Tag Archives: Theology

Apologetics, Culture, Reflection, Theology

The Problem With ‘Using’ the Arts

08KVWOEKXL

The problem with treating the arts as a means to another end is that when that end is achieved the arts suddenly lose their value. Lewis Hyde showed this in The Gift by highlighting the decline of arts funding in America after the Cold War. During the propaganda war, the arts had been supported as a bastion of Western freedoms. This is the period when the National Endowment for the Arts was founded, when the CIA worked behind the scenes to exhibit American artists abroad. But when the West ‘won’, an era of unselfconscious market triumphalism was ushered in and the arts quickly began to seem superfluous. They had served their purpose.

Evangelical Christians, in the majority of cases that I have experienced, tend to justify the arts only as a means to an end. Most commonly this means the only respectable argument for investment in the arts is that it will lead to increased church attendance or greater relevance to contemporary society or engagement with the youth. I have been party to this too and I understand the tension.
These are certainly worthy and worthwhile goals. Of course we want more people to know God and reach every generation and culture effectively. But as Christians, treating the arts merely as a means to evangelism, or relevance, or engagement, assumes that art has no inherent and enduring value to be cultivated beyond these goals. The Bible, however, shows quite clearly that this is an impoverished logic, for artistic creativity will long outlast these temporal ends.

In the new Heavens and Earth, there will be no need for evangelists, neither will there be disparity between the people of God and their surroundings, nor will there be rifts between generations. All will see him, all will know him and all will worship him in solidarity. But one aspect of human existence that will continue to grow perpetually, eternally, for the people of God, is our reflection of his nature. We are being formed into the images of Christ, the image of God. We will reflect his glory by reflecting his nature, character and activity. We are to be made like him–not exhaustively, but truly.

Genesis 1:1 reveals God as the Creator, the great Artist wielding his brush out of the overflow of Trinitarian love. We thus meet him in scripture as Creator before he is Saviour, Father and Judge. Can we afford to neglect this aspect of our God, or of ourselves, his image-bearers?

There will come a time when evangelism will have served its purpose, but the gift of creativity will endure. When the cause of winning people of Christ has been fulfilled, we will continue to create in collaboration with our Creator God. While no one will then need to be convinced, the glory of the gospel will continue to be proclaimed in ever more wonderful and imaginative ways.

Evangelism, in one way then, is a means to creating more artists.

I’m not arguing merely to exalt the arts out of self-indulgence or special pleading, but to honour the Gift Giver by enjoying his precious gift. A gift used merely as a transaction, to gain a measured reciprocal response, leaves the realm of the gift and enters the market of commodities. But to use the gift as a gift, to consume it for the joy of it’s being a gift, transforms us with gratitude and compels us to pass the gift along because we know it is not our possession. And what could bring the giver more satisfaction and glory than to see his gift wholeheartedly enjoyed, like the contentment of a loving husband revelling in his bride’s disinterested pleasure?

Standard
Poetry, Reflection, Theology

Where Feet and Wings Once Fleeted

IMG_0115.JPG
A theological reflection in poetry.

There is a shapeless face which stretches
Itself across the earth,
Mysterious and magnetic,
Turned to and fro by powers unearthly,
It’s shades and contours defy the mind,
Shifting its structures unpredictably,
Not to be contained,
And yet it must,
For by its filling we and all around us live,
Utterly unique yet completely indispensable,
Our relationship is strained both by too much
Or too little contact,
We must ourselves be contained by its rigid fluidity,
Finding both our greatest delight and terror
In the same countenance,
The rich seek to see you,
Body and all,
To gaze upon your beauty- always safely at a distance,
While the poor would be happy with
But a lock of your hair,
But our desires are naive-
No, vain.
For even a touch of your finger
Could decimate our edifices,
You cannot be tamed nor plumbed,
Nor will you obey our command
We are foolish to attempt to capture the beauty,
As if it could be possessed,
But this is our problem:
We want beauty we can keep,
And use,
And pet,
Little aware that this soft face could destroy us.
We want to chart and measure and quantify,
To have a mystery we can fully explain,
But we must be content,
Humble enough to sit
Where the feet and wing once fleeted.

9 September 2014

Standard
Apologetics, Theology

“Your Sins Are Forgiven”

IMG_0111-0.JPG

Sometimes it seems crazy that Jesus would forgive someone else’s sins. It has often been pointed out that this only makes sense if he were God, since who has the right to do that? This is true. Yet, you might wonder why all sins are against God, when he is not the one that has been hurt by the words or actions committed.

But when you think about the nature of reality it makes perfect sense for all sins to ultimately be against God though they are also against others. Imagine you are at a large dinner with the people you generally know and do business with in life, but you also have a special guest, a king or president or honorable figure who sits near enough to hear your conversation and see whatever you might do.

Now imagine you verbally disrespect another guest, or break out into a fight with them, or steal some of their food, or ogle their wife. Your crime would certainly be against that person, but you would also be offending the honour of your esteemed guest. In fact the shock and reproach of doing those things in their presence would be much more than if they had not been there. It makes the real offence, the deepest most ugly offence, against them, not even against the person to whom it was consciously directed, even though their hurt remains. You have really, with your actions, proclaimed that the King’s presence demands no better behaviour from you. In other words, you don’t care what he thinks. Ultimately, you have tarnished his name and reputation and made him a mockery. To be forgiven, you would require not only the forgiveness of the particular person, but also of your guest. The more esteemed, the worse the offence.

This situation is easy to get our heads around. And yet this is a description of the reality that we live in. God is present and near us at every moment. The nature of the universe is wrapped up in the Trinity, the perfect, eternal community of love. When we violate that nature, we offend not only human persons, but the divine person. We are ultimately transgressing, not just some abstract law, but the law of his character from which the moral law comes.

Now Jesus’ words are seen in a new light. They are both astounding, as he is claiming to be the very fabric of that moral law, and compassionate, as he would be willing to excuse our rebellion in his presence.

Standard