The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 5
In the last issue, we continued to explore the question of why, in an America in which betwixt one-fourth and one-fifth of the population reportedly profess to be Evangelical Christians, there is a paucity of quality art created by Christians (in music, dance, television, film, etc.). We saw that, though Evangelicals claim to know and love the Creator of all beauty, and to be directed in “every good work” (2 Timothy 3: 16-17) by the Word of that Creator, their communal failure to produce quality art for the Church and the world is a result of their lack of knowledge and understanding of the Bible. Two reasons were put forward for this lack of knowledge: laziness and bad theology, the first of which we saw as primarily related to a self-idolatry which manifests itself in a pursuit of pleasure (personal peace and affluence) which has displaced love and obedience to God’s Will and Purposes.
The second reason, bad theology, we saw as being partially the result of jettisoning the ethical demands of Scripture in favor of seeking an emotional experience instead. Because deep knowledge of the Bible isn’t necessary to seek a feel-good experience of God, study of Scripture has radically fallen off amongst Evangelicals, as Holy Writ has increasingly ceased to be viewed as the Heavenly Blueprint of God’s Patterns for men’s lives.
Such a view, married to a primary pursuit of pleasure, limits a Christian to surface (and frequently erroneous) views of Scripture’s teaching. The upshot of all this mindset is that the Evangelical Church (which has been affected on many levels by this viewpoint) has lost the ability to see the world (and ourselves) Biblically, as we actually are.
By forfeiting the Biblical view of Reality, the Church is left with either an unrealistic, distorted, pseudo-Scriptural picture of the world, or a perverted, radically illusory concept of the universe which is drawn from both the world-system and the darkened rebellion dwelling in the hearts of men (Romans 1: 18-32). Amongst most of us, a combination of the two prevails.
This flawed perspective is controlling the way that much of the Church in the West views God, ourselves, and our mission and callings in the world today. This perspective is also why the Western Church is failing at its God-given task in America.
Since the Church doesn’t see the world, God, and ourselves correctly, we have not been able to properly minister as an entity in most spheres of our callings. Our unBiblical worldview has distorted and crippled our anthropology, cosmology, even our sociological understandings, so that our evangelism and discipleship, and even our cultural callings, suffer.
These last, our cultural callings, include the efforts of Christian artists to produce quality art in accordance with Jesus’ Will for those called by Him to do so. Christians called to be artists are massively hampered in attempts to fulfill their responsibility to produce quality art by an unBiblical view of Reality, since the production of quality art depends radically upon a deep and accurate understanding of the world in order to express in artistic form a Biblically particularized version of human experience of God’s Created Reality (e.g., an artistic expression based upon a true understanding of the world).
A shallow or distorted view of God, mankind, and Reality itself guarantees a shallow, distorted expression of art, since what is produced as art depends on the artist’s depth of accurate apprehension of Creation. Such inferior artistic expressions are rightly viewed by both Christians and non-Christians as irrelevant, or as sheer wish-fulfillment on the part of the Christian artist, or as simplistic propaganda, none of which responsibly reflect the Creative Depth and Beauty of God and His Creation. If the artistic expression fails to accurately reflect Reality, whyever would anyone, believer or non-believer, take its implications or conclusions seriously?
Only the Bible, infallibly inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Peter 2:19-21) gives us an objective and unFallen view of the world to counter our radically subjective and sin-darkened understandings. This is why it is crucial that the Christian artist truly know, deeply and receptively, the Word of God. The artistic distortions which result from failure to know Scripture are legion, leading to a number of anti-Biblical expressions, to some of which, God willing, we will turn in the next issue.
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