully understood by others in their inner being.
Aesthetics and the Bible
What does the Bible have to say about the arts? Happily, the Bible does non call upon Christians to stultify or await down upon the arts. In fact, the arts are imperative when considered from the biblical perspective. At the heart of this is the full general mandate that whatever we do should be washed to the glory of God. We are to offering Him the all-time that we accept–intellectually, artistically, and spiritually.
Further, at the very center of Christianity stands the Incarnation ("the Give-and-take made mankind"), an event which identified God with the physical world and gave dignity to it. A existent man died on a existent cross and was laid in a real, rock-hard tomb. The Greek ideas of "other-worldly-ness" that fostered a tainted and debased view of nature (and hence aesthetics) find no place in biblical Christianity. The dichotomy between sacred and secular is thus an alien one to biblical faith. Paul's argument, "Unto the pure, all things are pure," (Tit. one:15) includes the arts. While we may recognize that human creativity, like all other gifts bestowed upon us by god, may be misused, there is nothing inherently or more than sinful about the arts than other areas of human activity.
The Quondam Testament
The Old Testament is rich with examples which confirm the aesthetic dimension. In Exodus 20:4-v and Leviticus 26:1, God makes it articulate that He does not forestall the making of art, only the worshipping of fine art. Consider the employ of these vehicles of artistic expression constitute throughout:
Architecture. God is concerned with architecture. In fact, Exodus 25 shows that God commanded beautiful architecture, along with other forms of fine art (metalwork, clothing design, tapestry, etc.) in the building of the Tabernacle. Similar instructions were given for the temple later constructed by King Solomon. Here we observe something unique in history–art works designed and conceived past the infinite God, and so transmitted to and executed by His human apprentices!
Apparently He delights in colour, texture, and class. (We also see this vividly displayed in nature). The betoken is that God did not instruct men to build a purely commonsensical place where His chosen people could worship Him. As Francis Schaeffer said, "God simply wanted beauty in the Temple. God is interested in dazzler."{6} And in Exodus 31, God even names the artists He wants to create this dazzler, commissioning them to their craft for His glory.
Verse is another evidence of God's dearest for beauty. A large portion of the One-time Testament is poetry, and since God inspired the very words of Scripture, information technology logically follows that He inspired the poetical course in such passages. David, the man after God'southward own heart, equanimous many poems of praise to God, while under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Amid the most prominent poetical books are: Psalms. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. Poetry is too a pregnant element in the prophets and Chore.
The genre of poetry varies with each author's intent. For example, the Song of Solomon is first and foremost a beloved poem picturing the beauty and glory of romantic, human love between a man and his mate. It is written in the form of lyric idyll, a popular literary device in the Ancient Almost East. The fact that this story is ofttimes interpreted symbolically to reflect the dear between Christ and His Church, or Jehovah and Israel, does not weaken the celebration of physical love recorded in the poem, nor destroy its literary form.
Drama was also used in Scripture at God's command. The Lord told Ezekiel to get a brick and draw a representation of Jerusalem on it. The Ezekiel "acted out" a siege of the city as a alert to the people. He had to prophesy confronting the firm of Israel while lying on his left side. This went on for 390 days. Then he had to lie on his right side, and he carried out this drama by the express command of God to teach the people a lesson (Ezek. iv:one-6). The dramatic element is brilliant in much of Christ's ministry too. Cursing the fig tree, writing in the dirt with His finger, washing the feet of the disciples are dramatic actions which enhanced His spoken word.
Music and Dance are often institute in the Bible in the context of rejoicing before God. In Exodus 15, the children of Israel celebrated God's Red Sea victory over the Egyptians with singing, dancing, and the playing of instruments. In ane Chronicles 23:5, we notice musicians in the temple, their instruments specifically made by Male monarch David for praising God. 2 Chronicles 29:25-26 says that David's control to have music in the temple was from God, "for the command was from the Lord through His prophets." And we must not forget that all of the lyrical poetry of the Psalms was first intended to be sung.
The New Testament
The New Testament abounds likewise with evidence underscoring artistic imperatives. The most obvious is the example of Jesus Himself. Outset of all, He was past trade a carpenter, a skilled craftsman (Mark half-dozen:3). Secondly, nosotros encounter in Jesus a person who loved to be outdoors and one who was extremely circumspect to His surroundings. His teachings are full of examples which reveal His sensitivity to the dazzler all around: the fob, the bird nest, the lily, the sparrow and dove, the glowering skies, a hobbling reed, a vine, a mustard seed. Jesus was besides a main storyteller. He readily fabricated use of his own civilization setting to impart his bulletin, and sometimes quite dramatically. Many of the parables were fictional stories abut they were nevertheless used as vehicles of communication to teach spiritual truths. And certainly the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 includes the artistic gifts.
The apostle Paul as well alludes to aesthetics in Philippians 4:eight when he exhorts believers to meditate and reflect upon pure, honest, lovely, skilful, virtuous and praiseworthy things. We are further told in Revelation fifteen:2-3 that art forms will fifty-fifty be present in heaven. So the arts take a place in both the earthly and heavenly spheres!
We should also remember that the unabridged Bible is not only revelation, it likewise is itself a work of art. In fact, it is many works of art–a veritable library of dandy literature. We accept already mentioned poetry, merely the Bible includes other literary forms as well. For example, large portions of information technology are narrative in way. Most of the Former Testament is either historical narrative or prophetic narrative. And the Gospels, (which recount the birth, life, teachings, death and resurrection of Christ), are biographical narrative. Even the personal letters of Paul and the other New Testament authors can quite properly be considered epistolary literature.
Aesthetics and Nature
The Bible makes it very clear that a companion volume, the book of Nature, has a distinct aesthetic dimension. Torrential waterfalls, majestic mountains, and blazing sunsets routinely evoke human aesthetic response equally easily equally can a vibrant symphony or a dazzling painting. The very fabric of the universe expresses God's presence with majestic beauty and grandeur. Psalm xix:1 says, "The heavens declare the celebrity of God and the firmament shows forth his handiwork." In fact, nature has been chosen the "aesthetics of the Infinite."
The brilliant photography of the twentieth century has revealed the limitless depths of dazzler in nature. Through telescope or microscope, one can devote a lifetime to the study of some part of the universe–the skin, the eye, the sea, the flora and fauna, the stars, the climate.
And since God's cosmos is multi-dimensional, an apple, for case, tin exist viewed in different ways. It can exist considered economically (how much it costs), nutritionally (its food value), chemically (what information technology'due south fabricated of), or physically (its shape). But it may also be examined aesthetically: its gustation, color, texture, scent, size, and shape. All of nature can be appreciated for its artful qualities which find their source in God, their Creator.
Human being Creativity
Wherever human being culture is found, artistic expression of some form is also institute. The painting on the wall of an aboriginal cave, or a medieval cathedral, or a modern dramatic production are all expressions of homo inventiveness, given past God, the Creator.
Homo in God'south Image
In Genesis 1:26-27, for case, nosotros read: "And so God said, Permit the states make man in our image, co-ordinate to our likeness; and let them rule over . . . all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him male and female He created them" (Italics mine).
Later creating man, God told man to subdue the earth and to rule over it. Adam was to cultivate and keep the garden (Gen. 2:fifteen) which was described by God equally "very good" (Gen. 1:31). The implication of this is very important. God, the Creator, a lover of the beauty in His created world, invited Adam, 1 of His creatures, to share in the process of "creation" with Him. He has permitted humans to take the elements of His cosmos and create new arrangements with them. Perhaps this explains the reason why creating annihilation is so fulfilling to us. We tin can express a drive within which allows u.s. to practise something all humans uniquely share with their Creator.
God has thus placed before the human race a banquet table rich with aesthetic delicacies. He has supplied the basic ingredients, inviting those made in His prototype to do their creative capacities to the fullest extent possible. We are privileged as no other beast to make and savour art.
It should be further noted that art of all kinds is restricted to a distinctively human do. No animal practices art. It is true that instinctively or accidentally beautiful patterns are formed and observed throughout nature. But the spider'due south web, the honeycomb, the coral reef are not conscious attempts of animals to express their aesthetic inclinations. To the Christian, nevertheless, they surely represent God's efforts to express. Unlike the animals, homo consciously creates. Francis Schaeffer has said of man:
"[A]n art work has value as a creation because human being is made in the image of God, and therefore man not only can love and think and feel emotion, but besides has the capacity to create. Existence in the image of the Creator, we are called upon to have creativity. We never find an fauna, not-man, making a piece of work of fine art. On the other hand, we never discover men anywhere in the world or in any civilization in the world who do not produce art. Creativity is a office of the distinction between human and not-man. All people are to some degree artistic. Creativity is intrinsic to our mannishness."{seven}
The Fall of Human being
There is a dark side to this, withal, because sin entered and afflicted all of homo life. A bent and twisted nature has emerged, tainting every field of human being attempt or expression and consistently marring all results. The unfortunate truth is that divinely endowed creativity will ever be accompanied in earthly life by the reality and presence of sin expressed through a fallen race. Human being is Jekyl and Hyde: noble image-bearer and morally crippled animal. His works of art are therefore bittersweet. Calvin best-selling this tension when he said:
"The human being heed, all the same much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its creator. If nosotros reflect that the Spirit of God is the merely foundation of truth, nosotros will be careful, as we would avoid offering insult to Him, not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears. In despising the gifts, we insult the Giver."{viii}
Understanding this dichotomy allows Christians genuinely to appreciate something of the contribution of every artist, composer, or writer. God is sovereign and dispenses creative talents upon whom He will. While Scripture keeps usa from emulating certain lifestyles of artists or condoning some of their ideological perspectives, we can nevertheless admire and appreciate their talent, which ultimately finds its source in God. This should and tin exist done without compromise and without hesitation.
The fact is that if God can speak through a burning bush or Baalam's ass, He tin speak it through a hedonistic artist! The question can never be how worthy is the vessel, but rather, Has truth been expressed? God's truth is still sounding along today–from the Bible, from nature, and even from a fallen humanity.
Considering of the Autumn, absolute dazzler in the world is gone. Simply participation in the aesthetic dimension reminds us of the beauty that once was, and anticipates its future luster. With such beauty nowadays today that tin take one's jiff abroad, fifty-fifty in this unredeemed world, i tin past speculate about what likes ahead for those who love Him!
Characteristics of Skilful Art
We now plow to the question of the of import ingredients of various art forms.
Get-go, artistic truth includes non only the tangible, simply also the realm of the imaginative, the intangible. Art therefore may or may not include the cerebral, the objective. Someone asked a Russian ballerina who had simply finished an interpretive dance, "What did it hateful? What were you trying to say?" The ballerina replied, "If I could accept said it, I wouldn't have danced it!" There is then a communication of truth in art which is real, just may non be able to be reduced to and put neatly into words.
Great art is also ever coupled with the difficult discipline of continual do. Great artist are the ones who, when observed in the exercise of their art appear to be doing something simple and effortless. What is not visible are the bone weary hours of committed practice that preceding such artistic spontaneity and deftness.
All art has intrinsic value. It doesn't accept to exercise anything to have value. Once created, it has already "done" something. It does non take to be a means to an end, nor have whatsoever utilitarian do good whatsoever. Even bad art has some value because every bit a creative piece of work, it is even so linked to God Himself, the Fountain of all creativity. The artistic process, however expressed, is skillful because information technology is linked to the Imago Dei and shows that human, unique among God's creatures, has this souvenir. This is true fifty-fifty when the results of the creative gift (specific works of art) may be aesthetically poor or nowadays the observer with unwholesome content and compromising situations.
But we would practise well to remind ourselves at this betoken that God does not censor out all of the things in the Bible which are wrong or immoral. He "tells information technology like information technology is," including some pretty detailed and sordid affairs! The discriminating Christian should therefore develop the chapters to distinguish poor aesthetics and immoral artistic statements from true inventiveness and craftsmanship¾dismissing and repudiating the erstwhile while fully appreciating and enjoying the latter. Christians, beyond all others, posses the proper framework to understand and capeesh all art in the right perspective. It is a compassion that many have deprived themselves of the arts and then severely from much that they could savor under the blessing and grace of God.
Artistic expression ever makes a statement. It may be either explicitly or implicitly stated. Some artists explicitly admit their intent is to say something, to convey a message. Other artists resist, or even deny they are making a argument. But consciously or non, a argument is always being fabricated, because each artist is subjectively involved and profoundly influenced by his/her cultural experience. Consciously or unconsciously, the cultural setting permeates every creative contribution and each piece of work tells us something virtually the creative person and his era.
An unfortunate trend in recent years has been the increase in the number of artists who acknowledge their primary want is to say something. Fine art is not best served by an extreme focus on making a argument. The huge murals prominent in quondam communist lands were no doubt helpful politically, but they probably did not contribute much aesthetically. Even some Christian art falls into this trap. Long on statement, morality, and piety, it often falls short artistically (though sincerely offered and theologically sound), because it is cheaply and poorly done. Poesy and propaganda are not the same, from communist or Christian zealot.
Another characterization of modern statements is the obsession of self. Since the world has footling meaning to many moderns, the narcissistic retreat into self is all that remains to exist expressed. Thus the public is confronted today with many artists who simply portray their ain personal psychological and spiritual wanderings. In art of this type, extreme subjectivism is considered virtue rather than vice. The statement (personal to the extreme) overwhelms the art. Many of these statements seem to imply a desperate weep for help, for significance, for love. In such art feelings overwhelm for; confessional outpourings bring personal relief, but picayune try is put forth or the idea necessary for the rigid mastery of technique and form. Possibly that is why at that place is such a glut of mediocre art today! It simply doesn't take as much or every bit long to produce it.
Merely consider artists of earlier centuries, those who never even signed their names to their work. This was non because they were embarrassed by it. They but lived in a culture where the art was more important than the artist. Today we are awed more past the artist or the virtuoso performer than we are by the art expressed. Much of the before work was dedicated to God; ours is more often than not dedicated to the celebration of the artist. Critic Chad Walsh alludes to a modern exception in the writings of C. South. Lewis when he says that Mere Christianity "transcends itself and its author . . . it is as though all the brilliant writing is designed to create clear windows of perception, so that the reader will wait through the language and not at it."{9} Great fine art possesses this transcendent immovability.
Art forms and styles are constantly irresolute through cultural influences. The mutual mistake of many Christians today is to consider i form "godly" and some other "ungodly." Many would dismiss the cubism of Duchamp or the surrealism of Dali as worthless, while holding everything from the brush of Rembrandt to be inspired. This attitude reveals null more than the personal artful tastes of the ane doing the evaluating.
Form and style must be considered in their historical and cultural contexts. A westerner would be hard pressed, if totally unfamiliar with the music of Japan, to distinguish betwixt a devout Buddhist hymn, a sensual love song, and a patriotic melody, even if he heard them in rapid sequence. Merely every Japanese could do so immediately considering of familiarity with their own culture.
Aesthetic sense is therefore profoundly conditioned by personal cultural experience. Just as a each kid is born with the capacity to learn language, so each of us is built-in with an aesthetic sensibility which is influenced by the civilization which surrounds usa. To judge the art or music of Japan as junior to American fine art or music is as senseless as suggesting the Japanese language is inferior to the English language. Deviation or remoteness exercise non imply inferiority!
Truth can be expressed by non-believers, and fault may be expressed past believers. When Paul delivered his famous Mars Hill address in Athens, he quoted from a pagan poet (Acts 17:28) to communicate a biblical truth. In this example, Paul used a secular source to communicate biblical truth because the argument affirmed the truth of revelation. On the other hand, error can be communicated in a biblical context. For example, in Exodus 32:2-4 we from Aaron fashioning a gilded calf for the children of Israel to worship. This was a wrong use of art because information technology directly disobeyed God'south command not to worship any paradigm.
Evaluating Art
How should a Christian approach art in order to evaluate it? Is beauty simply "in the eye of the beholder?" Or are in that location guidelines from Scripture which volition provide a framework for the evaluation and enjoyment of art?
Earlier, we mentioned a argument by Paul from Philippians 4. While the biblical context of this passage looks beyond aesthetics, in a chiselled way we are given in the passage (past way of application) some criteria necessary for artistic analysis. Each concept Paul mentions in poetry 8 can be used as sort of a "central" to unlock the significance of the art we meet and to genuinely appreciate it.
Truth. It is probably not past accident that Paul begins with truth. Plainly not every work of art contains a truth argument. But wherever and to what extent such a statement is being made, the Christian is compelled to enquire, "Is this really truthful?" Does life genuinely operate in this way in the low-cal of God's revelation? And Christians must remember that truth is honestly facing the negatives equally well as the positives of reality. Negative content has its place, fifty-fifty in a Christian approach to art. Simply Christian hope allows us to view these works in a different light. Nosotros sorrow, merely not like those who have no hope. Ours is a sorrow of expectancy and ultimate triumph; there is one of full pessimism and despair.
Honor. A second aesthetic cardinal has to practice with the concept of accolade and dignity. This tin be tied dorsum to what was said before near the nature of man created in God's image. This gives a basis, for example, to reject the statement being made in the total life work of Francis Salary (d. 1993). In many of his paintings this gimmicky British artist presents united states with solitary, decaying humans on big, depressing canvasses. Deterioration and hopeless despair are the hallmarks of his artistic expression. Merely if Christianity is true, these are inaccurate portrayals of human being. They are half-truths. They get out out completely a dimension which is really true of him. Created in God'due south image, he has honor and dignity–fifty-fifty though admittedly he is in the procedure of dying, aging, wasting abroad. The Christian is the only one capable of truly comprehending what is missing in Bacon's work. Without a Christian base, we would have to look at the paintings and acknowledge man's "true" destiny, i.e., extinction, along with the rest of the cosmos. But as Christians we can and must resist this message, considering it is a lie. The gospel gives real hope–to individuals and to history. These are missing from Bacon's work and are the directly result of his distorted worldview.
Simply. The third cardinal to artful comprehension has to do with the moral dimension. Not all art makes a moral statement. A Haydn symphony does not, nor does a portrait by Renoir. But where such a statement is beingness made, Christians must deal with it, non ignore information technology. We will also exercise well to remember that moral statements can frequently be stated powerfully in negative ways, too. Picasso's Guernica comes to listen. He was protesting the bombing by the Germans of a town past that proper name just prior to World War II. Protesting injustice is a cry for justice. Only the Christian is aware and sure of where it tin can ultimately be found.
Pure. This 4th cardinal also touches on the moral–by contrasting that which is innocent, chaste, and pure from that which is sordid, impure, and worldly. An accurate awarding of the principle will aid distinguish the one from the other. For instance, one demand non be a professional drama critic to identify and capeesh the fresh, innocent dear of Romeo and Juliet, nor to distinguish information technology from the erotic escapades of a Tom Jones. The aforementioned dynamic is at piece of work when comparing Greek nudes and Playboy centerfolds. 1 is lofty, the other cheap. The deviation is this concept of purity. It allows the Christian to await at two nudes and quite properly designate one "art" and the other "pornography." Possessing the listen of Christ, we accept the equipment for identifying purity and impurity to a high degree.
Lovely. While the starting time iv concepts accept dealt with facets of artistic statements, the fifth focuses on sheer aesthetic beauty. "Whatsoever things are lovely," Paul says. A mural makes no moral statement, merely it can exhibit great dazzler. The geometric designs of Mondrian may say zippo about justice, merely they can definitely appoint us aesthetically. The immensity and grandeur of a Gothic cathedral volition inspire artistic awe in whatsoever sensitive breast, merely they may do petty else. Once again, the Christian is equipped to appreciate a broad range of creative mediums and expressions. If in that location is piffling to evaluate morally and rationally, we are still free to appreciate what is cute in the art.
Expert Report. In this concept, we have the opportunity to evaluate the life and character of the creative person. What kind of a person is he? If a statement is existence made, does the artist, composer, or author believe in that statement? Or was information technology to please a patron, a colleague, or a critic? Is there a discontinuity betwixt the statement of the work and the statement being made through the personal life of its creator? For case, Handel'southward Messiah is a musical masterpiece, merely he was no saint! Filippo Lippi used his ain mistress equally a model for Mary in this Madonna paintings. The "less than exemplary" lifestyle of a creative person may somewhat tarnish his artistic contribution, but it does not necessarily or totally obliterate it. Something of God'south image e'er shines through in the creative process. The Christian can always requite glory to God for that, even if a work of are has piffling else going for it. The greatest art is true, skillfully expressed, imaginative, and unencumbered by the personal and emotional hang-ups of its originators.
Excellence. This is a comparative term. It speaks of degrees, assuming that something else is non excellent. The focus is on quality. Quality can mean many things in the realm of art, only one sure sign of it is craftsmanship. Technical mastery is one of the essential ingredients which separates the great artist from the rank amateur. Apparently, the more one knows virtually technique and creative skill, the better one is able to capeesh whether an private artist, author, composer, or performer has what is necessary to produce slap-up art. Many Christians accept made unfortunate value judgments about art of all kinds. Through ignorance and naivete, superficial agreement of technique has been followed by smug rejection. This has erected barriers instead of bridges built to the artistic community, thus hindering a vital witness. We need to know what is swell fine art and why information technology is considered such.
Excellence is also found in the durability of art. Neat fine art lasts. If it has been around several hundred years, it probably has something going for information technology. It has "staying power." Christians should realize that some of the fine art of this century will not be around in the next. Much of it will pass off the scene. This is a expert indication that it does not possess great artful value; it is not splendid.
Praise. Here we are concerned with the touch or the event of the art. Is anything praiseworthy? The crayola scribblings of a toddler are praiseworthy to some extent, but it does non elicit a stiff artful response. Nosotros are not gripped or overpowered by it. But neat fine art has ability and is therefore a forceful tool of communication. Francis Schaeffer has mentioned that the greater the art, the greater the affect. Does it please or displease? Inspire or depress? Does it influence thinking and behavior? Would it modify a person? Would it modify you. Herein lies the "two-edged-swordness" of art. It tin can elevate a culture to lofty heights and it can assist bring a society to ruin. It is the effect of civilization, only information technology can also influence culture.
Conclusion
Paul undergirds this meaty poesy with the final command, think on these things. Two very of import propositions come up forth with which nosotros tin can conclude this section. First, he reminds us that Christianity thrives on intelligence, not ignorance—even in the aesthetic realm. Christians demand their minds when confronting the creative expressions of a culture. To the existentialist and the nihilist, the heed is an enemy, but to the Christian, it is a friend. Second, it is noteworthy that Paul has suggested such a positive approach to life and, by application, to fine art. He doesn't tell us that whatsoever things are fake, dishonorable, unjust impure, ugly, of bad report, poorly crafted, and mediocre are to have the focus of our attending. Here again the promise of the Christian'south arroyo to life in general rings clearly through. Our lives are not to be lived in the minor primal. We detect the despair, but nosotros can come across something more. God has made us more than than conquerors!
Arts, Culture and the Christian
Nosotros now plough to two final areas of consideration in the manner of suggested applications of what has been discussed.
Christ and Culture
At the beginning, we mentioned that aesthetics is related to culture, because in civilisation nosotros find the expressions of human creativity. In his very fine book, A Return to Christian Culture, Richard Taylor points out that each of the states is related to culture in ii ways: nosotros observe ourselves within a cultural setting and nosotros each possess a civilisation personally. That is, society has certain acceptable patterns to which individuals are expected to adapt. When one does so, 1 is considered "cultured."
In the light of Romans 12:2 and other biblical passages, the claiming for the Christian is to resist being "poured into the mold of the globe" without also throwing out legitimate artful interests. At the private level, a Christian should seek to bring his maximum efforts toward the ". . .evolution of the person, intellectually, aesthetically, socially to the full use of his powers, in compatibility with the recognized standards of excellence of his lodge."{10}
Culturally speaking, the aforementioned goal could be stated for Christian and non-Christian alike, just the Christian who wants to reverberate the best in culture has his/her different motives. And some Christians can display the fruit of the Spirit, but be largely insufficient of cultural and aesthetic sensibilities. D. L. Moody is said to take "butchered the Rex'south English," but he was used mightily past God on two continents. This would suggest that cultural sophistication is not absolutely necessary for God to use a person for spiritual purposes, just one could well ponder how many opportunities to minister accept been lost because an individual has made a cultural "faux pas." The other side of the coin is that a person may have reached the pinnacle of social and aesthetic acceptability but have no spiritual impact on his environs any.
Three words are important to keep in heed while defining Christian responsibleness in any civilization. The first is cooperation with culture. The reason for this cooperation is that we might identify with our culture and so it may exist influenced for Jesus Christ. Jesus is a model for u.s.a. here. He was not generally a non-conformist. He attended weddings and funerals, synagogues and banquet. He was a practicing Jew. He generally did the culturally acceptable things. When He did not, it was for clear spiritual principles.
A 2nd word is persuasion. The Bible portrays Christians as table salt and light, the penetrating and purifying elements within a culture. Christianity is intended to have a sanctify influence on a civilization, not be swallowed upwardly past it in ane compromise afterward another.
A tertiary concept is confrontation. By carefully using Scripture, Christians tin can challenge and reject those elements and practices inside a culture that are incompatible with biblical truth. At that place are times when Christians must confront gild. Things such as polygamy, idolatry, sexual immorality, and racism should be challenged head-on past Christians.
How can attain this kind of impact? Start by the development of loftier personal, cultural, and aesthetic standards. These include tact, courtesy, dress, and speech. In doing this, Christians need to avoid 2 extremes. The first is the tendency to attempt to "go on up with the Joneses." This becomes the "Cult of the Snob." A second extreme is to react confronting the Joneses and join the "Cult of the Slobs."
Second, Christians must apply all of life to proclaim a Christian worldview. In a century dominated past darkness, despair, and dissonance, Christians can still offering a message and demeanor of hope. If being a Christian is a superior way of living, its benefits should be apparent to all.
Finally, Christians should be encouraged to become involved in the arts. This can exist done first of all past learning to evaluate and appreciate the arts with greater skill. Generally, Christians can become involved in the arts in one of three ways.
Interest in the Arts
Ane of the deep hopes for this paper is that information technology might instill in the reader a good for you desire to plunge more than deeply into the arts and relish what is there with the freedom Christ has given. It might encourage us to remind ourselves that Paul lived in a X-rated civilisation similar to our ain. Yet he and most of the other believers kept their spiritual equilibrium in such a setting and were used mightily by God in their culture.
Too often today Christians, like the Pharisees of old, are seeking to eliminate the leprous elements which touch their lives. With increasing isolation, they are focused more on what the diseases of society can do to them than how they might affect the diseased! Nowhere is this more than critically experienced than in the arts. Nosotros mostly shy away from those contexts which disturb us. And there is today much in the arts to disturb us–be we creator, spectator (a grade of participation) or performer.
Ugliness and decadence grow in every culture and generation. From this nosotros cannot escape. Merely Jesus touched the leper. He fabricated contact with the diseased i in need. Every bit Christians, our focus should exist not on what art brings to us, just rather what nosotros can bring to the art! Therefore the evolution of imagination and a wholesome, expanded assay of even the many negative contemporary works is possible when viewed in the broad themes of humanity, life, and experience of a truly Christian worldview. Cracking art is more a smiling landscape. Beauty and truth include terrible and ominous aspects equally well, like a storm on the sea, or the torn life of a prostitute.
Christians can also experience the arts every bit participators and performers. If each person is created in the image of God, some creativity is there to be personally expressed in every one of us. Learn what artistic talents you accept. Discover how yous can best limited your inventiveness and then exercise so. Learn an instrument, write some poetry. Take part in a stage production. Your Christianity will not hateful less, merely more than to you if y'all practice.
A tertiary area oftentimes overlooked must also exist mentioned. I refer to those greatly gifted and talented Christians among us who should be encouraged to consider the arts equally a career. A Christian influence in the arts is sorely needed today, and things will non improve as long as Christians are happy to allow the majority of gimmicky artistry to menstruum along from those who have no personal human relationship with the 1 who gave them their talents. The artistic surround is a tough place to live out your Christian organized religion, and the dangers are keen, just to exercise then successfully will bring rich rewards and lasting fruit.
Gini Andrews, an acclaimed concert pianist and author, writes of the great need for Christians to excel in all the artistic fields and sounds a challenge for them to develop their gifts:
"All the disciplines, music, painting, sculpture, theater, and writing, are in need of pioneers who seek a manner to perform in a twentieth century manner; to show with quality work that there is an respond to the absurdity of life, to the threat of annihilation, to the mechanization of man, the message being sounded loud and clear past the non-Christian artist. . . . "If nosotros are to nowadays God'southward bulletin to disillusioned, corybantic twentieth century people, information technology'southward going to take His creativity expressed in special ways. I hope that some of y'all in the creative fields will be challenged by the Almightiness of our Creator-God and will spend long hours earlier Him, saying, like Jacob, 'I will not go unless you bless me, until you lot show me how to speak out your wonder to the contemporary mind.'"{11}"
Here is expressed the unprecedented challenge and opportunity before the body of Christ today. May God enable u.s. to seize it.
Notes
i. William Bridgewater, ed. The Columbia-Viking Desk Encyclopedia, Vol. I (New York: Viking Press, 1953), p. xvi.
2. John I. Sewall, A History of Western Fine art. (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1953), p. 1.
three. Richard South. Taylor, A Return to Christian Civilisation. (Minneapolis: Dimension Books, 1975), p. 12.
4. Marcel Proust. Maximus.
5. Sewall, Ibid.
half-dozen. Francis Schaeffer, Art & the Bible. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1976), p. 15.
seven. Ibid., p. 34.
8. John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1957), p. 236.
ix. Chad Walsh. "The Literary Stature of C. Due south. Lewis," Christianity Today, June 8, 1979) p.22.
10. Taylor, p. 33.
11. Gini Andrews, Your Half of the Apple (Thou Rapids, MI:, Zondervan, 1972) pp. 64-65.
©2000 Probe Ministries.
Jimmy Williams
James F. Williams was the founder and by president of Probe Ministries International. He held degrees from Southern Methodist University (B.A.) and Dallas Theological Seminary (Th.1000.). He also pursued inter-disciplinary doctoral studies (a.b.d.) in the humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. Over a thirty-v year menstruum, he visited, lectured, and counseled on more than 180 university campuses in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the former Soviet Spousal relationship. He also served on the faculties of the American, Latin American, and European Institutes of Biblical Studies. Jimmy won his (and his family unit's) 14-year battle with Alzheimer's when he graduated to heaven in September 2019.
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