Dear Friends,
Thank you for indulging me some thoughts on world events last Friday. I have more to write on that score, but will wait a bit longer to see how things continue to unfold. This week I return to scheduled programming.
This is Part Three of an essay on art, Scripture, and imagination. If you missed it, here is Part One, and here is Part Two.
Enjoy!
The Mission of Art
What is the mission of art? What is it that our young songwriter feels guilty about when she concludes her set at the Open Mic without singing her praise song in front of all the unbelievers? In her case, she has a sensibility—no doubt cultivated by her evangelical context—that the purpose of art, that which gives it its legitimacy, is evangelism. Don’t get me wrong: evangelism can be a purpose of art! What about Mr. Audience-of-One or the foursome I saw in that emotionally overheated concert? They believe the purpose and mission of art is worship. Don’t get me wrong: worship can be a purpose of art! But evangelism and worship do not exhaust the mission and purpose of art!
The purpose and mission of art is to creatively convey and bear witness to the Truth by aesthetic means. Truth about what, you ask? The truth about everything. The scope of art is as wide as the whole cosmos as well as the history of the whole cosmos. Christians, after all, have the spectacles (as Calvin put it) of Scripture through which to view—and portray!—all of it. We should bear witness to the truth about God, certainly, but also love, courtship, marriage, children, pets, joy, happiness, contentment, wine, women, song, work, labor, loss, tragedy, divorce, injustice, corruption, orphans, widows, heart-breaks and heartaches, sin, depravity, despair, death, friendship, sex, money, power, the natural world, and, yes, even “This shirt that’s old and faded / all the color washed away.” (Carpenter)
Now, this goes against the grain of modern Christian art, which most people assume (as powerhouse K-Love radio tells us) must be “positive and encouraging.” This sentiment superficially seems to follow from Paul’s exhortation that we think about whatever is “true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy” (Phil. 4:8). And surely that cannot include things like sin, depravity, and vice, can it?
Do you know what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy?
The Bible’s own portrayal of sin, depravity, and vice. And the Bible portrays those things in sometimes very, very uncomfortable ways (c.f., e.g., Ez. 16); and those portrayals are surely included in what Paul expects us to think upon! The point is to tell the truth about the fall, not embrace, revel in, or glorify it. As Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:11: “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” Show them in their true profile; show their ugliness and their consequences. Sometimes an artist might wish to let an audience sit and rest with that ugliness for awhile before glibly contrasting it with the alternatives. I suppose Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss could have tacked on another, uplifting verse to their ultra-tragic “Whiskey Lullaby,” but the audience would not feel nearly the same horror and revulsion at alcoholism and suicide. Having a thick and diverse portfolio of her own, Krauss wisely saved that for other songs, like “There is a Reason” and “Living Prayer.” I think music producer and songwriter T-Bone Burnett puts it well: “If Jesus is the Light of the World, there are two kinds of songs you can write. You can write songs about the light, or you can write songs about what you can see by the light. That’s what I try to do.”
Just as art—creatively conveying and bearing witness to the truth by aesthetic means—has the whole incalculable universe as its subject, so also its object or purpose cannot be whittled down to a narrow point like worship or evangelism. It is for many other things, besides—brightening a room, lightening the heels, bringing mirth and joy, or capturing for deeper reflection melancholy and sadness. God calls and gifts people in innumerable ways for innumerable purposes, and for some that is, indeed, a ministry of evangelism—Paul tells us in Ephesians that the Spirit has given “some to be evangelists.” But more often we place the Christian artist in a manufactured, stifling, guilt-tripping straight-jacket. So our poor sister feels like simply entertaining the guests at the coffee shop with some fun cover tunes is somehow unworthy of her Christian calling because she’s supposed to convert them.
Conclusion: People of Glory
Let me conclude by suggesting that Christian art lacks broad power today because it is thin, light, and superficial. Its problem is not that it is too theological, but that it is not theological enough. In its reductionism, its scope misses so much that ought to be of interest; it doesn’t embrace the totality of creation (space) nor is it often informed by the whole of redemptive history (time).
So how can we pursue a robust and powerful kind of art? It can only come from robust and powerful artists. These terms I keep using, I admit, are elusive. What do I mean by “robust” or “powerful” or a “thick” portfolio? These are not terms from which you could write down a list of “action items” to check off one by one: this is not a managerial or engineering sort of thing. These words are more subtle—dare I say, more artistic—than that. This is a moral formation kind of thing. Another word might give us a closer glimpse of what I’m gesturing toward: substantive. A person of substance produces works of substance.
Do you know what the Hebrew word for “glory” is, as in “the glory of God”? Kavod. It literally means, “heavy.” I have always found that strange, but on deeper reflection I’ve found it perfect. Glory is something weighty, substantive, robust; something with density and thickness, full of fiber and sinew, immovable, unbreakable, full of fascination and enduring interest. It is the opposite of shallow, glib, fleeting, ethereal, and frivolous. That is what the word is getting at.
And there’s our solution. We become like whatever it is that we worship: worship money, and you’ll become a purely transactional person; worship consumerism, and, as Thaddeus Williams puts it, “you’ll start to look more like the mannequins you look to for meaning (and become about as interesting to talk to.” But, what if we immersed ourselves in God—the glorious One? Then we ourselves would begin to look…glorious, just like he originally created us to be! Reflectors of his glory. Not in the sense of “showy” or “attention-grabbing,” but in its deepest and truest sense: weighty and substantive.
A Christian artistic imagination formed by immersion in the glory of God, the glory of his handiwork, and the glory of his redemptive plan for the cosmos, should inevitably produce glorious artistic works. And their excellence, beauty, thoughtfulness, profundity, depth, and insight will, I believe, provide a much weightier cultural and evangelistic result than can our current superficial tack-ons.
Let all Christian artists strive to become weighty, substantive, glorious people, and it will bear much fruit for the glory of our infinitely creative God.
This was a wonderful essay.
As a musician who has largely stuck to instrumental music for most of my life, I've never had to face this as forcefully as song writer / performer; as you just can't inject God words into instrumental music. It would seem mighty odd at least.
I definitely feel God's pleasure when I play "Flowers of Edinburgh". Maybe that's what Eric Liddell was talking about when he said "when I run, I feel His pleasure .” If a runner can be an artist who enjoys and glorifies (i.e. ascribes weight to) God, I guess I can be, too. Just putting one foot in front of the other as skillfully as possible and feeling the thrill and purity of it.