The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 12
We have explored, in previous installments of this series, the question of why a millions-strong American Evangelical Church has failed to produce much quality art (film, dance, music, literature, architecture, etc.), and have seen that this is largely due to a limited or distorted view of Holy Scripture (or, worse, a simple failure to act upon what is known from the Bible), despite the fact that Scripture instructs believers in “every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17), which includes doing art.
We saw this lack of depth in understanding and applying Biblical Doctrines such as Creation and Eschatology. To misunderstand the implications of God’s Creation of the world is to ultimately devalue the material world as the arena and plastic materiel of spirituality in history. To misunderstand Biblical Eschatology (the Doctrine of what God is shaping history toward, and of what His Purposes are to accomplish within [and at the end of] time) leads inexorably to a pessimism concerning history and its value, and seeing time as the captive of Satan, and thus as only something to be escaped from, rather than as something to be fulfilled and redeemed.
Having examined in cursory fashion the implications of a sub-Biblical view of Creation and Eschatology, we move now to a consideration of some of the artistic implications of a faulty view of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the revealed belief that God is eternally both One (unified in Essence or Being) and Many (diverse in His Persons), a Tri-Unity.
The Triune God is, of course, a Mystery so great that the human intellect cannot comprehend in its fullness (like that of Christ’s Incarnation, or Creation from nothing). However, God has revealed this Doctrine to us in His Word to teach us about Himself (and, since we are made in His Image, about us secondarily), and, though we cannot comprehend the depth and breadth of the Trinitarian Mystery (to do so would require that we be God, Who Alone comprehends His Completeness), we can understand a number of aspects of that Mystery, as well as some of the logical implications of those aspects of the Mystery we can grasp in our finitude.
The fact that God’s Tri-Unity is so mysterious has lead most Evangelicals of our time to simply not even try to understand and apply the implications of those aspects of the Trinity which are open to us, and that we are capable of understanding to some extent (this is generally, as we’ve seen in previous articles, due to the current Evangelical penchant for intellectual laziness and overemphasis on experience and concomitant de-emphasis on content and knowledge).
For instance, in our time, most believers never stop to consider (or even to learn) that God is equally One and Three, and has always been so. He is not more One (unified) than He is Three (diverse); He is not more Three than He is One. These Attributes of God (His Three-ness and His Oneness) are what theologians call “equally ultimate,” e.g., neither Attribute is more primary or important than the other. Why is this significant for us?
This is important because it answers one of the greatest philosophical puzzles in the history of mankind, the question of the One and the Many, a question whose answer impacts all of us on most levels of our lives all the time.
The question of the One and the Many is: which is more important, the One (the individual, diversity, multiple meanings) or the Many (the group, unity, single meaning)? Outside of the Doctrine of the Trinity, this question is unanswerable, which is why, for instance, governments of nations across history have swung from totalitarian states (where individual rights and privileges are sacrificed for the perceived good of the many) to chaotic libertarian-style states (where the good of the many is sacrificed for the rights of the individual). The style of government radically varies according to how the question of the One and the Many is answered (this is why, for instance, after the attacks of 9/11, the privilege of an individual to board an airplane at his leisure was curtailed by stringent security measures, because the safety of the many was perceived to be at greater threat precisely because of the privilege of the individual).
The answer to the question of the One and the Many is in the Doctrine of the Trinity. God is neither more One nor more Many; He is a Perfect Balance of these Aspects, equally both, so men should attempt to balance the good of the many with the value and privilege of the individual, governmentally speaking. This insight is why the Founders of America (who inherited the concept from the Church) sought to establish three branches of federal government, with, since men are Fallen (Rom 1: 18-32), checks and balances.
The implications of the Trinitarian answer to the question of the One and the Many are radically important to questions of artistry, as well, in areas like symbology, artist-audience relations, stylistic ornamentation and divergences, and others. Lord willing, we will begin to turn to Trinitarian considerations of these in future issues.
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See below for a helpful book on the implications of Trinitarian Doctrine:
