Why does the contemporary church tend to reject its artists, and why do so many artists reject the church? Can we do anything about it? In the episode, Justus and Michael explore some of the bones of contention and roots of bitterness which keep so many artist Christians on the fringes of the church, and they explain how reconciling the church and her artists would be of inestimable benefit to both.
Stay tuned at the end for “In the False Church,” from Songs for Friends by Physick, a raw denunciation of the lukewarmness of contemporary Protestantism, styled in the language of the Old and New Testament prophets.
This is not new. This has been the struggle from even before it was an issue for me in the 90s. It took reading Francis Schaeffer’s work and spending some time in L’Abri to finally come to an understanding with being an artist and a Christian. Back then the only artists I could find writing on the subject were Hans Rookmaaker, Frank Schaeffer, Glenn Kaiser, and Charlie Peacock.
The problem, though, is a US cultural issue. All the things you discuss is just the Church reflecting the culture we are within. Rothko struggled with his art being considered decorative with his Seagrams commission. Today, just hit the Houzz.com forums and it is not uncommon to find a thread on which artwork should they buy that goes best with their furniture and furnishings. the terms some artists have come up with for this is a work that is an “over mantle”, appropriate for hanging over the fireplace. I say this as Houzz is one of my favorites sites for home renovation ideas.
Look at the news in general and how people get upset when a particular art work is either being displayed in a museum or, worse, public art.
The discussions on arts education are always the same. Art is superfluous. We need to focus on teaching math, science, and technology… the kind of things people will need to “get jobs”.
Art is as important in our churches as it is important to our society and culture at large. Our understanding of art within the church is exactly our understanding of art outside the church. The church is as discriminating as much of our own society.
Our churches don’t know how to treat or nurture artists, don’t understand the place of artists, are as befuddled by artists as much as our society at large. Both the church and our society have the same issue treating artists as both problem and celebrity.
First and foremost, the church doesn’t know how to treat artists as people. They see artists as either someone to use (like your artist business person example or even as a musician for the worship team) or someone to be avoided because they don’t understand them, they seem too weird. Churches can start there, by simply treating artists like people who also need spiritual solace, guidance, and simple relationships. It doesn’t have to get more complex than that.
But artists are not the only ones the church is failing. I’ve said elsewhere, the rise of the Nones should clearly illustrate that. Artists were the canaries in the coal mine. Really, talking about artists now is about 20 years too late and is really only addressing a symptom of an ailing church at large.
Just some thoughts,
Joe
Thanks, Joe. I agree that artists and the arts were/are the canary in the coal mine. I also think they can be useful, possibly central, in the reformation of the church for the sake of even those non-artist Nones. Not just the arts in and of themselves, of course. But what they represent in a return to honesty, beauty, delight in worship, and the embodiment of the Gospel. It might be late, but I still say better late than never, right? We’re trying to do our part, anyway, and we appreciate your thoughtful feedback and help!
Think about that, though. To say that artists can be useful (I know you didn’t mean that in a utilitarian sense, but the phrase is ironic) is a lot of pressure and responsibility to put on some who may not be in a position, either spiritually, vocationally, or whatever, to facilitate that reformation.
There is a general devaluing of both art and artists in the US unless the art is part of popular culture and the artist is a superstar. Even then, they will still be targets from any number of groups. And that devaluing is a symptom of greater issues. There is a devaluing of people in general in the US and in the church.
Because of the things you say the arts represent, those are the kind of things that will return as a symptom of the reformation. Maybe if those of us who were a part of the conversation in the 90s and early 2000s could have seen that bigger picture we might be in better shape today. Or not. Ultimately it is the Spirit who convicts.
I do believe there is a new reformation coming. The Church in 20 years won’t look like it does today. There is a lot of chaff that has to be burned off. I believe we are witnessing some of that fire storm even now. The artists and Nones are shaking the dust off their feet from a generation that won’t heed the call.
Just some more thoughts. Thanks for indulging me,
Joe
Well, I have thought about it a little bit. 🙂 I’ve also seen it with my own eyes. All the artists I know have felt or still feel an immense pressure to prove their art has “utility” in a marketable/commercial sense so that they can actually live off their work. Most of them can’t live off their art, so they feel the additional pressure of finding some “tent-making” job so they can put food on the table, all the while their emotional and spiritual energies are so drained from ill-suited full-time work that they have almost no creative juice at all to do what they were made to do in the arts.
Is it more pressure to be freed from those market constraints by a supporting church so that you can happily pursue your God-given calling in whatever way God has called you to it? If you asked most artists, would they reject the pressure of liberated leadership to maintain their current pressures in frustrated and unsupported obscurity? I highly doubt it. Such a proposition seems almost laughable.
I’m not recommending at all that the church or artists should be encouraged to combat their current devaluation of the arts with a revaluation in a materialist/commercial sense (in spite of my use of the word “useful”). Art has no utility in those terms. The Gospel has no short-term utility in those senses either, though. But that is not to say the Gospel is worthless merely because it is priceless. Far from it. And, similarly, if art is to be valued properly in Western society, it will have to be appraised for its Gospel value first. And this must first be done by the church, or it will never be done by the culture (which, as you have noted, also relegates the arts to the realm of commodities). After all, the Reformation church led the way for Western culture to devalue the arts (for more info on this process I recommend reading: The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science, by Peter Harrison and Puritanism, by Clarence Meily—especially Chapter V: “Puritanism and Asceticism”) based in large part on an implicit acceptance of the Roman Catholic teaching (mostly extant) that art was/is gratuitous.
I disagree that the arts are gratuitous, and I disagree that they should be forced to be utilitarian. I think they are essential to God’s whole counsel and therefore essential to the work of the Church. But the Roman Catholics are right that the arts seem superfluous to the mere propagation and support of animal life. The arts cannot and should not be valued in money, in other words. Art is not essential in a utilitarian sense, and I have no desire to prove otherwise. My desire is to show that utilitarianism (like the Gnostic/Platonic dualism it is built on) undermines everything the Bible teaches about the spiritual life and its incarnational/sacramental communion with the created order. So when I speak of artists being useful or productive, I don’t mean this in utilitarian terms. They would be useful leaders in the church if they were given freedom to pursue the arts, and most of them desire this freedom (even if it means an increase in responsibility). I would not want them to be tools in anyone’s hand but God’s, in other words. The fact is they are currently relegated to being tools in the hands of human beings—constrained to either the slavery of the popular pleasure or the slavery of an ill-suited profession. I want freedom for them, even with all its risks (of which I am well aware—remember we’ve been actually funding Christian artists for more than ten years, with all the productive messiness you might expect from such an endeavor).
You are right ultimately that the “Spirit convicts.” Yet He rarely does so without means. I’m committed to doing my part, whatever the consequences. And I am encouraged that this new generation seems open to hearing about God in and through the arts. It’s an exciting time for artists in the church, whether or not it has been too long in coming. Don’t get me wrong, though. There is huge work yet to be done, as you know. And don’t think I just began this work. I began my first arts organization more than ten years ago. I have received little more than rejection and discouragement this whole time. Many times I resolved to quit, but God wouldn’t let me. My hope and trust are not built on either the naïveté of youthful inexperience or the first blush of initial success (if only). My hope and strength are in our Father, His Son, and their Spirit, who has constantly refreshed me in this process through the seemingly interminable wildernesses of disappointment.
I get the feeling you too have been greatly discouraged, perhaps worn down almost to despair for the church. Know that I appreciate greatly that God has not allowed you to abandon His work in the church even in your discouragement. It refreshes me to see Him working in this in the lives of others. Your comments have been very good for us all to think about. Feel free to indulge in this discourse all you please. 🙂
You covered a lot of territory and even as you attempted to simplify some of the issues you also seem quite aware of the complexity.
In terms of the frustrated artist, one of the things an artist has to come to terms with is just because they are creating art doesn’t automatically make it a worthy offering. Those of us who have been doing this a long time have a phrase—”paying your dues”. It takes a long time for most artists to hone their voice and figure out what it is they really want to say. And even then, that can change over time. In other words, you never stop paying your dues.
Even the artist who we may consider as having made it are always balancing making money vs making what we want. Actor/director Denzel Washington said “We do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do.” Dance companies all across the country use “The Nutcracker” or some other market dominant work as a financial cornerstone for their less patronized new or experimental works. The reality is the only artists who are financially independent inside or outside the church truly creating only what they want to create without any concern for others.
And how relevant will their work be if they have absolute freedom to create whatever they can conceive? I’ve seen choreographers who have all the resources they could imagine available to them and waste everyone’s time and money. I’ve seen choreographers struggle to simply find creative time create some of the greatest work to ever grace the stage.
Jack White’s point in the movie “It Might Get Loud” is you have to have a fight with your guitar and win. If you don’t have a struggle you have to make one up. Art is a response. Even God created in response to his nature. Sometimes, for us mere mortals, that response is to frustration. Art is not created in a vacuum. Some artists have figured out what they want to say. Some need to first figure out why they need to create.
Some artists have to come to terms with that their work just may not acquire broad appeal. And there is nothing wrong with that. Bach wasn’t considered one of the greats when he was alive. Vermeer went unknown for centuries until being discovered. Even Mozart and Rembrandt were at the mercy of the market place.
I’ve not been discouraged in my work. I’ve always known I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. And i’ve been doing it for over 30 years. What I had to figure out early on was why the church didn’t agree. What I have learned since then, though, is the problem is more than art. Art, as I’ve said, is the symptom.
You mention the Gospel. And I think this is the root cause. I think you would be hard pressed to find agreement on what exactly that is. And that is what is driving my frustration with the church. I am one of the rising tide of Nones exactly for this reason as are many of the nones. The Nones are not just millennials or even the Gen Xers. The Nones are cross generational.
Keep at it. Keep up these conversations. But understand the problem is deeper than this, too.
Thanks for your time! We should get together for coffee.
Joe
I do love coffee. Where are you located? Send me an email at michael-at-renewthearts-dot-org and we’ll try to work something out this summer. I really appreciate all your thoughtful engagement with the podcast.
If art is broken (including support for the arts and artists), it is because relationships are broken:
https://medium.com/@jfutral/art-is-relationship-c482fe12065e
Joe