The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 11

We have seen, in past installments of this series, that the failure of the millions-strong American Evangelical Church to produce any quantity of quality art (music, dance, film, architecture, etc.) is largely due to the lack of Evangelical understanding (much less action upon such an understanding) of the Scriptures, despite Evangelical profession that they believe the Bible to be God’s Word, which directs Christians in “every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17), which includes the making of art.

Subsequently, we examined the negative implications for Art of holding deformed versions of central doctrines of the Faith.

We saw that a deficient idea of the doctrine of God’s Creation leads to a devaluation of matter which leads to the belief that the physical is not the arena of the spiritual, an idea which conflicts with Scripture’s teaching (Rom 12:1-3), leading to an artistic preoccupation with personal aspects of salvation and an escapist eschatology.

An inferior view of Creation leads, as well, to a simplistic, propagandistic view of Art, as the multi-faceted nature of the created order, which mediates complex, multi-layered knowledge of God, is viewed as univocal, inevitably resulting in Art as the simple carrier of propaganda, rather than a deep, multi-valenced reflection of reality.

We have also examined what a deficient view of Biblical Eschatology (the doctrine of what God is shaping history toward, and of what His Purposes will accomplish within and at the end of time) implies for a theology of Art. We saw that such a deficient Eschatological view inexorably leads to a pessimism concerning history itself, and that such a pessimism regarding the Surety of God’s Promises in time leads also to the conviction that the Created Order is Satan’s realm, and that, since time itself is unimportant as an arena of change, personal, individual salvation (as escape from history and the world) is all that is important. This leads to escapist, hyper-individualist art.

We turn now to another artistic implication of a deficient view of Eschatology. The idea that God’s Purposes will be defeated in history means that history is only intermittently meaningful, if at all. This non-Biblical idea leads those who believe it to devalue the concept of working and struggling across the passage of time to understand and work out an idea or to develop a work of Art, since the meaninglessness of time and the lordship of Satan over history means that anything accomplished in time (save perhaps for something that contributes to an escape from history) is worthless, having no true transcendent meaning.

This devaluation of the worth of struggle and working in time in turn causes the believer of this idea to value only those “instantaneous” creations of intuition, sudden insight, and so forth, as either works of internal genius or extra-historical “in-breaking” inspiration, so that works of Art (or theological concepts, or relationships, or the possibility of suffering as redemptive, or the careful working out of the meaning of Scripture,) honed and perfected across time are not seen as meaningful or worthwhile.

This idea also sees as unimportant the Biblical concept of sanctification, of progress into holiness over time, including the possibility of an artistic calling by God contributing across time to the sanctification of the artist and his audience, and of thus fulfilling the performance of the “good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10).

The abandonment of sanctification in time has led to a quest by many Evangelicals for a mark or proof of spirituality that instantaneously shows spiritual advance (such as a certain spiritual gift obtained all at once, or a pet doctrine adopted in short order, or even membership in a particular congregation, movement, or denomination), something which requires little or no time for development.

This same impulse has led many Christian artists to downplay the development of their song-writing, painting skills, dancing abilities, etc., in favor of shallow and inferior aping of popular or developed artists, all the while considering their work superior since it was “given” them from above without the necessity of temporal development… All of these things have contributed to the derivative, substandard body of bad art produced by the Evangelical Church of our day.

For more teaching on Worship, Art, and the World, visit patreon.com/kempercrabb

See below for a helpful book on Eschatology:

The Last Days according to Jesus: When Did Jesus Say He Would Return?

By Sproul, R. C.

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 10

We have seen, in past installments of this series, that the failure of the millions-strong American Evangelical Church to produce any quantity of quality art (music, dance, film, architecture, etc.) is largely due to the lack of Evangelical understanding (much less action upon such an understanding) of the Scriptures, despite Evangelical profession that they believe the Bible to be God’s Word, which directs Christians in “every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17), which includes the making of art.

We have also examined what a deficient view of Biblical Eschatology (the doctrine of what God is shaping history toward, and of what His Purposes will accomplish within and at the end of time) implies for a theology of Art. We saw that such a deficient Eschatological view inexorably leads to a pessimism concerning history itself, and that such a pessimism regarding the Surety of God’s Promises in time leads also to the conviction that the Created Order is Satan’s realm, and that, since time itself is unimportant as an arena of change, personal, individual salvation (as escape from history and the world) is all that is important. This leads to escapist, hyper-individualist art.

We turn now to another artistic implication of a deficient view of Eschatology. The idea that God’s Purposes will be defeated in history means that history is only intermittently meaningful, if at all. This non-Biblical idea leads those who believe it to devalue the concept of working and struggling across the passage of time to understand and work out an idea or to develop a work of Art, since the meaninglessness of time and the lordship of Satan over history means that anything accomplished in time (save perhaps for something that contributes to an escape from history) is worthless, having no true transcendent meaning.

This devaluation of the worth of struggle and working in time in turn causes the believer of this idea to value only those “instantaneous” creations of intuition, sudden insight, and so forth, as either works of internal genius or extra-historical “in-breaking” inspiration, so that works of Art (or theological concepts, or relationships, or the possibility of suffering as redemptive, or the careful working out of the meaning of Scripture) honed and perfected across time are not seen as meaningful or worthwhile.

This idea also sees as unimportant the Biblical concept of sanctification, of progress into holiness over time, including the possibility of an artistic calling by God contributing across time to the sanctification of the artist and his audience, and of thus fulfilling the performance of the “good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10).

The abandonment of sanctification in time has led to a quest by many Evangelicals for a mark or proof of spirituality that instantaneously shows spiritual advance (such as a certain spiritual gift obtained all at once, or a pet doctrine adopted in short order, or even membership in a particular congregation, movement, or denomination), something which requires little or no time for development.

This same impulse has led many Christian artists to downplay the development of their song-writing, painting skills, dancing abilities, etc., in favor of shallow and inferior aping of popular or developed artists, all the while considering their work superior since it was “given” them from above without the necessity of temporal development… All of these things have contributed to the derivative, substandard body of bad art produced by the Evangelical Church of our day.

For additional teaching on Theology and the Arts go to www.patreon.com/kempercrabb

A helpful book on the End Times for artists and others:

Wars and Rumors of Wars: What Jesus Really Said About the End of the Age, Earthquakes, A Great Tribulation, Signs in the Heavens, and His Coming

By Gary DeMar

Buy on Amazon

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 9

We continue in this post to consider the question of why, in an America where a huge portion of the population (reportedly one-fourth to one-fifth) are avowedly Evangelical Christians, who believe that Holy Scripture directs believers “in every good work” (1 Timothy 3:16-17) (which necessarily includes the creation of art by Christians), the Church has failed so miserably to produce effective, quality art (music, film, dance, television, etc.).

In previous posts, we saw this failure being in large part due to a lack of knowledge of Scripture by Evangelicals, caused by both laziness motivated by self-worship in pursuit of pleasure and by deficient theology as a result of disregarding the Bible’s ethical demands in favor of feel-good experiences. Such a surface view of Scripture has meant that Evangelicals have lost the ability to see reality (God, themselves, and the world) as it truly is.

Christian art depends in its creation upon a Biblically particularized version of God’s Created Reality. The absence of a correct understanding of that reality leads inexorably to inferior, distorted expressions rightly viewed by both Christians and non-Christians as inaccurate and irrelevant representations of God’s Creation in its depth and beauty. Bad theology inevitably leads to bad art.

We also began to explore the implications for artistry of a deficient doctrine of Creation. We saw that it leads to a denigration of matter as a medium for the spiritual, as well as to a reduction of the multi-dimensional Creation to a uni-dimensional construct fit only for carrying the propaganda of the wicked and the strong (which is all too frequently “baptized” as “Christian” by Evangelicals).

Art is, of course, expressed through culturally-grounded media, which means that such cultural forms must be critically engaged and transformed by the Gospel as part of the advance of God’s Kingdom in service to the Scriptural goal of the Reclamation of All Things (Acts 3:21). This cannot be accomplished except over a period of the passage of time, as God’s Creature, History, moves toward the apotheosis of God’s Purposes for the world.

If, however, an artist’s view of Creation does not sufficiently take into account the fact that the God Who has created all things from nothing (Gen 1; John 1:1-14) and Who upholds all things at all times (Col 1:16-17; Heb 1:13) has not only appointed a beginning, but also a preordained end to all things (1 Cor 15:35-37; Rev 21:1-5; Isaiah 46: 9-11), the artist will inevitably devalue both the potential for accomplishing God’s Purposes in their art in history, as well as the probability that history will fulfill the Purposes for which the Sovereign God has created it.

For most of the Church’s existence, Christians have believed that prophecies such as Habakkuk 2: 14 (“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea”) to mean that God ultimately, as the Creator and Sustainer of Reality, controlled the flow of time in such a way as to inevitably accomplish His Purposes in history.

To cease to believe that God will successfully accomplish His Goals in history is to surrender to a pessimism regarding what God can accomplish through His People in their lives and callings (including art). The upshot of this aberrance in belief is that Christian expectations and aspirations become fixated on escapism, an escape from a world and history doomed to domination by Satan, in which the only hope for man is to escape into Heaven from the Earth, either by death or the Rapture.

The art resulting from such a belief capitulates to the lie that Satan is the lord of history, and that the Evil One has trumped God forever in time by keeping the Lord from doing His Will in our history. Such art emphasizes the Faith as primarily an escape-vehicle rather than a world-and-life-changing force. Again, non-believers will justly judge such art as irrelevant escapism.

Do we as artists believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord of Earth and time as well as Heaven and eternity? Then let our art reflect optimism in His Power rather than pessimism towards His Sovereignty.

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 8

We continue to consider the question of why, in an America where a large portion of the population (one-fourth to one-fifth, reportedly) claim to be Evangelicals, who believe that Holy Scripture directs believers in “every good work” (1 Tim 3: 16-17) (which would include the making of art by Christians), the Church has failed so dismally in producing effective and quality art (music, television, dance, film, etc.).

In earlier installments, we discovered that this failure is in large part due to a lack of knowledge and understanding of the Bible by Evangelicals. The twin causes of this ignorance we saw to be, first, laziness motivated by self-worship in the pursuit of pleasure, and, secondly, deficient theology as a result of disregarding the Bible’s ethical demands in favor of an emotional feel-good experience.

The surface view of Scripture which flows from these sins results further in the loss of the ability for Evangelicals to see reality (God, themselves, and the world) as it really is. Christian art depends in its creation on a Biblically particularized version of the human experience of God’s Created Reality, and the absence of a correct understanding of that reality leads inexorably to inferior, distorted expressions rightly viewed by both Christians and non-Christians as inaccurate and irrelevant representations of the universe in its depth and beauty. Bad theology inevitably leads to bad art.

In the last few weeks, we began to examine the ways a defective theology of Creation (especially of the Providential Sustaining of the universe by God) affects the making of art. We saw that a lack of understanding that God mediates knowledge of Himself through all created things (Rom 1:18-24; Psalm 19) and actively “holds all things together” (Col 1:16-17; Heb 1:3) leads to a devaluation of Creation itself (especially of matter), and to seeing reality as something other than what it is, the arena of the spiritual, of God’s Engagement with His world in every aspect and area.

We saw as well that, if God is not seen as engaged with Creation in mediated multiple levels of symbolic knowledge through the world, reality itself collapses into an opaqued collection of meaningless random things, which are subject to being manipulated into meaning anything sinful man wishes them to mean. This is the reduction of the universe from a multi-level, meaning-imbued Creation to nothing more than a platform for the propaganda of the wicked and the strong.

This also reduces art, which is itself particular expressions of artists’ experience of the world, to a one-dimensional expression of whatever the artist wishes to understand and portray the world as (and thus an attempt to generate meaning for the world from his own finite being, rather than an understanding and receptive reflection of the multi-nuanced, deep meaning with which God has imbued His Creation).

Since fallen mankind outside of regeneration into Christ is committed to suppressing the Truths they unavoidably know from Creation itself (Rom 1:18-36), they are inescapably held captive by the devil (2 Cor 4:4) and are hostile to God’s purposes (Rom 8:6-7). This results inevitably in the art produced by unregenerate man as being, in important ways, only an imitation of the Satanically-dominated world-system, rather than an accurate expression of the reality revealed in Scripture.

This is what makes it so dangerous for Christians to uncritically ape pagan art, loosely “baptizing” that art with surface cosmetic “Christian” overlays: such a practice makes a Christian worldview sub-Biblical and thus sub-Christian. Anyone who is exposed to such an expression can easily be left confused about what the Faith truly is. The ignorance of Scripture rampant amongst most Evangelicals virtually guarantees that this misguided practice will continue, eroding both knowledge of and respect for Christianity in our culture.

Art, of course, must be expressed through culturally-grounded media, since art does not spring from a vacuum. Therefore, cultural forms must be embraced and employed by Christian artists (indeed, the reclamation of all things [Acts 3:21] is part of what the advance of God’s Kingdom is intended to accomplish at the end of time).

The way Christians go about this task, the methodology of doing so, must be governed by God’s Word to inform the correct appropriation of those forms. 

For additional teaching on Worship, Art, World, visit patreon.com/kempercrabb

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 7

Again in this post, we continue to consider the question of why, in an America where a large portion of the population (one-fourth to one-fifth, reportedly) claim to be Evangelicals, who believe that Holy Scripture directs believers in “every good work” (1 Tim 3: 16-17) (which would include the making of art by Christians), the Church has failed so dismally in producing effective and quality art (music, television, dance, film, etc.).

In earlier installments, we discovered that this failure is in large part due to a lack of knowledge and understanding of the Bible by Evangelicals. The twin causes of this ignorance we saw to be, first, laziness motivated by self-worship in the pursuit of pleasure, and, secondly, deficient theology as a result of disregarding the Bible’s ethical demands in favor of an emotional feel-good experience.

The surface view of Scripture which flows from these sins results further in the loss of the ability for Evangelicals to see reality (God, themselves, and the world) as it really is. Christian art depends in its creation on a Biblically particularized version of the human experience of God’s Created Reality, and the absence of a correct understanding of that reality leads inexorably to inferior, distorted expressions rightly viewed by both Christians and non-Christians as inaccurate and irrelevant representations of the universe in its depth and beauty. Bad theology inevitably leads to bad art.

We began last week to examine the damage to the artistic enterprise that a defective doctrine of Creation effects. To have an unBiblical view of God’s Creation of all things from nothing (Gen 1; John 1: 1-4), which is continually sustained by God’s Action (Col 1: 16-17; Heb 1: 3), and which always reveals God (Psalm 19: 1-6; Romans 1: 18-23), leads to such errors as a reluctance to use physical, created media (language, the body, paint, musical notes, architecture, etc.) for rendering artistic expressions (at least, doing so without guilt…), a denial of the revelation of God’s Existence and Attributes through the created universe (Rom. 1: 18-24), and a denial that matter is not evil in itself, but is to be the arena of the spiritual, wherein Christ’s Lordship is to be expressed and advanced in every area of life, rather than only simply in the personal experience of individuals. 

We turn now to consider a further implication of the denial (or ignorance) of the fact that God continually mediates Knowledge of Himself through the entire created order (Ps 19; Rom 1: 18-23). Scripture teaches in these (and other) passages that the entire universe, both taken together and in its individual parts (as well as in any combination of parts) symbolizes God. The entire world is a Symbol of God.

This means that everything has multiple meanings and that the ultimate meaning of everything is God (thus, everything exhibits both unity and diversity like the Holy Trinity Who created these things). For instance, a human can be simultaneously a man, a son, a brother, a judge, a soldier, a citizen, a parishioner, a poet, and the Image of God, with each of these functions/relationships revealing a different aspect or symbolic meaning. Yet the man can show forth any or all of these meanings at any time.

To believe that matter does not communicate multiple meanings symbolically is to flatten things to one dimension, restricting the richly variegated depth of the creation to a single meaning, giving birth to artistic work which lacks nuance, verisimilitude, and the reality of life itself (which would yield, say, a novel wherein the characters seem contrived, puppet-like, and unrealistic, as so many current Christian novels do).

A restriction of created things to a single meaning is also the hallmark of propaganda, which seeks to force information into one arbitrary sequence in an attempt to manipulate or coerce its audience to a single point. Such a belief also leads frequently to the opinion that matter is not important in itself, but is only important as a utilitarian carrier of a message, rather than being seen as a part of the message in itself (as, for instance, the Lord Jesus’ Humanity was as integral to Who He Was as was His Divinity, since He was, as the God-Man, both Matter and Spirit).

Since reality cannot legitimately be viewed as uni-dimensional, art of any quality will reflect the depth of the multi-faceted, nuanced life of the world God has created in all its fullness. The more accurate the portrayal of reality (e.g., the truer to Scriptural Reality), the better the art. 

For additional teaching on Worship, Art, World visit www.patreon.com/kempercrabb

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.

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.          

For additional teaching on Worship, Art, World visit www.patreon.com/kempercrabb                       

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 4

In the last post, we continued to explore the question of why, in an America in which between one-fourth and one-fifth of the populace reportedly profess to be Evangelical Christians, there is such a marked relative scarcity of quality art created by Christians (in the fields of music, film, dance, television, etc.). We have seen that, though Evangelicals claim to know and love the Creator of all beauty, and to be directed by His Word in “every good work” (2 Timothy 3: 16-17) (which includes the Arts), their failure as a community to produce quality art for the Church and the world is in many ways due to a lack of knowledge and understanding of the Bible. Two reasons were given for this lack of knowledge: laziness and bad theology. The first of these reasons 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 service 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 for men to serve His Purposes in favor of seeking an emotional experience of God instead. Since it isn’t necessary to know much Scripture to be able to seek a feel-good experience of God, study (or even basic knowledge) of the Bible has drastically fallen off amongst Evangelicals.

In point of fact, Evangelical Christians of this experientialist stripe (which seems, unfortunately, a probable majority of us) only study enough of the Bible to theoretically protect themselves from going to Hell, sickness, or poverty, or to prosper themselves (confess and possess, as the saying goes…). In these cases, Scripture becomes little more than a collection of magical formulas which, mixed with what is thought of as faith, can influence or force God to fulfill the desires of the Christian (of course, those who look at Scripture in this way do spend a good deal of time seeking proof-texts to demonstrate that God exists primarily to fulfill their desires, a quest which is generally mixed with “promptings” or “leadings,” generally attributed to the Holy Spirit, which providentially coincide with the desires of the Christian “claiming” Scripture…).

The problem with the Scripture-as-magic formula approach, of course, is that, rather than trying to discern God’s Will for men, Scripture is seen primarily as a way of influencing God to fulfill man’s desire for, again, personal peace (or ecstatic experience) and affluence. Scripture is searched only to the extent that it serves these selfish ends, and is understood only in the context of how it can be distorted to manipulate God.

Rather than seeing God’s Word as the Heavenly Blueprint of God’s Prescribed Patterns for men’s lives, as that which prepares and guides the man of God for “every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and studying it deeply to understand God’s View of Himself, mankind, and the world He has made, in order to fulfill His Purposes in our lives, the Christian who only seeks his own pleasure in the attempt to control God by His Scripture is limited to surface (and in many ways, erroneous) views of Scripture, God, reality, and of himself as a person.

The irony in all this is that it is only in subjecting ourselves to God’s Purposes for us that men ever truly find security, freedom, or personal peace. In any attempt to control or coerce God for the fulfillment of our own self-generated desires, we ultimately forfeit true peace and security.

The truth of the matter is that we need a knowledge of Scripture to even be able to accurately assess our experience in the world; the deeper and truer our grasp of Biblical Truth, the more accurate our assessment of life is. Without such an accurate assessment of our experience, it is impossible to fulfill the vocations God has designed for us (including that of the artist). To this topic we will, Lord willing, turn in the next post.

For additional teaching on Worship, Art, and the World, visit www.patreon.com/kempercrabb

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 3

In this last post, we continued to explore the question of why, in an America in which between one-fourth and one-fifth of the population reportedly profess to be Evangelicals, there is such 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), 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 advanced 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 for and service to God’s Will and Purposes. We will now commence an examination of the contributions of flawed theology to the artistic irrelevance of today’s Evangelical Church to our culture.

Every theological approach (like every ideology or system of thought) is governed by its presuppositions (or axioms). Its assumed primary concerns. In the case of Evangelical theology, it is to be desired that the presuppositions underlying it be drawn from Scripture, God’s Word which tells us how to direct our paths and our works (Psalm 119: 105; 2 Timothy 3: 16-17). This is, of course, the professed goal of all Evangelical theology.

However, in practice, it all too frequently turns out that only part of Scripture’s full-spectrum range of goals for mankind is given attention to as governing theological assumptions. What do I mean by this statement? At present in Western (especially American) Evangelical thought, the primary thing assumed to be sought by Christians is an experienceof God. As an initial step in a Christian’s spiritual life, no doubt, this is proper, since Evangelicals believe that a regenerating personal relationship with Christ is necessary to spiritual rebirth and the beginning of subsequent sanctification.

While it is certainly a good and necessary thing to experience a sustained relationship with God, the feeling of that experience becomes all too often the goal of Christian life (which aberration has given rise to our therapeutically-obsessed culture). Again, it is good and necessary to have a consistent experience of the Christ we are living in relationship with (though the idea that this relationship will always make us feel good is a radical misunderstanding of what relationship with the Sanctifying Christ truly means…). The problem is that, if the goal of feeling good becomes primary, then other equally vital aspects of the kind of life set forth for Christians in Scripture are neglected.

What I have in view here is that the Christian is to be characterized as much (or more, in my perspective) by an ethical concern. For instance, Jesus says in John 14:15, “If you love Me, keep My Commandments,” and, in verse 21 of that chapter, “He who has My Commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (which seems to imply that a continued experience of Jesus is tied up in ethical obedience to Him). Our love for Jesus is to be shown by what we do (ethics), not by how we feel.

The marching orders for Evangelicals are frequently said to be found in the Great Commission’s (Matthew 28: 18-20) mandate to evangelize, yet it is not frequently noted that we are to disciple the nations to “observe all things that I have commanded you,” an ethical consideration. Ephesians 2: 8-10 tells us that “we are His Workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them,” and James 2: 17-18 simply says, “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”

Obviously, living as Christians entails living obediently by the Bible’s ethical standards, and it is thus necessary to study and learn Scripture, if we are going to be able to do so. Orthopraxy (correct action) requires orthodoxy (correct belief). To do the things we are called to do by God (like being an artist), we must study the Bible to be able to understand how to do our calling (such as art) in ways which please the Lord Who has called us.

Yet, if our primary goal as Christians is to feel good about our relationship with God, then, rather than studying the Bible as a guide for our lives and callings, so that we can live obediently to please God, Bible study becomes only a “quiet time,” when we seek to have some emotional experience of God. Our attendance at church becomes primarily a quest for a feel-good experience, rather than a ministry to God (an ethical action) of praise and an opportunity to hear God speak to us through His Word and Sacraments, equipping us to please Him further by obediently performing His Will outside the walls of the church-building. Bad theology of this sort drives many from church to church seeking an emotional experience (sometimes called a “blessing” or “meeting my spiritual needs,” or any number of other spiritual-sounding euphemisms for self-fixated emotional idolatry), rather than finding a place where they are needed and can help build up Christ’s Body.

To do our callings, we must attend to God’s Word, and we must do so on His terms, not our own, with our focus on the fullness of what He wants us to take away from Scripture, not on a partial understanding which reinforces our self-centeredness and laziness. Lord willing, more on bad theology in the next post.     

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 2

In the last issue, we began to explore the question of why it was that, in an America in which between one-fourth and one-fifth of the population reportedly profess to be Evangelicals, there is such a markedly low proportional creation of quality art by Christians (whether dance, film, music, television, etc.). It was postulated that, though Evangelicals claim to know and love the All-Beautiful Creator-God, and to have His Written Word to direct them “in every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), their failure as a community to provide quality art to the Church and the world is directly related to their lack of knowledge and understanding of the Bible. Two reasons were proffered to explain this lack of knowledge: laziness and bad theology. To the first of these reasons we now turn.

It is commonly held that Evangelicals know the Bible better than any other section of the global population. Scarily, this opinion is undoubtedly true. Why is this scary? For the simple reason that, just because Evangelicals know their Bibles better than the rest of humanity doesn’t mean they know it very well at all.

It is true that there are many theologians, pastors, teachers, and so forth who do know their Bibles well (some exceedingly well). However, compared with the number of extant Evangelicals in America (or all the West, for that matter) the number of those well-versed in Scripture is exceedingly small, especially among the rank-and-file believers who aren’t leaders or officers in the Church.

How do I know this? Ask yourself (or ask them) how many of your Christian friends or fellow parishioners can explain (even very simply) the content of the 25 verses of the Epistle of Jude, or the 13 verses of John’s Second Epistle, or the 25 verses of the Book of Philemon. How many can simply outline (or even give the main thrust) of 2 Timothy (3 chapters) or 1 Timothy, Galatians, or Philippians (4 chapters apiece)? These are all very short Books. How many believers do you know who can tell you what was made on each of the 7 Days of Creation listed in Genesis 1? For that matter, how many can even list the Books of the Bible from memory? How can we even begin to say we know our Bibles when most of us don’t even know these basic things?

Many Christians would respond to this by saying, “That’s just too much to learn,” yet many of these same people can tell you things like the batting records of every baseball player on their favorite team, or the lyrics of hundreds of popular songs, or every character (and all the plot lines) of their favorite soap operas for years running, or highly detailed, nuanced information about their job. Many Evangelicals spend 8+ hours a day working, and much of their time outside of the work-place trying to figure out how to improve their performance on the job, yet would say that they had no time to study the Bible.

None of the things I listed above are bad in themselves, of course. However, we always find time to do the things that matter the most to us. It would appear that we simply don’t want to study the Perfect Word of God more than we want to watch T.V., or listen to music, or (and this is the heart of the matter) please ourselves. We have made idols of our pleasures and/or our quest for prosperity (and thus, of ourselves) and elevated these idols above our love of Christ and His Word.

We content ourselves with the little snippets we hear from teachings about basic doctrines, rather than using them as springboards to dive deeply into the Scriptures. We convince ourselves that, since we know these basic doctrines, we know our Bibles. Then we wonder why we can’t change the world when we don’t even know how to think Biblically about the vocations that God has called us to (including, vitally, the various artistic callings). It is our responsibility to learn about our callings Biblically so that we can do our callings effectively (things like, say, producing great art…). For most Evangelicals, though, our personal peace and affluence (e.g., our pleasure) are our true gods.

We Christians rightly disparage the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. As Jesus taught of them in Matthew 15:8: “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.” We Evangelicals profess love for Jesus, sing about Him, get emotional about Him, and so forth. Yet when it comes to actually doing His Will outside our worship services, even to doing the simple things like spending time studying His Word, we don’t do so well. We come more and more to resemble the Pharisees. Then we wonder why our culture is growing so pagan.

We must ask ourselves if our hearts are where our words say they are. We do the things that are most important to us. If we are not obediently studying and learning the Bible, we must ask ourselves why that is. What do you value most? 

For additional teaching on Worship, Art, World, visit www.patreon.com/kempercrabb