The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 21

In this series we’ve been exploring answers as to why millions of American Evangelicals have produced so few examples of quality art in any artistic category, seeing first that in large part this is because of limited (or distorted) views of Biblical teaching (or a failure to act on the implications of its teachings), despite the fact that Scripture instructs Christians in “every good work” (2 Tim 3: 16-17), which necessarily includes the making of art.

We’ve also looked at the negative effects of shallow or distorted views of the doctrines of Creation and Eschatology, which lead to denigrations of the physical world and time as proper theaters of God’s Purposes, encouraging a pessimism about history, seeing it as Satan’s realm which must be escaped from instead of redeemed and fulfilled.

We looked as well at the results of sub-Scriptural perspectives on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, seeing that misunderstandings or rejections of the Three Persons of the One God destroy the possibility of any Scriptural justification of symbols being revelatory of both multiple meanings and unified meaning at the same time.

Trinitarian confusion leads to muddled ideas as well of the reflected Mystery of the Image of God in men, to views of men as simplistic machines subject to quick-fix techniques, and to man as being incapable of reflecting God in multi-faceted ways, resulting in overly-simplistic representations in art-forms.

Last issue, we began a consideration of the implications of the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ, which teaches us that Jesus was both fully God and fully Man simultaneously, with no confusion between His Natures, both of which co-inhered to form One Person in a great Mystery. We saw that this Truth, that God has eternally joined Himself to a human body, soul, and spirit means that God not only is not opposed to matter, but that matter was made for, and inescapably involves, spiritual expression.

We also saw that this concept of Incarnation, that matter and spirit were made for each other, as evidenced in the Divine/Human Christ Jesus, was scandalous in Christ’s Time on earth, as it violated the dualistic belief of neo-Platonism (the dominant world-view of the Classical era) that matter and spirit were opposed to each other, and were incompatible with each other.

Unfortunately, this basic idea of dualism, that spirit is superior to and incompatible with the material world, was imported into the Church by educated converts who misread both Scripture and the world in neo-Platonic terms, even though they believed in the Biblical Revelation of Jesus’ Divine/Human Incarnation. Not considering the implications of the Incarnation, their dualism resulted in a withdrawal from the “sin-infected” physical world as much as possible, which was the mainspring of the growth of ascetic monasticism.

Throughout the Church’s history, dualism and Incarnationalism have struggled for dominance among believers, and in the aftermath of the Reformation, Pietism arose and adopted dualism as its view of the world, injecting it into the Evangelical Church, where it has become the primary perspective of American Evangelicals.

This has lead Evangelicals in their theology, experience, and art, to emphasize only “spiritual” aspects of life, things like prayer, worship, evangelism, etc., and to de-emphasize as unspiritual or unimportant the regular, quotidian things of life, things like work, politics, economics and so forth, seeing them as areas which were only important if explicitly “spiritual” themes could be foisted upon them.

The arts, seen as being too sensual and worldly, were reduced to the status of propaganda, their only real justification being to function as glorified gospel tracts, with music being privileged, since worship services require songs. But dance, architecture, acting, all the more visceral and physical arts, came to be largely viewed with suspicion, relegated to the realm of the “secular,” as being so worldly that they were only possibly“spiritual,” and likely not “spiritual,” so were ignored and distrusted.

Are these sub-spiritual arenas? Are they less spiritual than prayer? Are there more and less spiritual aspects of life? How does the Incarnation answer these questions? Lord willing, we’ll examine these questions next week…

For additional teaching on the relationship of spirit and matter, visit Patreon.

On the Incarnation: Saint Athanasius (Popular Patristics)

By Saint Athanasius

Buy on Amazon

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 20

We’ve been examining in this series possible answers to the question of why millions of American Evangelicals have produced so little quality art of any kind, and have seen that this is to a large extent due to a limited (or distorted) view of Biblical teaching (and/or a failure to act on or consider the implications of its teaching), even though Scripture instructs Christians in “every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17), which includes making art.

We’ve explored the destructive effects of distorted or shallow views of the Doctrines of Creation and Eschatology, which lead to devaluations of the material world and of time as the arenas of God’s Purposes, resulting in pessimism concerning history and matter as being Satan’s domain which needs to be escaped from, rather than fulfilled and redeemed. 

We saw that sub-Scriptural views of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity as rejections or misunderstandings of the Three Persons of the One God destroy the possibilities of Scriptural justifications of seeing symbols as being revelatory of multiple meanings and unified meaning simultaneously.

Such a denigrated perspective on the Trinity leads as well to confused ideas about the reflected Mystery of God in men, seeing men as simplistic machines subject to quick-fix techniques, and who exist primarily for one mode of being, rather than complex, nuanced creatures capable of reflecting God in multi-faceted ways, resulting in an over-simplistic representation in our art-forms.

Having looked cursorily at the results of the distortion of these Doctrines, we turn now to begin a consideration of the implications of the Doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ, which teaches, in the words of the Definition of the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) (which sums up Biblical teaching), that Jesus Christ was “at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man…recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of Him, and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.”

Christ Jesus was both fully God and fully Man at the same time, with no confusion between His Natures, both of Which co-inhered in a great Mystery to form His One Person. Such an idea was radical at the time of His Birth in the ancient Classical world, since the dominant world-view of the era (neo-Platonism) held that it was impossible for the spiritual God to have any contact with physical matter.     

This was because God was not seen as the Creator of matter, and the physical was believed to have been made by an evil being (or to be an illusion). This fueled a perspective on the physical which saw it as a highly inappropriate medium for spiritual expression.

The Incarnation of Christ, in which God (in His Second Person) joined Himself to a human body, soul, and spirit, means that God is not opposed to matter, since He assumed a physical Body forever (John 1:14; 20:24-29; 1 Cor 15:12-23; Eph 1:19-23).

This is good news for Christian artists (and thus for all artists), since the Incarnation means that not only is matter fit for spiritual expression, but that such an expression is the highest potential for matter (indeed, that matter inescapably involves spiritual expression). The fact that the Spiritual God is forever joined to the Matter of Christ’s Physical Body is an eternal refutation of all dualistic views which set at variance spirit and matter (Lord willing, we’ll look at more on this later).

The Incarnation guarantees the suitability of matter for spiritual expression, demonstrating Biblical claims that physical things are the proper arena for spirituality (Rom12:1-2; etc.), including, of course, the arts. A defective view of Christ’s Incarnation leads to a devaluation of matter as a suitable material for spiritual expression, and of matter’s value altogether.        

For additional teaching on the relationship of the physical and spiritual, listen to “Windows To Glory” series on Patreon.

A helpful book on this topic:

On the Incarnation by Saint Athanasius

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 19

For some time, we’ve been exploring of why millions of American Evangelicals have failed to make much quality art of any sort, and have seen that this is largely because of limited (or distorted) views of Scripture’s teachings (or a failure to act on or consider the implications of the things they do know from it), even though the Bible instructs believers in “every good work” (2 Tim 3: 16-17), which includes making art. 

We’ve looked at some destructive aspects of shallow or distorted views of the Doctrines of Creation and Eschatology. We also lately turned to a consideration of the artistic damage wrought by a sub-Scriptural view of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as a rejection or misunderstanding the Three Persons of the One God destroys all possibility of Biblical justification in seeking symbols as both revealing multiple meanings and simultaneously unifying those varied meanings. 

A denigration of the Triune Mystery inevitably leads to confusion concerning the reflected mystery in men, who are created in the Image of the Mysterious Triune God, which reduces men to simplistic machines subject to quick-fix techniques.

This results in a flattened view of man and the world, reducing humanity to a uni-dimensional construct made for one mode of being, instead of the nuanced, complex, multi-orbed creature and Reality God created for mankind to reflect God within.

We saw this illustrated in the last couple of articles by the example of the rejection of a Scripturally-sound song (deemed by all involved as artistically-advanced) by a Christian record label on the basis of it not having a “happy ending,” a rejection undergirded by a uni=dimensional view of man and the world which deemed that God wanted humans to be only happy rather than holy, as those who, in a fallen world, should also experience sorrow, lamentation, and repentance for their sin, as well as sharing in Christ’s Sufferings (1 Peter 4: 12-19; 2 Cor 7: 8-11).

The Word of God, though, overwhelmingly concerns itself with the relationship and experience of God and His Covenant People, and reflects in that nexus not only happiness and joy, but also fear, sorrow, suffering, repentance, guilt, duty, malediction, and holy terror as normative in a fallen world.

All of these categories of human experience are reflected not only in the narrative parts of the Bible, but also in the lamentation, sorrow, sacrifice, and hope represented the prayers, proverbs, and psalms of Scripture, in the apocalyptica (symbolic prophetic writings), prescriptions of the Law, and the Epistles of the New Testament (a number of which were written from prison and/or by men who were eventually martyred).

The Complex and Holy God Who deals with His complex and fallen creature, mankind, utilizes all created things, whether fallen or not, to reveal Himself in His Persons or Aspects (Gen 1; Ps 19; Rom 1: 19-21).

This means that all these categories of existence (which God uses to reveal Himself to men) are revelatory, communicate the meanings the Creator-God gives them, to His Image-Bearers, mankind. These aspects of Reality, which accurately reflect God’s Created Meanings, are all thus useful and necessary to fulfill God’s Purposes in Reality; thus, all history in all its aspects, is revelatory, speaking accurately to men in all their states of being.

God uses all of mankind’s experience to reveal Himself and accomplish His Purposes, call men to Himself, convict, correct, etc., and therefore the full range of man’s experience is meant to lead God’s People (those who know Him) to holiness, to be like God, to be sanctified within their fallen states, and thus the experience of men (redeemed and otherwise) is necessary, and accurately reflects Reality (which is why these varied categories are present in Scripture).

Though final joy and full happiness await the redeemed at time’s end, the Fall is real and radical, and fallen man experiences the world in light of this, whether redeemed or unregenerate. All men, Christian or pagan, know this varied experience, and to attempt to depict a Reality which is not faithful to Scriptural categories is both to deny the witness of Holy Writ and to lead the unregenerate to consider Christianity escapist, irrelevant, and false. Our art must reflect God’s Truth, or deservedly be seen as untrue and irrelevant.     

For additional teaching to develop a Biblical worldview, visit Patreon. 

A helpful book:

Everyday Glory

By McDermott, Gerald R.

Buy on Amazon

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 18

We’ve previously explored the question of why millions of American Evangelicals have failed to produce much quality art of any sort, and have seen that this is largely due to limited or distorted views of the Bible’s teachings (or a failure to act on or consider the implications of what they do know from it), despite the fact Scripture instructs believers in “every good work” (2 Tim 3: 16-17), which includes the making of art.

We’ve seen some of the destructive implications of shallow or distorted views of the Doctrines of Creation and Eschatology. To misunderstand the implications of God’s Creation of the world is to ultimately devalue the material world as the arena and plastic materiel of spirituality in history. To misunderstand Biblical Eschatology (the doctrine of what God is shaping history toward, and of what His Purposes are to accomplish within and at the end of time) leads inevitably to a pessimism concerning history and its value, and seeing time as the domain of Satan, and therefore as only something to be escaped from, rather than something to be fulfilled and redeemed.

Then we turned to a consideration of the artistic deformation wrought by a sub-Biblical perspective on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, seeing that a rejection or misunderstanding of the Three Persons of the One God destroys the possibility of any theological justification in seeing symbols as both carrying meanings simultaneously as well as unifying those multiple meanings. We’ve also seen that the denigration of the Mystery of the Trinity is to minimize the reflected mystery in man who is made in the Image of God, reducing men to simplistic machines subject to quick-fix techniques.

We also saw that the Balance of Unity and Diversity, the One-and-Many Aspect of the Triune God, is the answer to the question every artist faces: which is more important, the artist’s interior vision or the perception of the audience? The answer is the balance of the unity of the artist’s vision with the diversity of the sundry perceptions of the audience, just as God’s Unity and Diversity in Balance is intended to be reflected in Creation.

A failure to see the Diversity which defines the Triune God as much as does His Unity leads to a view of man and the world which flattens both, reducing humanity to a uni-dimensional construct made for one mode of being, rather than inhabiting the nuanced, complex, multi-orbed Reality God prepared for mankind to reflect God in.

In the last post, we saw illustrated the practical results of this theological defect by the story of a Christian record label’s rejection of a song (which both a popular CCM artist and the artist’s producer were pressing the label to allow them to include on a new project) not because the song was considered lacking lyrically or musically (in fact, the label thought the song was very good), but because the song lacked what they called “a happy ending”, by which they meant a conclusion in which the song’s narrator gets what he wants, rather than the thing God deems best for him.

This rejection betrays a belief that humans exist for only one mode of being: happiness (which is not the same thing as joy). This belief is shored up by a uni-dimensional view of mankind as the Image-bearer of the Complex Triune God. Such a perspective forces art by Christians into a singular promotion of a view of God only wanting humans to be happy, rather than for humans to be holy, and of humans only experiencing happiness, instead of, in a fallen world, also experiencing sorrow, repentance, and lamentation at their own sin and the sin around them, as well as sharing in the Suffering of Christ (I Peter 4: 12-19; 2 Cor 7: 8-11).

Scripture, which overwhelmingly concerns itself with the relationship and experience of God with His Covenant People, reflects not only the experience of happiness and joy, but of sorrow, suffering, repentance, duty, malediction, and holy terror, as normative in the fallen world. If Christian art does not accurately reflect the experience of Reality which both believers and non-believers share, the Faith appears as an unrealistic, irrelevant belief fit only to be laughed at or angrily rejected by non-believers, and a source of disappointment and confusion to Christians who have not been taught a fully-orbed Biblical view of the world. A return to what Scripture teaches concerning the Triune God and all that teaching implies is necessary to restore to the Church to a sound view of God, man, and the world, and to equip the Church to begin once again to produce meaningful art.

For additional teaching visit Patreon.

Helpful book to understand God’s Purposes in suffering:

Suffering and the Goodness of God (Redesign) (Volume 1) (Theology in Community, 1)

Crossway

Buy on Amazon

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 17

In previous posts, we’ve explored the question of why a millions-strong Evangelical Church has failed so signally to produce much quality art of any sort, and have seen that this is largely due to a limited or distorted view of the Bible (or of a simple failure to act or consider the implications of what is known from it), despite the fact that Scripture instructs believers in “every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17), which includes the making of art.

We’ve seen some of the destructive implications of shallow or distorted views of the Doctrines of Creation and Eschatology. To misunderstand the implications of God’s Creation of the world is to ultimately devalue the material world as the arena (and plastic material) of spirituality in history. To misunderstand Biblical Eschatology (the Doctrine of what God is shaping history toward, and of what His Purposes are to accomplish within [and at the end of] time) leads inexorably to a pessimism concerning history and its value, and to seeing time as the captive of Satan, and thus as only something to be escaped from, rather than as something to be fulfilled and redeemed.

We turned then to a consideration of the artistic deformations wrought by a sub-Biblical perspective on the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, seeing that a rejection or misunderstanding of the Three Persons of the One God destroys the possibility of any theological justification of seeing symbols as both carrying multiple meanings simultaneously and unifying those meanings.

We also saw that the denigration of the Mystery of the Trinity results in a minimization of the reflected mystery in man who is made in the Image of God, reducing men to simplistic machines subject to quick-fix techniques.

We saw as well that the Balance of Unity and Diversity, the One-and-Many Aspect of the Triune God, is the answer to the question every artist faces: which is more important, the artist’s interior vision or the perception of the audience? We saw the answer in the balance of the unity of  the artist’s vision with the diversity of the sundry perceptions of the audience, just as God’s Unity and Diversity in Balance is intended to be reflected in all of Creation.

A failure to see the Diversity Which defines the Triune God as much as His Unity leads to a view of man and the world which flattens both, reducing humanity to a uni-dimensional construct made for only one mode of being, rather than the nuanced, complex, multi-orbed Reality God has prepared for mankind to reflect God within.

Some years ago, I wrote a song for a popular Christian artist depicting the experience of a Christian witnessing a Move of God on the people surrounding him, and who cried out to God to include him in that Move. The song never disclosed whether or not God included the song’s narrator in His Move among the people being observed. Though the artist and his producer loved the song, and wanted to use it for the artist’s new recording, I received a call from the artist’s label’s A&R department, asking me to give the song a “happy ending,” by which they meant a resolution wherein the song’s protagonist shared in the Move of God.

Though they recognized that virtually every Christian has a similar experience, and that sometimes God includes individuals in particular Moves He’s doing and sometimes He doesn’t, and though I argued that the open-endedness of the song matched the nuanced experience of most Christians, they preferred to promote an unrealistic picture of life (Christian radio wouldn’t support such an open-ended song, they told me). I refused to change my song to a unitarian, over-simplified, feel-good farce, and it was dropped from the project at the label’s insistence.

Scripture is replete with various literary expressions revealing the vast range of God’s Attributes and mankind’s varied experience of those Attributes. The Bible contains history, parable, lamentation, encomium, symbolic apocalyptica, proverbs, psalms of victory, repentance, malediction, and mourning. These varied forms with their variegated and multi-hued expressions of God’s Revelation and man’s experience of that Revelation are apropos to the Complex Triunity of the Living God and His Created Image-bearer, mankind. 

Let us not seek to artificially restrict our artistic representations of that experience in such a way that we misrepresent the fact that fallen man experiences life with struggle and the taint of the Curse, lest we end up communicating a half-truth to those who encounter our art, and subsequently see God and man as something other than what they truly are. Any view of God which dumbs down His Complexity of Persons results in a view of God, mankind, and the rest of the world, which is overly simplistic and an assault on God’s Revelation in Reality.

For additional teaching on Biblical worldview, visit Patreon.

A helpful book on Art:

Art Needs No Justification

By Rookmaaker, Hans R

Buy on Amazon

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 16

We’ve been endeavoring, in past posts, to consider answers as to why, in an America wherein statistically one-fourth to one-fifth of the population claim to be Evangelical Christians, the Church produces such shoddy art. We’ve seen that Evangelicals, despite a reputation for Biblical literacy, actually have a tenuous grasp of Scripture’s content, and an even more tenuous desire to act upon the things they do know from God’s Word.

Such a paucity of Biblical wisdom inevitably shapes a Christian artist’s view of the world, delivering the artist into unbiblical ideas uncritically culled from the world-system to fill the roaring vacuum left by the absence of a well-rounded Biblical worldview grid by which to measure what is and what is not of value in the culture round about. Mistaken or facile (or nonexistent) doctrinal ideas inevitably distort the art produced by an artist, as these ideas perniciously affect the artist’s goals, content, and even methodology.

We have to date examined a number of the negative consequences of incorrect theology for the making of art, tracing the implications of a shallow or distorted view of the Doctrines of Creation and Eschatology.

In the last several posts, we have begun to consider the artistic deformation wrought by a jake-legged perspective on the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, seeing that a misunderstanding or rejection of the Triune Persons of the One God destroys the possibility of any grounding of viewing symbols as simultaneously carrying more than one meaning, while also having the potential to unify those multiple meanings. The world (and man) are thus reduced to a flat, univocal picture.

We also saw that minimizing the Mystery of the Trinity also minimizes the reflected mystery in mankind, who is created in the Image of the Mysterious Trinity, reducing our concept of mankind to a uni-dimensional machine subject to quick-fix techniques rather than the rich mysteries of God’s Reality. This encourages the production of art which denigrates the Mystery of God, man, and the world, which fails utterly to reflect Reality as it truly is, rendering art which justly reaps the approbrium of the culture at large.

We saw in past issues that the fact that the Trinity is equally both One or Unified (since God is One Essence) and Many or Diversified (since God is Eternally Three Persons) answers the perennial question of the one and the many, the question of which is more important: The one or the many? The state or the individual? Unity or diversity?

The existence of God as Triune, as Eternal Balance of One and Many, Who has created all things to reveal Himself (Gen 1; Ps 19; Rom 1:18ff.; etc.) teaches us that both the many and the one are equally important and primary.

This means that the rights of the individual and of the state (the collective people) are both to be protected and guarded governmentally. This principle should also be reflected in a very foundational way concerning the relationship of the artist to his audience. One of the questions that has bedeviled artists (especially arts theorists) is: which is more important, the artist’s interior vision or the perceptions of his audience?

Every artist imposes his vision upon the medium through which he expresses himself (whether music, dance, literature, painting, film, etc.), and one of the criteria by which an artist legitimately criticizes his work is by how closely he is able to replicate that vision through his chosen medium. For many artists in the modern era, what matters primarily to them is whether they achieve their inner vision, and, if their audience doesn’t understand that vision, so be it: the artist matters, not the audience. The artist in this scenario is concerned with the one (the artist), not the many (the audience). Such a scenario sacrifices accessibility and connection with the audience for the ego-driven vision of the artist (one before many).

In the more commercial sphere of the artistic realm, frequently the artistic vision is ruthlessly sacrificed to whatever is the perceived taste of the audience (the many), reducing the artistic vision (the one) to the lowest-common-denominator deemed to appeal to the most people. This, of course, values the many over the one.

A Trinitarian Balance of the One and the Many should be sought here: neither an artistic vision so rareified and demanding that it spurns accessibility and understandability to its audience, nor such a dumbed-down work of art that it does not capture the vision of the artist, challenging and changing the perspectives of the audience: a balance of the one and the many. A robust Doctrine of the Trinity, grasped and applied, will guarantee that such a balance remains a standard and a goal to the Christian artist, remedying to that extent the imbalances evident in Evangelical art today. 

For additional teaching on Worship, Art, and World visit Patreon.

A helpful book on artist perspective:

Modern Art and the Death of a Culture

By Rookmaaker, H. R.

Buy on Amazon

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 15

We have, in past posts, endeavored to consider answers to the question of why, in an America wherein reportedly one-fourth to one-fifth of Americans claim to be Evangelical Christians, the American Church produces such a prodigious amount of shoddy and shallow (e.g., bad) art. We have seen that, despite a (somewhat) deserved reputation to the contrary, Evangelicals generally have a tenuous grasp of the content of Scripture, and an even more ephemeral desire to act upon the things they do know from the Bible.

Since it is the Word of God which instructs the believer in righteousness, so that he can be “thoroughly equipped” for “every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17), and since “every good work” inescapably includes doing art, which every Christian artist is called to do, an ignorance or facile understanding of the Bible inevitably cripples such an artist in his calling to produce art to God’s Glory, resulting in just the sort of inauthentic, shallow art which dominates the artistic output of Evangelical Christianity in our time.

A mistaken grasp of the Doctrines presented in God’s Infallible Word results in predictable deficiencies in views and practices of art. As we’ve seen in past articles, a poor view of God as Sustaining Creator leads to a denigrated view of the value of matter, which is the raw stuff from which art is constructed, and results as well in views of reality which conflict with that presented in Scripture. Any art predicated on these doctrinal bases will be compromised.

We looked previously as well at the implications of unbiblical views of Eschatology (the doctrine of the end and purposes of history), which have resulted in seeing history and time as both evil and theaters of Satan’s victory (rather than as the theater in which God irresistibly accomplishes His Will), producing art which is only escapist and retreatist. Deficient eschatologies also result in a lack of the valuation of the development of skills over time, opting rather for an unbiblical preference for the quick-fix, and the aping of popular artists (generally not Christians) who did take the time to develop and become great (though the quick-fix artists are generally inferior copies, to the embarrassment of the Faith…).

We also began to investigate the implications of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, seeing that a lack of understanding of God’s Tri-Personed Unity leads to a lack of understanding of the nature of symbols, which God created both to reveal Himself to the world and to reflect both the Unity and the Diversity of the Holy Trinity in their combination of both unified and diversified meanings simultaneously (the One and the Many together in balance). This lack of understanding of symbols can’t help but to negatively affect art, since symbols are the building blocks of any sort of artistic expression.

That symbols, like the Holy Trinity, function so mysteriously leads us to our next consideration, that of the place of Mystery in the Nature of God’s Triune Being. It is always to be remembered that men have been created in God’s Image (Gen 1:26-28), intended by God to reflect their Maker both in His Unity and in His Diversity.

Exactly how God exists as One Being in Three Persons is one of the Great Mysteries of life, a Mystery which is replicated in small, creaturely fashion in mankind (who is also a unified being of three parts: body, soul, and spirit). There are, of course, other implications of the Great Mystery of God involved in the Image of God in mankind. We are intended to understand that, while God is the Greatest of All Mysteries, man made in God’s Image is a little mystery.

Men are not simplistic machines subject to simplistic techniques or quick-fix formulas, but, as little mysteries made in the Image of the Mysterious God, must be seen and addressed in terms which reflect that innate mystery. Art is, of course, a perfect medium for representation of, appeal from, and the necessary aspects of mystery, both in its message for, and depiction of, the mysterious life of mankind. 

All too often, Evangelicals have reduced the mystery inherent in man, and presented art which is simplistic and propagandistic in appeal, representing the life of man as a uni-dimensional, flat reality, denuding the life of man of its deep, essential mystery, and denigrating the Gospel, the depiction of the God of Mystery, and the symbols of His Presence in worship before God’s Face.

One of the antidotes to such an artist travesty, and to the blasphemy inherent in such travesties, is to turn in repentance to a whole-hearted embrace of the Trinitarian Mystery of the Living God, and an honest representation of that Mystery across the entire spectrum of the artistic expression of God’s Mysterious Creation, especially as that Creation relates to God and His Little Mirrors, the men made in His Image.

For additional teaching on Worship, Art, World, visit Patreon. 

A helpful book on creativity and the Trinity:

The Mind of the Maker

By Dorothy L. Sayers

Buy on Amazon

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 14

In earlier posts we explored why it is that millions of American Evangelicals have produced such poor quality art, and discovered that this is largely due to a limited or distorted view of the Bible, or, even worse, to an unwillingness to live out and apply what isknown from Scripture.

This deficiency in understanding plays out in the application of shallow versions of the Biblical Doctrines of Creation and of Eschatology. A poor grasp of the Doctrine of Creation leads to a devaluation of the material world, which, since artistic expressions are constructed from material things, devalues art itself. If a Doctrine of Eschatology (the doctrine of history and its purposes) is held incorrectly, it leads to a belief that history is Satan’s captive, denigrating its worth as the arena in which art achieves God’s Intended Purposes for it. Doctrine is obviously important to the doing of art.

We’ve seen that a faulty view of the Holy Trinity, Who created all things to reveal knowledge of Himself (Rom 1:18-21; Ps 19:1-4), leads to symbols (the primary form of artistic expression) being reduced to a single meaning, rather than also expressing a nuanced nexus of interlocking, mutually-reinforcing meanings. This does violence to symbols, which were created to function in such a way as to reflect the Triune God’s Nature as both One and Many, as both a Unity (or Unified Meaning) and a Diversity (or Collection of Meanings) simultaneously: One Being, Three Persons, neither of which is more primary.

Such a devaluation of Trinity-reflecting symbols leads to a severe compromising of the ability of an artist to create in complex and nuanced ways, and inevitably flattens and distorts the artistic view of the world. The resultant flat simplicity reduces the world from artistic complexity toward a single meaning, a “bottom line” which truly isn’t a bottom line, because, in order to arrive at any sort of basic meaning, it is required that all the levels of the interlocking meanings of a thing be considered together, and, since such a flattening of symbols yields only one meaning, a true “bottom line” cannot be arrived at.

This deficient view of symbols, which denies the possibility (or importance) of multiple simultaneous symbolic meanings, leads to the erroneous view that only a single meaning, a bottom line, is important, that there is only one important mode of being to reality.

The flat uni-dimensional view of the Creator leads to a uni-dimensional view of Creation, which leads to a uni-dimensional view of the Image of God in mankind, rather than the more-sophisticated, complex, highly-nuanced view of the multi-dimensional Image of God which reflects in humankind the God Who is not only Simple, but is also Highly Complex. This is a reduction of man, who is a little mystery made in the Image of God, Who is the Greatest Mystery, to the level of a lesser simplicity made in the image of a greater simplicity. Amongst Evangelicals, this has reinforced a view which assumes that man has only one desirable mode of being—one of happiness or ecstasy, which, in a fallen world during the process of sanctification prior to death, reflects neither reality nor God’s Purposes.

Much of Evangelicalism is taken up with a quest for constant happiness, consequentially downplaying in that illegitimate quest the Biblical privilege and necessity of sharing Christ’s Sufferings (1 Peter 4:12-13; 5:10; Phil 1:29; Rom 8:17; etc.). Not only does this outlook do severe damage to Biblical notions of sanctification and discipleship, and trivialize the experience of happiness and ecstasy which are a normal part of Christian life, but it also subverts Christian art by limiting its expression to only those aspects which seek or glorify happiness or ecstasy, restricting artistic manifestations which address the other legitimate dimensions of life which Christians experience in the world: sorrow, anger, resolution, resignation, etc. This massively hampers the intended range of artistic address and expression, cheapening our art.

This viewpoint also assaults (with the pernicious help of dispensationalism’s view of the Old Testament’s irrelevance for Christians) the value of all the various moods and modes of the different literary expressions of Scripture, such as the laments in the Prophets and the Psalms, the apocalyptic elements in the Gospels and the Prophets, the maledictions in the Psalms, the validity of the ethical stipulations in the Law and the Gospels, and so forth.

Besides the catastrophic implications of this assault for the fullness of the Faith, it also limits both content and artistic example in terms of addressing the complete range of experience and theology for Christian artists. This is a great tragedy, which partially flows from, and is reinforced by a deficient Doctrine of the Triune God of Scripture. Ideas have consequences.

Additional teaching is on Patreon.

Helpful book to see multi-layers of meaning in the Cosmos:

The Mystery of the Trinity: A Trinitarian Approach to the Attributes of God

By Vern S. Poythress

Buy on Amazon

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 13

In previous installments of this series, we have explored the question of why millions of American Evangelicals have produced so little quality art (film, literature, music, architecture, dance, etc.), and have discovered that this is largely due to a limited or distorted view of the Bible’s teachings, or, even worse, the unwillingness to live out and apply what is known from Scripture, all despite the fact that the Bible teaches believers how to accomplish “every good work” (2 Tim 3: 16-17), including making art.

This lack of understanding we’ve seen played out in the application of shallow versions of the Biblical Doctrines of Creation and Eschatology. If the Doctrine of Creation is not understood, the material world (the arena and materiel of spirituality in history) is devalued, making art’s meaning appear worth less, restricting its appointed purpose. If the Doctrine of Eschatology (what God is shaping history toward) is misunderstood, a pessimistic view of history results, and time is seen as Satan’s captive, that which is only good to be escaped from, rather than redeemed.

Last issue, we began to examine the artistic implications of a faulty view of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, a doctrine which teaches that, though we cannot completely comprehend such a great Mystery as the Triune God, we can understand to some extent the Aspects of that Mystery revealed in His Word (Deut 29:29), and draw logical conclusions and implications from those Revealed Aspects.

We saw that the failure of Christians to believe that God is equally both One and Three, Unified in His Essence while Diverse in His Persons, denies us the answer to the perennial question of the one and the many (of which is more primary or important, unity/singularity or diversity/plurality), a question the answer to which affects everything from art to civil governance. We turn now to a consideration of further implications of bad Trinitarian theology.

Scripture tells us that God the Triune Creator has created all things to reveal knowledge about Himself (Rom 1: 18-21; Ps 19: 1-4). Since the Creator-God Who created all things is Himself Three-Personed, His Creation reflects both His Unity and His Diversity (though clear discernment of tri-unity in Creation can only truly be informed through the revelatory lens of Special revelation, God’s Word). This can easily be seen in a consideration of the primary way through which God reveals Himself in Creation: by means of symbols.

 A symbol represents (re-presents, or presents again) that for which it stands. More accurately, symbols represent a plethora of things all at once- they have multiple meanings simultaneously (just as the Holy Trinity is One Unity with Multiple Persons, each of which Persons exhibit Unique Distinctives).

We have seen that everything reveals God, and the revelation of God is the primary symbolic purpose of all created things. However, each of these created things also symbolize other things, as well, all at the same time. For instance, a man reveals God, yet he is also a son, and may be a husband, a father, a king, a warrior, etc., at the same time. These various aspects of that man symbolize the roles which accompany the various modes of his male human existence.

Yet each of those other symbolic functional roles also reveal God at the same time they represent the aspects of that man (they are, in fact, the way in which God is revealed through the man), so that each of these symbolic representations stand for God and the man’s roles, together and separately. A symbol is thus analogous in its created mode to the Triune Creator Who is both One and Many simultaneously, since the symbol also has unified and diverse meanings simultaneously.

To fail to recognize that God is equally and simultaneously One and Three, and that His Creation reflects its Maker in many ways, especially as it reveals Him, leads to the conclusion that Creation is neither a symbol in its discrete and combined parts, nor (if Creation is seen as symbolic) that the elements of the Creation carry multiple and unified meanings simultaneously.

For an artist, who depends on symbols (whether musical, visual, or verbal), the devaluation of, and/or misapprehension concerning symbols severely compromises his ability to create in  complex and nuanced ways, leads the artist’s audience to misunderstand his art, and generally flattens and distorts the view of the world. All this results from bad theology. Ideas have consequences, and theological ideas are no different, especially when the ideas are drawn from God’s Infallible Word, our only true picture of reality.  

For additional teaching visit Kemper’s Patreon page.

A helpful book on Biblical Symbology:

Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World

By Jordan, James B.

Buy on Amazon

The Disconnect: Why Evangelicals Make Bad Art, Part 12

We have explored, in previous installments of this series, the question of why a millions-strong American Evangelical Church has failed to produce much quality art (film, dance, music, literature, architecture, etc.), and have seen that this is largely due to a limited or distorted view of Holy Scripture (or, worse, a simple failure to act upon what is known from the Bible), despite the fact that Scripture instructs believers in “every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17), which includes doing art.

We saw this lack of depth in understanding and applying Biblical Doctrines such as Creation and Eschatology. To misunderstand the implications of God’s Creation of the world is to ultimately devalue the material world as the arena and plastic materiel of spirituality in history. To misunderstand Biblical Eschatology (the Doctrine of what God is shaping history toward, and of what His Purposes are to accomplish within [and at the end of] time) leads inexorably to a pessimism concerning history and its value, and seeing time as the captive of Satan, and thus as only something to be escaped from, rather than as something to be fulfilled and redeemed.

Having examined in cursory fashion the implications of a sub-Biblical view of Creation and Eschatology, we move now to a consideration of some of the artistic implications of a faulty view of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the revealed belief that God is eternally both One (unified in Essence or Being) and Many (diverse in His Persons), a Tri-Unity.

The Triune God is, of course, a Mystery so great that the human intellect cannot comprehend in its fullness (like that of Christ’s Incarnation, or Creation from nothing). However, God has revealed this Doctrine to us in His Word to teach us about Himself (and, since we are made in His Image, about us secondarily), and, though we cannot comprehend the depth and breadth of the Trinitarian Mystery (to do so would require that we be God, Who Alone comprehends His Completeness), we can understand a number of aspects of that Mystery, as well as some of the logical implications of those aspects of the Mystery we can grasp in our finitude.

The fact that God’s Tri-Unity is so mysterious has lead most Evangelicals of our time to simply not even try to understand and apply the implications of those aspects of the Trinity which are open to us, and that we are capable of understanding to some extent (this is generally, as we’ve seen in previous articles, due to the current Evangelical penchant for intellectual laziness and overemphasis on experience and concomitant de-emphasis on content and knowledge).

For instance, in our time, most believers never stop to consider (or even to learn) that God is equally One and Three, and has always been so. He is not more One (unified) than He is Three (diverse); He is not more Three than He is One. These Attributes of God (His Three-ness and His Oneness) are what theologians call “equally ultimate,” e.g., neither Attribute is more primary or important than the other. Why is this significant for us?

This is important because it answers one of the greatest philosophical puzzles in the history of mankind, the question of the One and the Many, a question whose answer impacts all of us on most levels of our lives all the time.

The question of the One and the Many is: which is more important, the One (the individual, diversity, multiple meanings) or the Many (the group, unity, single meaning)? Outside of the Doctrine of the Trinity, this question is unanswerable, which is why, for instance, governments of nations across history have swung from totalitarian states (where individual rights and privileges are sacrificed for the perceived good of the many) to chaotic libertarian-style states (where the good of the many is sacrificed for the rights of the individual). The style of government radically varies according to how the question of the One and the Many is answered (this is why, for instance, after the attacks of 9/11, the privilege of an individual to board an airplane at his leisure was curtailed by stringent security measures, because the safety of the many was perceived to be at greater threat precisely because of the privilege of the individual).

The answer to the question of the One and the Many is in the Doctrine of the Trinity. God is neither more One nor more Many; He is a Perfect Balance of these Aspects, equally both, so men should attempt to balance the good of the many with the value and privilege of the individual, governmentally speaking. This insight is why the Founders of America (who inherited the concept from the Church) sought to establish three branches of federal government, with, since men are Fallen (Rom 1: 18-32), checks and balances.

The implications of the Trinitarian answer to the question of the One and the Many are radically important to questions of artistry, as well, in areas like symbology, artist-audience relations, stylistic ornamentation and divergences, and others. Lord willing, we will begin to turn to Trinitarian considerations of these in future issues.

For additional teaching www.patreon.com/kempercrabb

See below for a helpful book on the implications of Trinitarian Doctrine:

Traces of the Trinity: Signs Of God In Creation And Human Experience

By Leithart, Peter J.

Buy on Amazon