a quick thought on art and faith
Why we need art in the Church:
For all of art's value, its greatest value in community is that it can become a memory tool that expresses and codifies what we believe in a way that words & reason could never capture. Our faith experience must exceed words alone; it must be nuanced with color and shadow, punctuated with movement and rhythm, guided by line and melody.
For all of art's value, its greatest value in community is that it can become a memory tool that expresses and codifies what we believe in a way that words & reason could never capture. Our faith experience must exceed words alone; it must be nuanced with color and shadow, punctuated with movement and rhythm, guided by line and melody.
posted by ben price at 12:29 AM
3 Comments:
Ben,
Okay, I am now "un-frozen." I have finished the tag list. Good post by the way--short and sweet.
I struggle with art, not because I disagree with it, but because I have no artists that go to the churches I am at. I agree with the need for art, for some sort of modern day equivalent to the beauty of cathedrals and stained glass and statues, but where to get artists?
Have protestant churches nurtured and raised a generation of "words alone" or sola sermona (just made that up, i'm so clever).
Mofast,
I think that is exactly what we are experiencing. I think that protestantism is still experiencing the ramifications of swinging the "Sola Scriptura" pendulum all the way to Subject + Written Word = Truth. The unintended consequence of taking out the priestly middle man from the equation is that we eliminated the need for all storytellers, which included our artists. It took a few generations, but by the late 1800's the "Christian" Artist was nearly extinct.
I think the modern age has generally engaged with religion/spirituality/faith/whatever in one of two ways--either 1)belief in God is irrational so it is impossible--end of discussion (but lets keep meeting for moral/community reasons). OR 2) if we just work hard enough we can reason ourselves to God. You see, he makes sense if you interpret Genesis 2 this way and if you reject these laws of physics and so on. This is, I think what most evangelicals have done.
But either option, I think, leaves artists on the outside looking in. Both ASSUME the supremecy of reason, one to reject faith, the other to support it. But I think art is often "supra-rational" not irrational, but beyond it. It does not rely on reason to get its message across. The hegemony did not have room for mystery (and in many ways, did not have room for prophecy either).
Whoa, I kind of went off . . . what was my point? Oh, yeah, your right, the problem is their are no artists left and until we take control of the hegemony (the power to control the conversation) in faith communties and give space on the margins for our artists, we won't see them come back.
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