Sarah has an excellent post on her blog Itinerant Idealist about her ideals. Here she begins to talk about finding beauty amidst a fallen world…
“To seek beauty then, in the midst of the fallenness, is to have faith in a reality beyond what I can see. Despite the brokenness around me, my heart still percieves glimmers of what was meant to be, echoes from the shattered gladness of new creation. I see the remnants of paradise, slivered shards of ideal beauty glittering in the corners of the earth, gleaming out from art and music and story.”
“Being an idealist isn’t about living a perfect life, it’s about hope in a perfect God. Hope is the essence of idealism.”
AMEN!
I wrote this in the comments section of that post:
Sara,
“I completely agree. I find it sad that so many evangelicals are interested in the “end times” and “tribulation”, but don’t respect art, which points to the ultimate regeneration and resurrection. One of the reasons I love art is that, as a Christian, the contemplation that arises from encountering art leads me to wonder at the complete otherness of God in contrast to our broken states.
It is one of my prayers that in the coming years Christians will begin to rediscover the arts. If you look at the whole of Christian history, of which our present age is but a small blip, art, instead of being feared and mocked, was revered and encouraged by the church.
Perhaps one of the reasons this “New Iconoclasm” has taken place is the mindset of modernity that “all can be reasoned away”, “logic will prevail”, “there is no mystery”… Well, that is great if you are trying to quantify how many orange stones are in a mosaic, but it doesn’t apply very well to the pursuit of understanding the deeper meaning. Sadly, I believe the church has given into this mindset (religiously). But Christianity isn’t a religion, it isn’t a bullet point theology , it is a way of life, and life is messy.
I think that wonder is an excellent form of worship. Praising God by saying “I have no clue. You are too mysterious to understand, completely other.” This is the realm of art, of the unquantifiable, of the mysterious, the subtle shades of meaning that has the power to expand the way we think and change the way we view the ordinary. As I said, sadly we evangelicals are slow to jump to mystery and afraid of what we cannot prove. But if we could prove it, it really wouldn’t be worth noticing would it? God can’t be “proved” or “understood”, and if He could He wouldn’t be God.
Complete understanding is not a requirement for appreciation.”
Part 2- In which I question the validity of my statements.
“Gee this is great!” I think to myself. “Beauty is fun and wonder is a great form of worship.” But then the pesky little man in the back of my brain picks up his megaphone and begins to yell “Yes, that is wonderful. But what about the whole theme of this blog? What about turning thought into deed?”
And even now as I quietly curse the little man who never lets me rest in my self admiration sessions, I understand that his question is a valid one. How do you engage the mysterious and trans-rational? How can we incorporate that which we do not understand into the way we think about and interact with God?
This is the problem that I always have. Transforming something from an abstraction into an actualization. But that is aside from the point.
I still hold by my assertion that propisitionalist “bullet point theology” (by the way, as far as I can tell I have coined that phrase. Yes! Now I must use it as often as possible to propagate it’s popularity and perhaps get a book deal out of it) is not the way to reach a postmodern, postcritical audience. As to what will take place instead “modern mindset ministry”, I am not sure.
We live in a culture that has given up. People are beginning to realize, or their parents realized and they are now a by product of, the fact that reason does not bring or end in meaning. We are intellectually and morally bankrupt, searching for the meaning we didn’t find in books in other people and carnal desires. So, back to the question. How does Christianity work in the 21st century?
Perhaps by not cloaking it in the failed and flawed human logic that we want to box it up in, the same logic that leads no one to meaning apart from The Spirit. Perhaps by shedding the superiority complex of claiming to understand God and instead proclaiming our thankfulness of His choice to reveal himself to us. Perhaps relying less on our ability to interpret Scripture and relying more on the hermeneutic of the Spirit by having more Scripture readings. Perhaps more physical and spiritual reminders of the sacrifice and triumph of Jesus by celebrating Communion more often. Perhaps spending less time trying to understand God by examining logical, rational, assertions in books and more time on our knees in prayer, thanksgiving and wonder (I especially need to understand this).
I am not in any way against preaching, and teaching the Word. I am for preaching and teaching. But perhaps not every service is called to be a service of pure exegetical preaching. Maybe there are times when there just needs to be a cross, a huge, rugged cross standing at the front of the meeting place. Someone reads from scripture bits of Jesus’ life ending at the death and resurrection; but they wouldn’t be reading as if they were reading an instruction manual on how to stain a wood floor, they would be reading this story, this passionate, dramatic story, as if they were there. There would be music, and maybe a speaker would discuss what had been read or a testimony shared. Then there would be communion, and they would be in a state to truly remember and think upon what communion means. And of course, not every service is like this, or should be like this. But not every service should be an A+B+A formula of music, preaching, music, either.
Here are a few things that should maybe be incorporated into worship more often.
- More scripture reading- letting the metanarrative that God provided speak within the original context of a story.
- More silence- More time to speak and listen and wonder at God.
- More Iconography- Physical things to remind us of the spiritual things.
- Communion celebrated more often.
Anyways these are just a few of my thoughts on what a Christian meeting will look like when we engage the part of us that searches for meaning as well as the part that searches for reason.
As to the use of art, I realize that not every church can have an art gallery. I realize that with art comes the risk of bad artists, lol. So I am not entirely sure in what capacity the Church should relate to the arts, but I know that we should at least be supportive.
The one thing more that I want to communicate here is that maybe we need to stop being so afraid of the more mysterious aspects of faith. Faith isn’t being sure, Faith is trust. As I already admitted I am not sure how to incorporate the ideals I spoke of (of God’s otherness, his sovereignty), but I do think they should be incorporated. Ah, but this is enough for one night!
Soli Deo Gloria!
r
