I wrote previously about True Myth. There, I argued that the reason we feel stories so deeply is that God chose to reveal himself through a true story. That is to say, just as our eyes are organs sensitive to the light that shines upon us, so God has given us an organ for stories sensitive to the light of truth that he shines upon us. If that perspective is true, then artists have a tremendous opportunity to use the beauty of their craft to highlight the beauty of that story. I will argue elsewhere that not all art should explicitly tell the Christian story. But this post is written for those who are attempting to do so.
Art in Christian Traditions
When I think about explicitly Christian art, three groups of people come to mind. The first group I’m thinking of are Protestant movie-makers. I grew up in the United States watching these movies as a morally sanitized replacement for mainstream films. When I was in that context, I saw a lot of low-budget production and shoddy storytelling. Unfortunately, many in this world see art like cheerleading: the production quality doesn’t really matter as long as the movie roots for the right team. To be fair, I’m speaking in broad strokes. There are occasionally Christian movies of a hight quality, but I am observing its common instinct to prioritize cheerleading.
The second group of people I’m thinking of are Catholic architects. Where I live in Spain, there are dozens of beautiful churches, each overflowing with paintings and sculptures. Unfortunately, much of this art retains traces of an age when it was an extension of military conquest: the art intentionally disparages or ignores other cultures. One prime example of this kind of disparaging art is seen in the so-called Mosque-Cathedrals, where Catholic churches were built over existing Mosques as a kind of middle finger to the Muslims that were driven away. Again, I am speaking in broad strokes: of course there are examples of magnificent Catholic art and architecture. But I am observing the sad reality of how in Spain much of the art sits in the shadow of conquest.
The third group I’m thinking of are people who create Eastern Orthodox iconography. The experience of walking into an Orthodox church feels like stepping into an ancient century frozen in time—another era, another culture, another world. This mode of creating art makes me think of a school teacher: the scents, architecture, and icons are all present to instruct and form the student or worshiper. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this approach, as even Scripture (by its use of techniques like acrostic poems) clearly aims to use art for the instruction and formation its readers. Nevertheless, it is not the only way that Scripture teaches us to use art.
It is easy to forget that the Christian Scriptures were authored by many excellent artists. These biblical artists, rather cleanly falling into the categories of cheerleaders, conquistadores, or school teachers, were often acting like emissaries: they fluently spoke the language of their king and the language of a neighboring nation. I do not say they were merely translators because translators simply help both parties understand the speech of the other. Rather, an emissary can both understand the speech of someone and then deliver a message entrusted to him by the king.
Emissaries have a sophisticated role, and its sophistication is exactly what makes it such a rich and important task. There is a dynamic interaction between listening well and speaking faithfully. There is a fascinating example of the Apostle Paul using art in this emissarial capacity. We’re going to look at his use of art because it contain important lessons for artists who desire to use their work as an explicit witness to the Christian story.
Paul’s Use of Art
Many Christians, myself included, grew up learning to articulate the gospel along the “Romans road.” We are sinful. We need a savior. Jesus paid the penalty. Trust him. That message is true enough. Interestingly, however, that articulation of the gospel story was actually directed to people already a part of the church. When Paul articulates the Jesus story to insiders, he starts with universal sin to make the point that no one is superior to another. But when Paul articulates the Jesus story to outsiders, he does not start with sin (though he gets there eventually). Instead, he starts by affirming how his hearers are already seeking God (Acts 17:16-34).
Paul sets the stage by adopting the framework of his audience: “I see that in every way you are very religious. You even have an inscription that says, ‘to the unknown god.’ What you worship in ignorance I proclaim to you” (vv. 22-23). Paul then affirms that his hearers are genuinely seeking after God, saying, “God determined the exact places that everyone should live so that they might search for him and perhaps find him” (v. 27). Paul’s affirmation of their pursuit of God reaches a zenith when he twice-over quotes their own poets: “In him we live and move and have our being” (v. 28); “We are his offspring” (v. 28). Both of these quotations originally referenced Zeus. But Paul quotes them positively to affirm that their intuition is valid: God does indeed sustain us and create us with his power.
Next, rather than merely affirming, Paul offers a challenging twist to their narrative. He does not completely re-narrate their story. Rather, he tracks with the truths of their sacred story as often as he can. Then he offers a surprising fulfillment to that story: Jesus is the God they worship in ignorance. Paul elaborates that God formerly overlooked the ignorance of our worship, but now God is calling all people everywhere to turn toward him (v. 30). Why this change? Because God “has fixed a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he chose, and he has given proof of this to everyone by raising that man [Jesus] from the dead” (v. 31).
There is so much we can learn from this sermon. But as an artist, I want to point out something easy to overlook: Paul quotes poets. When Paul wants to narrate the Jesus story to a people unfamiliar with it, he first takes time to understand how that people is already seeking God. Art is the fertile soil where Paul found insight. That’s why Paul referenced it when he preached his sermon. Paul’s location of insight—art—ought to be flagged for every communicator of the Christian message. Paul’s use of art reveals that artists are usually the individuals most poignantly summarizing a culture’s narratives and longings.
As it turns out, Paul didn’t pull this emissarial way of engaging culture out of nowhere. This same approach—affirmation first, challenge to follow—deeply tracks with the way the Hebrew Scriptures engaged with the art of the Ancient Near Eastern world. What’s more, these writers do something even more interesting than Paul—not simply using art as a springboard for preaching, but as a conversation partner in their own artistic practice. Let’s watch the artists in the Hebrew Scriptures follow Paul’s pattern of affirmation and challenge as they interact with their surrounding world. It might guide us in how to engage the world around us with our own art.
Where Paul Learned How to Use Art
Take, for instance, temple architecture. In Ancient Near Eastern cultures, the temple in some sense housed or contained the god that dwelt there. This was especially true of the inmost chamber, where the god inhabited an image or idol. The Hebrew Scriptures accept and echo these ancient temple structures, but also provide challenging twists. Like the surrounding cultures, there are three increasing layers of sacred space (outer court, holy place, most holy place). And like the surrounding cultures, there is an image of God. But unlike neighboring peoples, God is not at all contained by the temple; rather, God inhabits all of creation as his temple and merely uses the Jerusalem temple as his footstool. And unlike its neighbors, Israel has no physical image of God in the innermost sanctuary because God already has images—human beings.
Don’t miss the fact that these temple structures were art. The Jewish Scriptures are doing what Paul did—namely, tuning into the deepest narratives of a culture through its art. Then, when they narrate Israel’s story with their own art, they simultaneously affirm and challenge those assumed structures. The sophistication of the affirmation and challenge is what makes the art so rich.
Yet another example of this Paul-style engagement with art is in the Song of Songs. Other Ancient Near Eastern peoples had sex poetry. The Jewish people incorporated this same kind of literature into its own corpus of sacred texts. However, the Hebrew Scriptures make several moves to orient the sex poetry around its own story: 1.) They use garden of Eden imagery to recall God’s original design for nakedness without shame. 2.) They connect the sex poetry with Israel’s most idyllic leaders, David and Solomon. And 3.) they call sexual passion “the flame of Yahweh.” In these particular ways, sex tells the larger story of God’s people.
Yet again we see the Jewish Scriptures listening carefully to the art around them: affirming longings, then offering a challenge. For the Jewish people, the affirmation lies in how they incorporated the sex poetry into their Scriptures without embarrassment. The twist lies in how their Scriptures orients this sex poetry into the larger fabric of their people’s story. It’s as though a rouge planet found a sun to orbit. The planet is not rejected, simply incorporated into a solar system. Again, it is the subtlety of the affirmation and challenge that makes the Song of Songs such a magnificent piece of art.
Examples like these could be enumerated, but the two case studies above should suffice to make the point. To reiterate, the Hebrew Scriptures have a rich method of cultural engagement baked into its art: affirming beauty and truth where possible, then showing how that beauty makes most sense when orbiting Israel’s story. As it turns out, Paul was tuned into this way of thinking, and he intentionally used it when proclaiming the Christian message about Jesus. It is this careful balancing of affirmation and challenge that makes art such fertile soil for Christian proclamation.
A Summons for Artists
In a future blog, I want to write a kind of manual for this vision of Christian art—a workshop of sorts that gives examples of Christians attempting emissarial art with various levels of success. But for now, I want you leave you with a kind of summons: How shall we respond to Scripture’s use of art? Certainly not with cheerleading—cheeky Christian art that never listens to the world’s stories. And certainly not with conquest—art that disparages or ignores the world around it. And certainly not limited to a school teacher’s role—only instructing those within its faith tradition. Rather, as Christ followers, we have an opportunity to act as emissaries—listening intently to the world’s stories, yet still delivering a story entrusted to us by our king. Will we use our craft to this end? Will we become students of Scripture’s own art so that we can imitate its charity, challenge, and depth?
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