Last Saturday I got to present a paper at Wheaton College on the role of art in the church and reproducing artists in the church. It was a new experience for me--I can perform on stage without any fear, but speaking in front of a group of people was a little unnerving, especially since I was the only presenter at this small conference without a PhD. I think it went over well, though.
But since then I've been thinking a lot about art in the church, and have had multiple conversations about it. Lots of people have lots of opinions. One thing that I will contend is that the church has recently fallen behind in producing good art. I think the secular world regards much of our art as being of a lesser quality than theirs, and they may have a point. I find it difficult to produce art without adding the "cheese" factor that turns off non-Christian artists to Christian art.
The interesting thing is that historically art was commissioned by the church. Most of the great masterpieces of the Medieval period through the Renaissance were paid for by church officials, commissioned of the great artists of the time regardless of their religious beliefs. And we uphold these as great pieces of art, timeless though created centuries ago. Now art in the church has become something less than respectable by the rest of the world.
This makes me sad. We have the ultimate source of inspiration and yet we struggle to create art that compels the world to see that ultimate source. While I think that we have the capacity to redeem secular art for the sake of the church, I also think that as the church we need to create redeemed art. I think we have a long way to go in certain areas--film and literature in particular. But I think we have the capacity to get there, and I love that at CCC we create art that to some degree stirs at least interest in the secular world.
I think the church needs art. We need good art. But we also need real, authentic, and vulnerable art that expresses the heart of the journey of faith. Where do we go from here?
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6 comments:
Yes, the Church is miserably behind on film.
Literature...well...it's not quite so bad. In the 20th century there's been Madeleine L'Engle, Flannery O'Connor, Frederich Buechner, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, and G.K. Chesterton. I believe Solzhenitsyn is also a Christian, and we can toss in Anne Lamott, though I wouldn't file her under literature per se.
There are also those who hang around the fringes in various ways: T.S. Eliott, Wendell Berry (I think that's the right guy), and Annie Dillard come to mind.
From that list, Sayers and Chesterton each had landmark and revered mystery series (in England, at least). Lewis and L'Engle should endure in children's lit with The Chronicles of Narnia and A Wrinkle in Time. O'Connor and Tolkien are the only ones who I think can survive in the "high" literary canon, though (her short stories and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings).
If we count the fringes, then Eliott's poetry and Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" should both endure. On top of that, we had Lewis, Chesterton, Sayers, and Buechner cranking out very literary non-literature...if you will.
Not a grand showing in terms of quantity, I'll give you that...and fairly lacking in the last 30 years or so, but at least we've got *something* in the modern era.
I guess you'd better get to work on being the next Dante...
whenever I speak of these things, ducks fly out of the sky and try to hurt me...be careful.
I'd like to read what you came up with
Char....since you are a now a high profile speaker (jk) I'd be interested in what you believe to be the "cheese" in Christian art. I fully agree w/ you, just curious how you'd identify it.
whaaaaaaaat???? you are filtering comments now? lame!
Yes, I am filtering comments. Ha ha!
I would identify the cheese factor as anything that remotely resembles the Left Behind series.
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