The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 6

We continue in this post to explore the question of why, in an America wherein one-fourth and one-fifth of the population reportedly profess to be Evangelicals who claim to be directed in “every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), the Church, so far as the “good work” of making art goes, continues to fail overall, producing a paucity of quality art (music, dance, television, film, etc.).

We determined, in past articles, that this failure is due to a result of the lack of knowledge and understanding of the Bible amongst Evangelicals. The twin causes of this lack of Scriptural knowledge we saw to be, first, laziness motivated by self-idolatry in pursuit of pleasure, and, secondly, bad theology, due at least partially to jettisoning the Bible’s ethical demands in favor of a feel-good emotional experience.

The upshot of the resulting surface view of Scripture is that Evangelicals have largely lost the ability to see reality (God, themselves, and the world) as it really is. Since the making of art depends upon a Biblically particularized version of the human experience of God’s Created Reality, the lack of an accurate understanding of the world results in inferior, distorted artistic expressions rightly viewed by both Christians and non-Christians as irrelevant, inaccurate pictures of the depth and beauty of God and His Creation.

Bad theology inevitably results in bad art. For instance, basic to all views of reality is a concept of origins, a doctrine of creation. Any view of the origin of the universe that differs from the Biblical account of God’s Creation of everything from nothing (Gen 1, John 1:1-4), a Creation which is upheld and sustained at all times by God (Col 1:16-17; Heb 1:3), and which reveals God at all times (Gen 1:14; Psalm 19:1-6; Rom 1:18-23), does not provide the necessary resources to accurately portray Reality artistically.

Most Christians have no problem believing and holding to God’s Creation of all things from nothing, and so believe that it is not wrong to use created things (such as paint, language, the body, etc.) to render their art, although a poor view of the theological value of the Incarnation of Christ (which will be considered in future articles) has led many Christians to a mistrust of created matter as the medium of their calling.

There is much less realization amongst Evangelicals of the importance of the corollary doctrines, that God continually holds all things together and also reveals Himself through His Creation. We should remember that God pronounced His Creation “very good” (Gen 1:31), and this Divine assessment of the created world means that God thoroughly approved not only of the making of all things from nothing, but also of His Ongoing Involvement with all these things by continually sustaining them and causing them to reveal knowledge of Himself. The Bible reveals as “very good” not just a clockwork automata or universe which God just wound up and let go, but a universe with which He is involved at every instant, causing things to continue to exist and to mediate the knowledge of His Existence and Attributes (Rom 1:18-24).

This shows us that not only is the world of matter not evil, but that the physical is the arena of the spiritual. This is why the Kingdom to God came here, to this world (Mark 1:15), why Jesus became Incarnate, not a ghost, but fully human (and thus physical) as well as fully God (Luke 1:26-38), why salvation results ultimately in physical resurrection (1 Cor 15:35-37), with the physical world’s deliverance itself tied to that Resurrection (Rom 8:19-23), and our final destination a New Heaven and Earth (Rev 21:1-5).

A clear understanding of this doctrinal nexus would undoubtedly lead one to see salvation as beginning with a personal experience with Christ that changes the individual and leads to deep changes in society, politics, the world itself.

Yet, Evangelicals for decades have concentrated in their artistic expressions on only personal aspects and on escape from the very world Christ Jesus came to save. Our songs, movies, paintings, etc., all point to the ultimate destination as being Heaven (as disembodied spirits), when in fact what we think of as Heaven is a waiting-place until the coming of the New Heaven and Earth. We should rather value all the aspects of our lives on Earth, facilitating the advance of Christ’s Lordship over every aspect of our lives and existence in this world. A sound understanding of Biblical doctrine concerning Creation would go a long way towards correcting such errors. We will, Lord willing, continue to examine the implications of the doctrine of Creation in the next post.