The Sons of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do, Part 24

We have seen in past posts that God has created Reality in such a way that symbols (verbal, visual, tactile, etc.) must be used for communication.  We also saw that God causes everything that exists to be a symbol of Himself (Gen 1; Ps 19; Rom 1; etc.), communicating knowledge to both the intuitive and logical aspects of mankind.  We’ve further seen that symbols communicate multiple levels of meaning simultaneously, and that the artist shows his subordinate, derivative creatorship before God by deliberately interlocking and shaping symbols to create a nexus of meanings intended to share the artists’ vision of the world as revealed to the artist by God, thus performing a redemptive task by restoring God’s true vision intended for Creation.

Since these things are true, a question arises: is it legitimate for a Christian to use an art-form that did not develop or arise from use among Christians?  Does Scripture address this issue?  This is not a new question, for the Church has been dealing with it in one form or another from very close to its New Covenant inception. The early Christians, as they increasingly were converted from gentile, pagan backgrounds, found themselves faced repeatedly with this issue, as pagan poetic and music modes and forms, with which the converts were frequently very familiar, began to be used by some of them for worship and apologetical (meaning “defense of the Faith”) uses, which practice was hotly debated by Christians of Jewish descent (who were used to time-honored forms which had arisen, seemingly, within the context of Covenantal usage and worship).  The propriety of the theater and drama, with its overtones, at the time, of pagan cathartic worship rites, was also roundly condemned as unfit for view or adaptability to holy uses by some Christians.

The debate continues to this day, as the suitability of the use of rock and pop styles of music, or of dance-forms, by Christians for worship or evangelistic purposes is viewed with great suspicion and reluctance and even outright condemned as sinful by many believers today.

Thankfully, the Bible does address this issue, both in terms of its outright teaching (as, for example, in Paul’s comments on eating meat sacrificed to idols in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8), and in terms of Scripture’s form or structure, which we will examine at this time.

At the time that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy), common practice throughout the ancient world was the use of what has been called “the suzerainty treaty,” a legal and religious document which spelled out in a preset form the obligations of a conquered people or of vassals to their ruler, and vice versa.  These documents, in explicitly pagan religious terms, attempted to ground the authority of the ruler in the power and will of the ruler’s false god or gods.  Amazingly, the Holy Spirit moved Moses to adapt the form of the suzerainty treaty to the Scripture he was inspired to write.  The Books of the Law are filled with the replication of this treaty form, especially Deuteronomy and Leviticus, to the extent that this form, adapted for use by God Himself, has become the form of the Covenant itself.  (Some would argue that the suzerainty treaty form was originally stolen by the pagans from usage by early followers of God, which is most likely true, but at the time Moses penned the Law, it was recognized as a pagan governmental form).

This form became so associated with God’s Covenant that you see it applied by both Old Testament prophets (such as Hosea in his book) and New Testament apostles (in the Gospels and Revelation, especially).  Those interested in this can read Ray Sutton’s That You May Prosper, Meredith Kline’s By Oath Consigned, and Klaus Baltzer’s The Covenant Formulary for greater detail.

The Book of Genesis also contains, especially in its opening chapter, an adaptation of pagan creation myths for the purpose of refuting the claims of the pagans that their false gods created the universe by showing the Truth and superiority of the One True Creator God (for this see Allen P. Ross’ Creation and Blessing).

So in the Old Testament and New, we see the adaptation and reorientation of pagan forms of worship for the purposes of evangelism, apologetics, and basic godly worship.  In a past post, we saw that Paul, when he spoke to the Greeks on Mars Hill at the Areopagus (Acts 17), used both pagan classical rhetorical structures and quotations from pagan poets such as Epimenedes (on this see F.F. Bruce’s Acts).  Both of the artistic forms Paul employed were drawn from the pagan classical culture of his day.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, throughout his letter, incorporated exquisitely correct pagan rhetorical linguistic forms, mixing them with Jewish midrashic practices to form a new synthesis that became the model for early Christian sermons and writings (on this see William Lane’s Hebrews).

Notice that both Paul and the author to the Hebrews (as well as Moses and the prophets) adapted these forms for use of the promotion of God’s Glory and Kingdom, forming new artistic developments along the way.  Can we adapt pagan forms to Christian use?  According to the very form of Scripture, it is absolutely legitimate to do so.

Reason itself recommends this practice in light of two things: (1) We are not born into a cultural vacuum, but are embedded in an already extant culture.  We can’t start from nowhere.  We must start from where we are.  (2) In order to effectively communicate with the culture around us, we must employ forms that culture can understand and relate to.

We must also bear in mind, however, that the godly men of old bent these art-forms to holy purposes; they did what they did for God’s Glory, not their own.  This was part and parcel with the redemptive nature of Christ’s work.  We are to see culture and art redemptively reshaped and reclaimed in light of God’s revelation.  We must reclaim what is His by right of both Creation and Redemption.

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The Sons of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do, Part 23

We have seen in past posts of this series, that God has created Reality so that symbols (verbal, visual, tactile, etc.) must be used for communication.  We saw also that everything is, at root, a symbol of God (Ps 19; Gen 1; Rom 1, etc.) that communicates knowledge or content to both the logical and the intuitive aspects of mankind.

We further saw that symbols communicate multiple levels of meaning simultaneously, and that the artist seeks to communicate on complementary, interlocking multiple levels deliberately, to form a nexus, a web of interlocked and overlapping layers of meaning.

Why, you may be asking yourself, would communicating through such a nexus of meanings be integral to the purpose of the artist?  A complex question, that one is, with a great many parts comprising its answer.  For our purposes, though, three reasons will suffice:

1) Man is, like the Triune Creator-God, that he is created in the image of a mysterious being (God is a great mystery; His image, man, is a small one).  Men are more that just intellect; they are emotion, intuition, supra-rationally, and the coherence of all of these aspects, as well.  As we saw in the last post of this series, the fact that art carries multiple meanings all at once allows the artist to address a much greater spectrum of the various parts of humanity in a concerted fashion, as well as communicating at much deeper levels than a communication deliberately shorn of a multiplicity of meaning layers (or, at least, as many layers as is possible.  We’ve seen in past that it is impossible to remove symbolic meaning from discursive or teaching forms; one can only somewhat restrict symbol in communication).  The broader meaning-spectrum, the deeper the communication to the intended audience.

2) Related to this last is the fact that, rooted in the image of God men bear, is what J.R.R. Tolkien called “sub-creatorship.”  Just as God is a Creator, so are we, His image-bearers, little or “sub creators.”  Our God is a Maker, and He created us to be makers, although His creative activity is ex nihilo, from nothing, and our making is derivative and limited by the boundaries God instituted when He constructed mankind.  This plays out for artists in two ways: (a) Just as God communicates through symbols on every level of being (since everything that exists is a symbol [cf. Rom 1; Ps 19; Gen 1; etc.]) all at the same time, so does art afford man, the sub-creator, the opportunity to communicate analogically to his Maker, on many levels simultaneously, just as God does; and (b) Art, like all work, allows man to fulfill the Creation (or Dominion) Mandate given Adam in the Garden (Gen 1:28-29) by creatively rearranging elements of Creation to maximize its created potential to reveal and glorify the Triune Creator-God.

3) Communicating artistically also allows the artist to interact redemptively with his fellow men and the rest of Creation, countering the Fall’s darkening of Reality by creatively reinterpreting (re-imaging), Creation in light of the heavenly vision, which shows us what Creation was and will be at the restitution of all things (Acts 3:21). Artistic expression is meant to restore the true vision of Creation as it was intended to be, as it is revealed in Scripture.  This vision is to be mediated through the artist’s reflective vision.  We can only see the true vision of what God desires for Creation through the redemptive and restorative work of Christ, who by His life and words revealed how we are to see Reality redemptively, following Christ’s will and example (which ability itself was only won by Jesus’ sacrifice and offering).  The vision we receive from Christ the Redeemer-God is meant to counter the Fall by His illuminating power.

The Sons of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do, Part 22

We here take up again our look at the meaning of the Bible’s form and the implications of that form for Christian artists.  In the course of the past several weeks, we saw that God has constructed Reality in such a way that symbols (whether verbal, visual, tactile, etc.) must be used for communication.  We also learned that everything that exists in Creation is a symbol of God (Gen 1; Ps 19; Rom 1; etc.).  We saw also that every symbol communicates knowledge or content, since it represents what it stands for, and that the knowledge symbols communicate symbolically addresses the intuitive aspect of a person primarily, transcending (but not contradicting) logic.

We saw, in addition, that symbols communicate multiple layers of meaning or content simultaneously (representing more than one thing at the same time).  This scriptural teaching is the basic building block of all Art, in all of Art’s forms.

In the last post, we explored the fact that, though forms of expression that are deliberately less symbolic (like discursive communication) still cannot escape completely from symbolic and artistic embodiment, communication that is symbolic (and thus artistic) deliberately communicates to a much broader range than just the rational part of mankind: Art communicates on emotional, supra-rational, intuitive levels as well as to the rational part of men.

Symbolic and artistic expressions deliberately aim at communicating on multiple levels that interlock and are complementary, e.g., on a nexus, or web, or interfacing and overlapping layers of meaning.  Deliberately less symbolic expressions seek to limit meaning to one (or as few as possible) meaning(s) (this is not bad, of course, since didactic or teaching forms need this form, but there is a problem in that the Evangelical Church is addicted to didactic forms at the expense of more symbolic ones).

Art, of course, is symbolic in its nature, and deliberately aims at the whole man (not just the intellect).  This is a mysterious process, which is not co-incidentally like Creation itself, which is one vast symbolic structure.

The components of artistic expression, such as musical sequences, musical notes, sculpture, painting, dance positions, architecture, etc., as part of Creation, all carry multiple layers of meaning.  The task of the artist of whatever stripe is largely taken up with arranging the elements of his art in such a way that his vision in communicated through the various layers of meaning to his audience.  For a Christian, it goes without saying that the artistic vision is to be realized within the vision of Scripture as the Word mediates God’s vision to transform and conform to itself to the vision of the artist.

As we discussed last week, men are not simply rational creatures.  We exist and comprehend and need ministry on a variety of complex levels.  Artistic expression, as it addresses a great number of these levels of existence, is vital to the life of man, and thus to the mission of the Church.

This is one of the reasons why the Word (Logos), the Second Person of the Triune God, incarnated as enfleshed, physical man, rather than existing as an idea or impression or propositional construct.  He came to redeem not just the intellect, but the whole range of human existence on every level.

This is also why the ancient Church (and much of the Church since) has always had a two-pronged worship form: the Word and the Table, discursive and symbolic communion with God (the Word is more discursive; the Sacrament is more symbolic).  We need both, but in its present state of devaluing and denigrating the symbolic, the Evangelical Church today needs to redress in its theology, worship, and practice, the loss of godly symbol (and, thus, Art).

If the Church fails to do so, we will continue to see our culture dominated and controlled by pagan artists and symbol users.

The Sons of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do, Part 21

We return here to our examination of the meaning of the Bible’s form and its implications for Christian artists.  Over the last two weeks, we discovered that God has constructed Reality in such a way that symbols (whether verbal, visual, tactile, etc.) must be used for communication.  We also saw that everything that exists in Creation is a symbol of God (Gen 1; Ps 19; Rom 1; etc.).  We found also that every symbol communicates knowledge or content, since it represents (re-presents) the thing it stands for, and that knowledge communicated symbolically addresses the intuitive aspect of the mind primarily, and thus transcends Aristotelian logic, though it does not contradict logic.

We saw, as well, that symbols communicate multiple levels (or layers) of meaning or content simultaneously (e.g., it represents more than one thing at the same time).

This biblical doctrine (that everything in Creation is a symbol that communicates more than one level of meaning all at the same time) is the basic building block of all Art, in whatever form it takes.

To illustrate this, let us first contrast symbolic and artistic endeavor with one of the more deliberately artistically limited forms of communication we have: didactic speaking and writing, such as is employed for the purpose of teaching or transferring information with no deliberate attempt to ornament either the mode of expression or the content to be communicated at all (e.g., “Thou shalt do no murder” or “obey those in authority,” etc.).

Now, as we saw several weeks ago, because language utilizes symbols such as written or verbal words, letters, and thought-constructs (such as figures of speech or colloquialisms), even didactic (or “teaching”) communication inevitably and inescapably utilizes artistry (in fact, didactic communication that emphasized the artistry inherent in the form is usually thought to be better and more memorable, hence more effective, than didactic expression which does not do so).  However, the primary concern of didactic expression is to communicate information in such a way that the meaning of the content to be taught is reduced to its essential essence (e.g., its “bottom line” or primary meaning within the context in which it is being taught).

This is not a bad thing.  In fact, a goodly portion of the Bible (the Epistles, case law, etc.) are didactic communication.  It is good to know the bottom line, to clearly be taught what to prioritize in ethics and belief, and so forth.  In this sense, then, didactic communication seeks to limit the layers of meaning to one within the context of what is being taught overall.

The problem is this: we moderns in the West tend to value this mode of expression above the plethora of more determinedly artistic modes of expression (in Scripture and elsewhere), because we have been captured by an Enlightenment mindset that values utility (or usefulness) and rationalism (a belief that holds that only that which may be comprehended by the mind in an Aristotelian logical matrix is worthwhile) above all else.  The bottom line, in such thought, is all that matters.This Enlightenment mindset (named after the historical period in which it arose in Western Europe in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries) has today largely captured our society to the point that even the Church (especially the evangelical wing of the Church) is influenced by it.  This is why churches today focus almost exclusively on the didactic portions of Scripture, largely ignoring biblical books such as the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, which abound so richly in poetic and artistic imagery (or, on the few occasions when they are taught, they are largely denuded of as much of the multilayered imagery as can be, to get to the “meat,” e.g., the “real” “bottom-line” meaning of them).

The Church’s fixation on didacticism has led to a devaluation of not only the less didactic parts of Scripture, but also of symbolic parts of our expression of the Faith.  Amongst Evangelicals generally, the Sacrament (instituted by Christ and a central part of the Church’s worship for centuries) is as rarely observed as possible.  We Evangelicals also have some of the ugliest and plainest church buildings imaginable.  All of that is in line with “bottom line,” utilitarian, rationalistic thinking.

This worldview also, of course, inevitably affects the Arts.  It causes us to only think of art as a means of getting to the bottom line.  Our songs, paintings, fiction, dances, architecture, etc., are reduced to propagandistic one-liners, with no rich complexity or multi-layered levels of meaning which give depth and resonance with the way God has constructed Reality, and thus cause even our one-liner Truth to seem false and unrealistic (pagans, after all, are just pagans; they’re not stupid).

Art, like Reality, is intended to be multilayered.  God constructed Creation to be so, carrying content on many levels simultaneously.  The “bottom line,” you see, is best understood in the nexus of all the corresponding meanings as they cohere; as they come together to the center of that which is symbolized.

Art does the opposite of utilitarian rationalism: it multiplies, it revels in, it presents multiple levels of meaning, rather than one only.  It speaks not just to the mind, or to Aristotelian logic, but to the whole person, to body, emotions, intuitions, etc., as well as to the mind.  To deny this to ourselves, the Church, and the world, is to cut ourselves off from the possibility of knowing God in the multiplicity of ways He has revealed Himself in the symbolic and multifaceted Creation and in the artistic and many-layered Scriptures.  It also is destructive of the Church’s art and witness.

Lord willing, we will take up the ways Art is affected through the symbolic in the next post.

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The Sons of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do Part 20

We continue this week our examination of the meaning of the Bible’s form and its implications for Christian artists.  We discovered last week that art and the communication of spiritual Truth are inseparably bound together by the fact that God has constructed Reality in such a way that symbols (whether verbal or visual) must be used for communication between humans.  This is easily seen in the use in Scripture of letters, words, and sentences, all of which are visual symbols which represent the verbal symbols of language (an organization of sounds which symbolize, represent, and stand for the creatures, concepts, ideas, states of being, etc., of Reality as speakers of that language perceive them).

This is not surprising, since God has chosen to reveal Himself through the medium of symbols, both in the Creation generally (Gen 1; Ps 19; Rom 1; etc.) and in the record of His interactions with mankind written in lingual symbols under the special oversight of Himself in Holy Scripture (2 Tim 3:16-18; 2 Peter 1:20-21; etc.).

Since all of Creation (taken together, in each of its discrete parts, and any of the nearly infinite number of combinations of its parts) symbolizes God as well as itself and its function, we know two things about symbols: first, that a symbol communicates knowledge or content, since it represents (i.e., re-presents, presents again) the thing it stands for.  The reason that this confuses people is that the way that this content is communicated is different in many ways from the way that knowledge communication by means of a rigorously outlined presentation of data such as is found in written or spoken didactic, logical modes of information sharing. Didactic knowledge frequently is intended to be addressed primarily to the logical, cognitive centers of the mind (bear in mind, though, that, as we’ve recently seen, no communication, even the most didactic, can be free of artistic expression, since the medium of language requires artistry).

Symbolic (also called metaphorical or analogical) communication is generally much more mysterious, in that it depends more upon intuitive realizations by the recipient of the content.  This is not to say that symbolic knowledge is not logical; it is simply to say that the logic involved is not Aristotelian logic, that those educated in the Western world have been taught to view as the only logic.  The content imparted by symbols is, nonetheless, real and meaningful content (remember, God communicates Himself in this fashion).

The second thing we learn from the symbolic structure of reality is that symbols communicate multiple levels (or layers) of meaning or content simultaneously (i.e., a symbol represents more than one thing at the sametime).  This is easily seen in the fact that God is revealed to all men symbolically through all of Creation, plainly enough that, as St. Paul says in Romans 1:18-20, “men are without excuse,” in terms of knowing that He exists and has created all things, and that He is holy and they are not, and that He holds men accountable.

The way in which this shows the multilayered levels of meaning simultaneously in a symbol is that all things symbolize God on a primary level while also symbolizing other things.  One example of this is the lion.  A lion, because of his innate power and majesty, is called “the king of the beasts.”  The lion therefore can symbolize a human king; indeed, kings in past (and still to this day) are referred to as being lion-like, as with Richard the Lion-Hearted.  Yet the lion can also symbolize the King of Kings, the Lord Christ, as when Jesus is called “the Lion of the Tribe of Judah” (Rev 5:5).  The lion’s ferocity and power, however, can also symbolize evil, even the Devil, as it does in 1 Peter 5:8, where Satan is said to prowl about like a lion “seeking whom he may devour.”  At no point does a lion cease to symbolize all of these things, and our attention is drawn to one layer or another of what a lion symbolizes by the context of the attention being fixed on the creature by the speaker (or writer or singer or painter or dancer) using it as an example.

The principle of multiple symbolic meanings is not limited to animals, but is applicable to any created thing.  The celestial bodies (stars, planets, comets, etc.) are created to give light and mark the passing of time (Gen 1:14-15), yet they can also symbolize men, as when they do so for Jacob, Leah, and eleven of the Patriarchs of Israel in Joseph’s dream in Genesis 37:9.  Once again the star symbolizes Satan (Isa 14:12) and in another context, Christians (Phil 2:15) and the Lord whom Christians serve (2 Peter 1:19; Rev 22:16).

A man simultaneously can symbolize mankind, fathers, sons, the masculine, and the Christ who is the Church’s Bridegroom in marriage (Eph 5:25-33).  A woman can all at the same time symbolize other women, mothers, daughters, and the Church as the Bride who submits to Her Bridegroom (Eph 5:22-24, 33).  Beyond this, it is also always true that all of mankind, male and female, together and separately, are made in the image of God and thus symbolize Him at all times (regardless of the other things they symbolize) (Gen 1:26-27, 5:1-2, etc.).

That all things communicate knowledge and simultaneously communicate multiple layers of meaning (which the medievals called correspondences) is vitally important for Art, because this doctrine is the basis, the basic building block, of all Art, in whatever form it takes.  We will, God willing, take up this theme next week.

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The Sons of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do Part 19

This week we continue our examination of the meaning of the Bible’s form and its implications for Christian artists.  We began in the last post by realizing that the fact that God used human authors to inscribe His Word in a variety of literary forms (poetry, parable, narrative, etc.) shows us that God uses people to communicate Himself to mankind.  Although He will not use us in the same way that He used the authors of Scripture (which is unique and inspired in a way that normal artistic ventures are not), the principle still remains that God uses humans to communicate spiritual Reality under artistic forms, which shows the high potential of human artistic endeavors.

The fact that artistry and the communication of spiritual Truth are inseparably bound together is further seen in the physical form and pattern of Holy Scripture.  By this, I mean that the Bible is comprised of written language, which is formed of written words, which are made of written letters.  These are such basic truths that we rarely consider the implications of them.

We must remember that these things (language, words, letters) are all symbols.  Language is a patterned organization of words, and these words are an organization of sounds (represented by letters) which symbolize ideas and things that occur in physical reality.  For instance, in English, the letter “c” followed by an “o” followed by a “w” form the word cow, which, when sounded out (by our lips or in our minds) makes the word that we recognize as what English-speaking people call the placid, horned bovine we obtain milk and meat from.  The word cow symbolizes the sounds that correspond to our idea of a cow.  This concept works for virtually anything in Creation, be it a physical creature, an idea that has no direct physical correlative, or even a nonsensical series of sounds.

When we arrange words (which symbolize the sounds which represent the creature or idea, etc., that we recognize) into longer patterns, we are capable of symbolizing much more complex ideas by combining multiple concepts, such as action, time, state of being, etc., by the use of phrases and sentences (such as the one you are currently reading).  By this method complex communication is possible between thinking beings.

This being so, realize this: communication is only possible by means of symbols (whether audible, visual, or tactile), and symbols are the basic tool of the artist.  This means that, insofar as any type of communication is involved, artistry is inevitable and inescapable.  In point of fact, the Ultimate Artist (the Triune Creator-God) has made symbols the basic mode of creaturely existence, since everything that has been created finds its true meaning in the fact that all things symbolize and reveal some aspect of God and His attributes and character. This is especially true of the one creature who has expressly been made in the image of God, mankind (for the previous sentences, please see Gen 1; Ps 19, Rom 1, etc.).  All things, especially man, find their deepest meaning in the fact that they reveal something of God as His symbols.

This is even more true of more abstract parts of Creation, like language, words, and letters.  The human penchant for organizing symbols in increasingly complex patterns to communicate things is rooted in the fact that we are made in God’s Image, and we are thus like Him in that way.

Like God, men communicate through symbols (like sounds, letters, words, and language), and by a particularly complex organization of these types of symbols, we speak and write to each other about all manner of things, frequently in recognizably artistic ways such as poetry, narrative, parable, etc.  This is even true of written and spoken forms of communication that seek to present a maximum amount of content by minimizing as much as possible “artistic” ornamentation, forms which we normally think of as discursive or didactic (teaching) forms (such as a reader may find in the books of James or 1 John).

However, even the most didactic of language is still unavoidably artistic.  Why?  Because language (both written and spoken) must utilize symbols, and the symbols that comprise the language and its inherent ideas by their very use constitute an act of artistry.

Anyone who uses language to communicate must, whether intentionally or not, engage in artistry at some level.  This means that even the pastor who disparages the artistic as a means of communicating Christ gives the lie to his disparagement in direct proportion to his skill at preaching or teaching (the more skillful he is, the more artistic; but, even if he is only marginally skillful, he still exhibits artistry).

In Scripture, we see this type of artistry raised to the pinnacle of its possibilities, as, under the forms of these different symbols, spiritual Reality and Truth is communicated (the Word does not return void on any level).  Thus, even the most basic constituent of the form of Scripture screams out to us that artistic communication of God’s Truth is not only possible, it is necessary and deliberate, for God in Scripture has enshrined His Word through symbol and art.

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The Sons of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do, Part 18

In the past few weeks, we have examined the parameters of the intersection of witness and art.  Prior to these, we looked at the necessity (and value) of theology and the place of Scriptural content in Art.  In this post, we will begin an examination of the meaning of the form of Scripture, and what implications that form has for us as artists.

Scripture itself has, of course, come to us in written form, as 66 books which encompass a number of literary forms such as poetry, historical narrative, parable, apocalyptic writing, etc.  (All of which we will examine, Lord willing, in future weeks as to their specific meanings to the artist.)  The amazing thing about this is that, despite the multiplicity of writers and styles, written over several millennia and multiple cultures, God Himself used these diverse writers, backgrounds, and styles to supernaturally and sovereignly reveal Himself and His character and ways both to the human writers’ original contemporaries and to us (cf. 2 Tim 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20-32; Isa 8:20; Deut 17:19; 1 Cor 10:1-11; etc.).

In point of fact, it is Scriptural passages like 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:21 that have caused Christians to believe that the Bible is “God-breathed,” and thus inspired by the Spirit of God Himself, and that show that God supernaturally overcame the short-comings of the human authors of Holy Writ to produce a book that is inerrant, infallible, and absolutely authoritative for mankind, able to equip the man of God for “every good work.”

This means that God used people to accomplish the high and spiritual purpose of creating for the benefit of mankind His Word written.  In past posts of this series, we saw that God used symbol in creation itself (all created things symbolize the Creator in some fashion), and the Incarnation of Jesus Christ (both fully God and fully Man simultaneously) and the Sacraments Christ instituted, to reveal His Spiritual Reality through physical things, showing (among many other purposes) that created things and creatures are meant to be (and inescapably are) conduits and vehicles for the revelation of the Holy Creator-God.

The fact that God used human authors under the inspiration of His Spirit to reveal His Eternal Word likewise shows us that God intends for the created order, for patterned matter to carry and communicate spiritual content (e.g., God’s fingerprints).

For existence of the Bible, a physical, ordered imprint of God’s Spiritual Word teaches us that we as humans are capable of being used by God to reveal Himself.  This does not mean that any vehicle which God utilizes to reveal Himself will be anywhere remotely near to the unique, inerrant, infallible revelation of God as He is revealed in Scripture (a man named Marcion attempted, in the early centuries of the church’s history, to teach that people could create works equal to Holy Writ, and was swiftly and justly recognized as a heretic and enemy of the Faith).

However, while it is true that any revelation of God that comes through our creations will not be infallible or anywhere near the revelation of God in Scripture, it is also true that vital spiritual content can be communicated through human activity and artifacts.  This can, for artists, be specially underscored by the fact that the Bible encompasses a number of literary artistic forms (poetry, parable, etc., as mentioned above).

This further means that God not only used human authors, but also that He used humans skilled as artists.  Solomon, David, and Asaph were skilled poets, Moses a narrative storyteller of the highest order, and so forth.  Though today we cannot be used to enscribe infallible revelation through our various arts, we can still be used of God to communicate Truth about who He is and what He is like.  The traditions and history of the Church are replete with instances and examples of godly Christians who glorified and revealed Christ in and through their art.  Let us today, with the vision of Scripture filling us, do our part to extend the traditions of godly art into the future.

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The Sons of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do, Part 17

Last week we examined the risks and attendant evils connected with overreactions to the anti-artistic legalisms which too often face artists within the pale of the Church.  We saw that, while legalisms must be resisted, we cannot react into libertinism (living as if there were no extant rules of godly conduct) or the temptation to “hide our light under a bushel” by trying to pretend we are not Christians at all (as some Christian artists have done to try to achieve fame or influence outside of Christian circles and/or marketplaces).  We must always bear the Name of Christ and never deny His Lordship (cf. Matt 10:32-33).

Nonetheless, our art must not necessarily be in the form of a gospel tract (though there are a number of artistic tracts and evangelism tools).  As I have argued extensively throughout this series, our art should be an extension of our lives under Christ’s Lordship.

This means that our music (or dance, or plays, etc.) should reflect the fact that our lives are made up of a number of different functions and modes.  At times we play.  Other times we work.  Other times we engage in private or formal worship.  Sometimes we evangelize.  At times we eat (or dream, or nurture our children, etc.).

Our lives are many-faceted, and this is a good thing, as we experience the knowledge of the Reality of God and Christ’s Lordship under a variety of situations and circumstances (both pleasant and unpleasant, as a study of the lives of Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Paul, or Job clearly shows).  Our task as artists is to mediate (e.g., share) our knowledge and vision of God under all these modes of life to others through the vehicle of our art.

If we do this properly, those who are exposed to our artistry will see that our artistic representations ring true, and will take them seriously, hopefully resulting in their understanding and embracing the multi-faceted Lordship of Jesus.  Part of the appeal of the gospel is that Jesus’ Rule and Plan is over all of the arenas of life, not just over our private emotional and “religious” lives.  Jesus’ Lordship extends over our familial lives (including education, extended family relationships, and even sex), our political lives (the values by which we vote, and Christ’s Absolute Sovereignty over the kings of the earth [cf. Rev 1:5]), our work and business experience, our friendships, as well as our worship and prayer lives.

All of these areas of life are to be lived under the Rule of Christ, and consequently, the art that flows from a Christian’s life should reflect this across the board.

In a very real sense, all of life is worship under different modes: work, prayer, relaxation, friendship, politics, etc., as well as formal worship and evangelism.  Our art should reflect the complete spectrum of human life experienced in relationship with Christ Jesus.  If we only restrict ourselves to art concerning formal worship, prayer, or evangelism, the pagans who are exposed to it will conclude that (1) Christ’s Lordship is restricted to those areas, (2) other areas of life are relatively unimportant both to God and to us, and (3) that Christianity is irrelevant to most of life, and therefore unrealistic, and consequently untrue.

We must exhibit the fullness and joy (and sorrow and suffering) of life in Christ in the world of the Fall and of Redemption.  If we do not, we fail to bear a truthful witness to Christ the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord of all of life.

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The Sons of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do Part 16

Over the last four or five weeks, we have seen that a Christian artist’s works, because of General Revelation and the Revelation of God’s Word, can be used by the Holy Spirit as conduits of the communication of Christ’s Reality.  We saw also how contexts (cultural, personal, and corporate) can aid and hinder audiences in their understanding and appreciation of those same works of art.  We saw last week the importance of consistent Biblical behavior (holiness) in individual and corporate Church life to having people take the content of Christian Art seriously.

During the course of this portion of our series, I have emphasized the truth that a Christian’s art does not always have to be explicit in spelling out the entire gospel, though it must never contradict Scripture or encourage sin.  As Christians reflecting the Lordship of Jesus over every aspect of life, it is legitimate to address artistically any area of life, provided the art represents the truth about that area in light of Scripture.

Because of the widespread influence of pietism (a philosophy that rejects the legitimacy of ordinary human life as a vehicle for spiritual Reality), I’ve spent a good deal of space and attention on countering its errors by pointing out the true liberty and tremendous scope of Biblical Christian Art.  However, in the understandable backlash against the legalistic restrictions of pietism on Art, there has too frequently been a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  The answer to pietism, which makes a god of a restrictive view of piety, is notto stop practicing piety.  The answer is to discern what true piety or holiness is in light of the Bible’s teachings, and to embrace and practice Christ’s view of piety and holiness.  To react to pietism to the point of rejecting piety (or holiness) altogether is to answer one error with another.  Scripture, not overreaction to a false doctrine, is what should rule our practice of holiness, in life and art (and everything else, for that matter).

Too many times have I seen Christian artists, in the name of liberty from pietism’s legalisms, fall into one (or both) of two sins, one a sin of activity and the other a sin of inactivity.  The first error, a sin of activity, is to begin to enact a lifestyle of worldliness and spiritual carelessness.  I’ve seen a number of hitherto devout Christian artists drift away from the spiritual disciplines commanded in Scripture of church attendance, frequent prayer, and Bible study into resentment against the Church, nonbiblical ideas of God and salvation, fornication and adultery, drunkenness, and drug use.

This drift has been largely fueled by anger and/or despondency at what these artists considered (correctly) to be unbiblical legalisms and a lack of concern about (or outright disparagement of) Art and artistic vocations by the Church.  In their unguided reactions to the legalisms touted by much of the Evangelical Church in our day, they have overreacted many times into outright sin (two wrongs do not make a right).  The Church has generally viewed these overreactions as a justification for continuing Her legalisms, rather than seeing that these tragic situations are the result of those same legalisms that the Church thinks will keep Her safe from just those same sins.  This series has intended all along to help address this problem, and give some perspective (Biblical, historical, and artistic) and elementary guidelines to help us, as the Church, deal with this problem.

The sin into which these Christian artists have fallen has, of course, been vaunted by the society-at-large as a proof of the hypocrisy and untruth of the Faith.  It has also been tragedy and confusion for those artists who have enacted this sinful overreaction.

The other error which flows from the overreaction to pietism has been one of inactivity, of what I call “hiding under a bushel.”  In this error, artists make the decision to hide, or downplay as much as possible, their faith.  This is normally justified as exemplifying the true freedom of Christian practice, though it is actually driven by anger and/or embarrassment at the Church’s state, or a desire for fame or the world’s good will to the end of becoming famous or successful in the artist’s chosen field of endeavor.

Now, those readers who have followed this series for any length of time can attest to the fact that I argue at length for the necessity of making art that embraces all of life in a Biblically balanced way, and that need not be explicitly theological in order to be truly Christian or a vehicle for God’s Truth.  Nonetheless, to attempt to make art that hides deliberately the Faith that undergirds it, is not Biblical.  It is an assault on the Maker.  As Christian artists, we dare not make art that obscures the Truth of Reality in Christ, lest we fool ourselves into thinking that we can serve God by such a subterfuge.

If we are embarrassed by the Church’s state, the answer is not to distance ourselves from or abandon Her; we should rather be honest about Her failings, and attempt to change Her, showing in our own lives and art what She is to be.  If we are angry, we must forgive, and walk in love (Mark 11:25; Luke 17:4; Eph 4:32; Col 3:13).  If we are so concerned to be famous that we begin to self-consciously suppress our open faith in Christ (even if our goal is to “reveal ourselves as Christians once we’ve made it big”), we must repent and put away our idols, trusting that God will raise us up in the world’s estimation according to His Will, since “Promotion comes from the Lord” (Ps 75:6).

Jesus was very clear on this subject in Matthew 10:32-33: “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.  But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”  At risk of our immortal souls, we must never deny, by word or deed, the Lordship of Christ, even if we think that by doing so, we are “evangelizing” or “doing it all for Christ.”  The end still does not justify the means.

Please remember, by saying this I am not saying that all our art must be cast in the mold of a gospel tract (as I’ve explained in the past, that would probably hurt evangelism, as indeed it has).  But neither are we to avoid clear expressions of our faith.  Our art should flow from, and be a reflection of, our lives in Christ, if it is to ring true and be taken seriously at all.  Sometimes we pray.  Sometimes we play.  Sometimes we do business.  Sometimes we go to church.  There is a natural place and balance for all these things as we live out our lives as people (and artists) before the face of Christ.  Our art must reflect the full spectrum of our lives under His Lordship.  Let us never deny Him any part of that, regardless of what the cost may be in this world.

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The Sons of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do Part 15

In the last couple posts, we discussed the fact that, because of General Revelation and Scriptural Revelation, a Christian artist’s works can be used by God’s Spirit as conduits of communication of the Truth of the reality of Christ.  We also saw how contexts helped the understanding of audiences in perceiving the insights embedded in those works of art.  We further saw how cultural contexts aided and hindered audiences in their grasp of, and embrace of, those same works of art.

Cultural contexts are, by their nature, vast and all-enveloping within any given culture (affecting even the smallest of artistic interactions in a culture).  This week, we will move to a consideration of two smaller, interlocking contexts: The Church and individual Christian artists’ lives and actions.

In some ways, this is the same situation on two levels, for Scripture teaches that Christians (despite modern tendencies to see the Faith as a strictly individual undertaking, and the Church as simply a collection of gathered individuals with common interests) are actually to find their identity in the corporate entity of the Church as “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people” (1 Peter 2:4-10).

Thus, each individual Christian, as a royal priest of God’s Holy Nation, the Church, represents both the entity of the Church and the Lord Jesus Himself (since the Church is Christ’s Body on earth, of which He is the Head (Eph 4:7-16; Col 2:19).  As a priestly representative of Christ and His Church, every Christian’s actions reflect upon both his Lord and his brothers and sisters in Christ.  As John Donne said, “No man is an island.”

The individual Christian’s representative actions are one half of a sort of feedback loop, the corresponding action of which is the corporate action of the Church as a Body, especially in worship, wherein the individual Christians are taught from, and see acted out, the Word, which in turn forms each Christian’s idea of how their lives should be lived out in light of the Spirit’s Illumination of Scripture.  This work is of such importance that God has established a government of ministers over the Church (Jer 3:15, 23:4; Acts 20-28; Eph 4:11-13; etc.) to see that the Church’s tasks are well-ordered.  These servant leaders face a greater responsibility and a stricter judgement if they fail at their oversight, especially in their task of teaching the Bible (James 3:1; Heb 13:17; Ezek 33:6; etc.).

Thus, there are two spheres of interlocking contexts for every believer—the individual and the corporate (e.g., the Church).  Both of these spheres can (and will) radically affect each other.  They should do so positively.  They frequently do so negatively, unfortunately.

What we must realize is that each of these spheres represent Christ in the society around them, the individual representing Christ (and a small picture of the Church) in his solitary actions, and the corporate actions of the Church, as the larger Community of Christ, representing their Lord in a broader (and potentially much farther-reaching) fashion.  Each of us, as Christians, represent Christ both as members of Christ’s Body in our actions together as the Church and as individuals in our actions to the society around us.

Why?  To what purpose?  We are called and commanded to follow Christ’s example as His Body and priests so that the world can see acted out in our lives how Christ acted, and thus see how His actions have changed and cleansed us, so that unbelievers may come to believe in the gospel’s Truth and Power, and want Christ to change them as well (1 John 1:6; 1 Cor 11:1; etc.).  Thus, much stress is laid on the responsibility of Christians to obey His Commands (1 John 2:3-5; John 14:21, 23, 15:10; etc.).  If we do not act as Jesus did, the world will not take the gospel seriously, because they won’t believe it really changes lives.

The Lord Himself gave an example of this, as recorded by John the Apostle in John 13:34-35: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This is as clear as a bell.  Love each other as He has loved us (e.g., act as He has acted), so that everyone will know that we are Christ’s disciples.  The converse is also true: if we do not love each other as Christ loved us (e.g., if we do not act as Jesus did), it will be known that we are not His followers, and thus we will fail to be what we are called by God to be.  We will, as individuals and the Church, be accounted hypocrites and irrelevant to the pagan culture around us (Dr. Francis Schaeffer treated this topic most excellently in his little book The Mark of the Christian, which I highly recommend).

What does this have to do with Christians and art?  Everything.  If our lives, both as individual believers, and as the Church, do not reflect the authentic Christ-like holiness that the Bible demands of us, then the culture around us will be justified in concluding that the insights and Truth embedded and carried in our works of art are, at worst, hypocritical or deluded lies, or, at best, either irrelevant or something other than they are represented to be.

Truth is not just rational, propositional concepts.  Nor is it only sentimental and emotional.  It is much broader than these things, though it does encompass them.  Truth is meant to touch and change the entire spectrum of human experience and reality.  Truth, though absolute, must be communicated in a context.  If the context (our individual and corporate lives) does not match up to the Truth of Christ carried in our art, it seems to the unbelieving audience to give the lie to God’s Truth and invalidate it.

If our walk doesn’t match our talk, then the infidels around us will conclude that the gospel is a lie (which is understandable, unfortunately).  Our art, even if it is not explicit in its presentation of the gospel (as we’ve discussed in the past four posts), should nonetheless be produced from the context of godly Christian lives.  The consistency between art and life will speak volumes to the surrounding unbelievers, and will gain us legitimate respect and the freedom to speak to people who will listen.

There has been much ballyhoo in recent years about outspoken Christian musicians and actors in positions of cultural prominence.  All too frequently, though, their proclamation of the gospel has been compromised and damaged in the eyes of the world by their subsequent ungodly actions and lifestyles, leaving their nonbelieving audiences feeling that Christianity is a farce.

May God deliver us as Christian artists from inconsistent lifestyles, so that we can establish contexts of holiness in our lives, from which can flow works of art which can be effectively used by God’s Spirit as channels of Christ’s Grace and Mercy.

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