What Does the Gospel Look Like?

Developing a Biblical Aesthetic

Art as Embodied Obedience

What does repentance look like? I have heard that statement countless times in my men's group. The query is to reveal to the penitent a vision of what his repentance will look like in terms of behavior. If I forgive, what bodily activity reveals & manifests that heart condition? If I am grateful, what actual embodiment will be manifest such that others will see and recognize gratefulness? Is it possible that character and discipleship are also involved in what the Gospel will look like on any given Sunday in our worship gathering? Does our worship demand a deeper grasp of embodied obedience and its artistic outworking?

I would contend that aesthetics (art making) needs to come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I would also put forth that our penchant for music (with lyrics) over the visual, theatrical and performance arts reflects a tendency to make obedience internal, private, and cerebral at the expense of bodily obedience. By bodily obedience I mean that real discipleship looks like something. Real worship looks like something. What does it look like to obey God with our creative talents and why is the Church by in large void of symbolizing artifacts and rituals that are specifically Christian? How is the Gospel displayed or embodied in our worship gatherings?

Is it possible that the emergence of a biblical aesthetic (Christianly way of doing and making art) will only happen when we experience and embrace an ecclesiological redefinition of culture, community, character, and virtue? Why should the church care about the arts? What kind of art would an obedient Christian create? How does that relate to our worship gathering? The convergence of interpretive communities fosters much of the dialogue surrounding the role and biblical use of the arts in our worship gatherings. From the modern church growth movement to the neo orthodox ancient future enclave, many are clamoring for a renewed sense of the arts and their role in the Church. Those with Protestant roots feel much more comfortable with music as one of the arts used in faith formation while our orthodox brothers and sisters seem to feel much more confident with a sacramental view of the arts. Once again, the convergence is generating some great dialogue as to the strengths and weaknesses of certain art forms and why certain traditions feel more comfortable with one than the others.

Current State of Aesthetics in the Church

First of all, we do have art in our churches. Semiotics, the study of the ideological nature of objects, signs and codes, has revealed that meaning making appears to be what humans do. There is no such thing as a bare wall, and empty platform, a plain sanctuary. Semiotics goes on to tell us that through the study called proxemics, one can determine the values and ideological intentions of a people from their architecture and spatial organization. In other words, our churches, homes, and office buildings do tell us what we value and how we value. Is the housing boom in America directly proportionate to our need to make our homes a sanctuary rather than our sacred worship spaces? Thus, the idea that we have yet (especially in Protestant circles) to utilize the arts is a misnomer. We have utilized a formal sensibility (all be it unconsciously) regarding what we call our sanctuary or sacred space. I would contend that most of our engagement with the arts and symbols in the modern Protestant church has been borrowed from pagan cultures. "How can we sing our song in a strange land"?

Is There Such a Thing as Christian Art?

Is Christian art intrinsically different that pagan art? The emerging church (postmodern) movement borrows heavily from pagan sensibilities and contends that even the fallen world gives God glory and can be redeemed and sanctified. John Howard Yoder's critique of Neihbur's Christ and Culture may shed some light here. Have we allowed the church to be subsumed by pagan cultures in the assumption that culture is really "Culture?" Have we unwittingly offered up the meaning making activities involved in artistic endeavors to those "outside" our borders? Do we have a conceptualization of culture that unwittingly takes away the power of the Church as a meaning making enclave in its own right? In other words, do we use the term "Culture" as if it is monolithic, all pervasive, and autonomous? Do we believe the Church and Christians actually exist in this atmosphere called "Culture" and work out their salvation under the purview of this overarching all pervasive force? Much of the Church's response to modernity in recent years has been deeply influenced by Neihbur's transformationlist approach. His template for the engagement and interaction with culture has unwittingly imbued the secularized understanding of values, beliefs, attitudes, aesthetics, artifacts, etc. to be subsumed under the umbrella, if you will, of "Culture" as defined by years of enlightenment thought.

Modernism's Legacy

The pagan worlds I speak of are those art-making communities that exist in numerous locations from the elite Avant Garde art world and Hollywood to the worlds of capitalism and advertising. By controlling the manner in which art is done and discussed, they frame the argument and force all that enter to accept certain axioms about the nature of creativity and culture. I would offer up that the symbolization of consciousness has been primarily formed by modernists who see suspicion and doubt as much more trustworthy in the search for ultimate reality. They also see tradition as suspect and see the "new" as a natural outworking of humankind's march towards progress. Their view of the sacred is highly therapeutic (Jungian) and disembodied.

Art and the Local Church

So how do we bring the discussion of art making back under the Lordship of Christ and become much more intentional and conscious of our aesthetic responsibilities? The ultimate responsibility of symbolizing our worship gatherings falls on local leadership. There is a great danger in the age of commoditized worship materials that communities default their symbol making responsibilities to "professionals" and performers, and para church organizations. Pagan cultures often set the sonic standards for our musical presentations. Theatrical and drama offerings often draw their vignettes from TV and film characters. Artistic renderings are either tremendously dated or pulled down from the Internet and contextually defined for optimal use. The point here is that our sources for usable symbols are often initially formed with intentions and motivations that are far from Christ like. Can they be sanctified? Certainly. Is all art done outside Christian circles unworthy of engagement? No. The issue here, however, is localized obedience to the challenge of having our worship look like something that springs from obedience and the ongoing story within our midst. What paintings, songs, sculptings spring from a desire locally to tell the story of our redemption?. God is speaking in history and in time. Our story is being told every day of the week as we engage the family of God, non believers, and then when we gather on Sunday for corporate worship. What does this redemption look like? Is it truthfully displayed? Is it beautiful? Is it worthy of the God we serve? Is it offered up as a gift to those in which we walk this sojourn?

For Christians, issues of worth and beauty are attributional. "Worship is about assigning and recognizing worthiness-and ultimate worthiness at that," according to Rodney Clapp in Peculiar People. Thus, we must redeem the act of creativity and the development of a Christian imagination from modernism's attempt to find an all-pervasive definition for beauty. Postmodernism has assisted us in the understanding that aesthetics are locally developed and sustained. Is Howard Finster better than Piccaso? Is Bob Dylan better than Beethoven? Is there such a thing as a classically trained saw player? Regardless of our own personal tastes and the canons with which we honor, it is clear that what and why Christians deem something beautiful has more to do with the person doing it and his or her motivation than some set standard that all people under all circumstances will be able to grasp and identify. This is not to rule out issues of craftsmanship and skill. But even those issues are locally defined and arbitrated. Thus, a part of the redemption of the arts will be to rescue aesthetics from modernism's tendency to abstract art from community and give it meaning as an essence. This is why discussions about art as the sublime tend to disengage the act of art making from community and make it some esoteric endeavor by a genius or "gifted" individual. For Christians, who makes art and why is as important as the assessment of its worth on a personal taste level.

The Outworking of a Biblical Aesthetic

Questions for leaders may look like this. Who are the artists in our community? Even more concretely, who are the painters, the poets, the sculptors, the dancers, the musicians, and the graphic artists? Are they being discipled? Are they seeing their lives as gifts? Does the church make a place for their obedience to be manifest? Does the church recognize beauty as a character trait of God? Does the church desire to empower the community to symbolize itself through its gifts and talents? Is our worship gathering the ultimate vortex where obedience is seen and embodied? So on any given Sunday in any given church those in leadership are struggling to inform and form the experience of worshipping God. More than words, more than songs, more than pictures, more than symbols, this process is a Godly calling wrought with perilous heights and depths. Let us step out of our comfort zones with certain artistic expressions and forms and begin to redeem all things and bring them under His Lordship. The Church can once again become a benefactor of the arts. The Church can once again see a renewal or renaissance of the arts that celebrate God's benevolence in that He allows His creatures to join with Him in the act of restoring His world and people back to Himself.

You are worthy, O Lord to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created. Revelation 4:11.