The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 19
For some time, we’ve been exploring of why millions of American Evangelicals have failed to make much quality art of any sort, and have seen that this is largely because of limited (or distorted) views of Scripture’s teachings (or a failure to act on or consider the implications of the things they do know from it), even though the Bible instructs believers in “every good work” (2 Tim 3: 16-17), which includes making art.
We’ve looked at some destructive aspects of shallow or distorted views of the Doctrines of Creation and Eschatology. We also lately turned to a consideration of the artistic damage wrought by a sub-Scriptural view of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as a rejection or misunderstanding the Three Persons of the One God destroys all possibility of Biblical justification in seeking symbols as both revealing multiple meanings and simultaneously unifying those varied meanings.
A denigration of the Triune Mystery inevitably leads to confusion concerning the reflected mystery in men, who are created in the Image of the Mysterious Triune God, which reduces men to simplistic machines subject to quick-fix techniques.
This results in a flattened view of man and the world, reducing humanity to a uni-dimensional construct made for one mode of being, instead of the nuanced, complex, multi-orbed creature and Reality God created for mankind to reflect God within.
We saw this illustrated in the last couple of articles by the example of the rejection of a Scripturally-sound song (deemed by all involved as artistically-advanced) by a Christian record label on the basis of it not having a “happy ending,” a rejection undergirded by a uni=dimensional view of man and the world which deemed that God wanted humans to be only happy rather than holy, as those who, in a fallen world, should also experience sorrow, lamentation, and repentance for their sin, as well as sharing in Christ’s Sufferings (1 Peter 4: 12-19; 2 Cor 7: 8-11).
The Word of God, though, overwhelmingly concerns itself with the relationship and experience of God and His Covenant People, and reflects in that nexus not only happiness and joy, but also fear, sorrow, suffering, repentance, guilt, duty, malediction, and holy terror as normative in a fallen world.
All of these categories of human experience are reflected not only in the narrative parts of the Bible, but also in the lamentation, sorrow, sacrifice, and hope represented the prayers, proverbs, and psalms of Scripture, in the apocalyptica (symbolic prophetic writings), prescriptions of the Law, and the Epistles of the New Testament (a number of which were written from prison and/or by men who were eventually martyred).
The Complex and Holy God Who deals with His complex and fallen creature, mankind, utilizes all created things, whether fallen or not, to reveal Himself in His Persons or Aspects (Gen 1; Ps 19; Rom 1: 19-21).
This means that all these categories of existence (which God uses to reveal Himself to men) are revelatory, communicate the meanings the Creator-God gives them, to His Image-Bearers, mankind. These aspects of Reality, which accurately reflect God’s Created Meanings, are all thus useful and necessary to fulfill God’s Purposes in Reality; thus, all history in all its aspects, is revelatory, speaking accurately to men in all their states of being.
God uses all of mankind’s experience to reveal Himself and accomplish His Purposes, call men to Himself, convict, correct, etc., and therefore the full range of man’s experience is meant to lead God’s People (those who know Him) to holiness, to be like God, to be sanctified within their fallen states, and thus the experience of men (redeemed and otherwise) is necessary, and accurately reflects Reality (which is why these varied categories are present in Scripture).
Though final joy and full happiness await the redeemed at time’s end, the Fall is real and radical, and fallen man experiences the world in light of this, whether redeemed or unregenerate. All men, Christian or pagan, know this varied experience, and to attempt to depict a Reality which is not faithful to Scriptural categories is both to deny the witness of Holy Writ and to lead the unregenerate to consider Christianity escapist, irrelevant, and false. Our art must reflect God’s Truth, or deservedly be seen as untrue and irrelevant.
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