As we said last time, Christ is the Lord of our whole life! – not just of Sundays, but our family time, work time, leisure time, and everything else. And our faith grows as we see how it all fits together; one reason for our confidence that what we believe is true is that (like a good scientific theory!) it speaks to the whole of what we experience. And one area in which God enriches us through his revelation is the glory it reveals in the arts.
Genesis 2 is full of this, as we saw last time. But there is much more. God himself inspires poetry in the Psalms and the Song of Songs, of course. A massive grouping of musicians – 4000 instrumentalists! – is used to his glory in 1 Chronicles 23:5; again, the performance of a subsequent orchestra leads directly to the coming of the physical cloud of God’s glory in 2 Chronicles 5:12-14 (and see also 1 Chron 15:16-22 and 2 Chron 29:25-28). Scripture contains lots of songs, from Exodus 15 onwards; and in Psalm 149 we find the command to praise God with dancing. (I was enlightened about that when joining in the worship sessions of African IFES student groups, where I found it was impossible to keep your feet still!) Then in Ezekiel 4 we see art and drama being used in an extremely serious way.
And perhaps most strikingly: the first time Scripture speaks about anybody being filled with the Spirit is Bezalel in Exodus 31 (repeated in 35:31): God says there, `I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft.` The whole purpose of his being filled with the Spirit (does this surprise us?!) was that he might work artistically on the tabernacle, with its craftsmanship (Ex 25:10-33), its carving of cherubim and pomegranates, its beautiful blue curtains, etc. And God is involved, equally directly, in the artistic designing of the later temple, built, we read, according to the instructions that David received `in writing from the hand of the Lord upon me`, `that the Spirit had put in his mind` (1 Chron 28:11-19). Indeed many of the arts are employed here, with carvings of pomegranates, palm trees, open flowers, lilies, lions, bulls and cherubim (1 Kings 6 and the second part of ch7). So the arts are something glorious, something good and God-given. And because we are in God’s image we enjoy them and are creators, in a way that animals don’t and aren’t.
However, there is another side to it. Something went horribly wrong back in Genesis, as our demand for our independence damaged every area of life. And so in Genesis 4:23-24 we find another poem, but this time it’s a song glorifying violence and egoism. The arts have power, and evil can be more powerful when it’s beautiful.
Which means the arts are not just a playground but also a battleground. Christ is going to triumph in this battle, as in every other! – and we see this from the place of the arts in Revelation: the wonderful sung worship in Revelation 5 and again in Revelation 15, and the way the glory and honour of the nations (whoever they are!) are to be brought into the eternal New Jerusalem in 21:26. Indeed, right now, Christ is the Lord of all; to quote Kuyper’s famous words, `There is not an inch in the whole area of existence of which Christ the Sovereign of all does not cry, “It is Mine!”` What’s good (the riches of what’s good in the arts) we accept as from Jesus and thank him for: good music, powerful paintings, a great novel, a great film. Embodiments of his grace!
But are the arts always good? No. Of course any good thing can become an idol (the sculptured brass snake that was a means of salvation in Numbers 21 had to be destroyed for this reason in 2 Kings 18). I can start to live for my art in an idolatrous way that displaces Christ and the different aspects of discipleship (eg Scripture, prayer, witness, holiness, church) at the centre of my life. But there’s more. Whether or not it’s deliberate, nearly all art embodies a message about what we most care about and most want to celebrate – and may leave certain things out, and train us to do the same. (Most of the English novel tradition, for example, trains us to leave God out; he never does anything significant; see https://petelowmanresources.com/latest-the-loss-of-god-in-the-novel/ .) We need caution, therefore, and the deliberate choice to think and understand.
We need to keep consciously in mind questions that help us recognise some of the brainwashing with which we’re threatened. Practically, we should have two kinds of standards in view. Simplifying significantly, one kind is, Is this beautiful, well done, well made? And the other is, Is what it communicates true or holy? Thus bad religious art can be true, but badly done; alas, much art in our own time can be superbly done, but untrue or unholy. It is significant, but in itself insufficient, to note that a particular product or production is technically good or innovative. It may be thoroughly well-made (and deserves genuine respect when it is), and yet not be spiritually healthy to consume at all. (It’s not enough, for example, to choose a film to watch merely by how many Oscars it received.) In the PS I’ve put some questions we may wish to bear in mind in this decoding exercise – and the more developed the media, the more of them will become relevant. (For example we may not be able to apply these questions to a single song by a musician; but their answers may well become clear if we consider her whole output to date.)
But then also: the world needs – and God’s purposes for his world includes – Christian artists!- not only doing things that are overtly evangelistic, but people who consciously glorify God in what they do (like anyone else!), and whose faith and worldview (obviously providing they are walking with God) will come out in the totality of what they seek to create or to celebrate. It’s true that there can be areas of the arts in any particular cultural moment that can be problematic for us to enter; eg it’s seemed to me as a pastor that – at present in the UK – secular drama can be problematic as a place for a young Christian to keep close to God because of issues like nudity, misusing God’s name, etc. (But then it’s perhaps as a partial result that we have such excellent Christian drama groups, and street theatre groups. That gift is still worth exercising!)
So we give thanks for God’s great goodness in the sheer riches of all he has brought into being, whether directly or through human beings made in his image. So lastly then: be a creator yourself! You may feel, `But I’m not an artist`. Yes, but God is a Creator, and we are his masterpieces, his workmanship (Eph 2:10), made in his image, and therefore we are creators too. We can make of our life an artwork for God. Maybe nobody seems to see it, but what we so create will be seen and enjoyed by the One who matters most of all, the master Creator who gives us the power and skill to do it. Lord, please help me make my life the best work of art it can be; not meaningless but something glorious and beautiful for you!
(For more on these issues please check https://petelowmanresources.com/category/literature-and-culture/ .)
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PS As we’ve said, practically we need to keep two kinds of standards in mind in our interactions with the arts. The first is, Is this beautiful, well done, well made? And the second, Is what it communicates true or holy? And as we said above, it’s significant, but in itself insufficient, to note that a particular product is technically good or innovative. It may be thoroughly well-made (and deserve genuine respect for that), and yet be destructive. Here then are some questions we can bear in mind in this decoding exercise, particularly in the media – and the more developed the media, the more of them will become relevant:
What kind of world does this present/train us to think in terms of? One in which there may be a God, something higher than man, or not? If so, is he (or the Ultimate) personal? If not, what has taken his place as the ‘fundamental reality’, the ‘really real’? Determinism? Natural forces? Chance and luck?
Who, in this product’s ‘universe’ (eg in this movie, this rap album) is presented as living the ‘good life’, really understanding what life is about? What kind of person is presented as a hero or heroine? – as a real Man, or real Woman? The sharpest dancer? The character with the most devastating one-liners? The ‘king of cool’? The macho man? In a sense this question is asking, what is `sainthood` here – except that the answer is highly unlikely to be, holiness and living in the presence and for the purposes of God. Thus we are trained.
Linked with this, we may ask: What is presented as the ‘quality of life’ to be aimed at here, and how is it attained? – eg in this comedy, this group of songs? Success and status? An abundance of ‘things to possess’ (£1500 million was being spent annually by advertisers in the UK, Richard Taylor write a few years ago, ‘to convince us that Jesus was wrong about the abundance of possessions’)? Hedonism? The ‘high’ of excitement, of dance? A blonde by your side in a car? Abundant sexual fulfilment? Personal relationships? Knowing God? What, in short, is the ‘point of life’ in this alternative world that we’re consuming? Is it just a game? Closely related may be a simpler question: What does this product – this group of songs for example – imply is worth celebrating, worth recording, worth writing or singing about?
Again, What, according to this product’s ‘universe’ (the opinions of key figures, the nature of key experiences that are presented, the conclusions made clear from how events transpire), does it mean to ‘mature’, to ‘grow’ as a person? (This may be relevant to numerous movies and TV dramas, and also to song-albums.) How does that compare with God’s concept of maturity?
What, in the ‘alternative universe’ of this product, is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, and how do people know? How, and by what standards, do we tell one from the other? Is it just by the natural instincts of an ‘honest heart’? Or is all morality ultimately (and cynically?) seen as manmade – or ultimately your own personal choice? Equally important: What is wrong with the world, and how, in this ‘universe’, is it to be cured? By simple niceness (eg in some daytime soaps)? By violence? (Do the ends then justify the means? Are there any rules?) Or can the problem of evil and the lack of love in the world be dealt with by a new car, a better brand of whisky or a new deodorant? Or by the impulsive, unsystematised acts of a cynical loner (as in numerous detective movies and TV dramas – where also it may be worth considering why ultimately the wrong is worth troubling to cure)?
And finally, related to the previous question: Is there hope?- if so, what is it grounded in? Is there a God at work for good in the world? If not, what are the lessons we are being trained to learn?
