Art and Entertainment

I have always said that my lone novel, Olympus, was "entertainment" rather than art. Having said that, I think David's new cover deserves to be called "art"!

Coming soon: an interview with Seth Remsnyder!

Seth Remsnyder is an exciting painter, art teacher, and Christian thinker whose work has been featured everywhere from small private shows to large conferences like New Attitude (now called Next).

We managed to land an interview with him, and we'll be posting it here in a day or two. Stay tuned for Seth's thoughts on...

• The role of art in the church.
  
• The line between creative and commercial art.
• Advice for a young artist. ("Try poetry!")

All this and more, coming soon to Art&God&Art!

Just start making art.

Hiya. David here (remember me? Probably not... I haven't posted in a while).

This reminder may be more for me than for you. See, I haven't put anything up here because I wanted it to be amazing, insightful, brilliant, life-changing. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that if I take that route, I'll probably never create anything. God can make everything right the first time, but we fallen creatures can't. It's okay to make imperfect work... in fact, if you don't, I can almost guarantee you this: you'll never make anything.

So go ahead and sketch. Put the paint on the canvas. Scribble down that song or short story that's in your head. Publish up less-than-magnificent blog posts. Enjoy the creative process. We're supposed to emulate our Creator's creativity — there's lots of time to learn how to emulate his perfection.

To that end, here's a rough concept sketch for a new painting I'm working on. It's called something like Eden Will Break Through.


Now go ahead. Make something. +David

Blogging as a Spiritual Discipline

John Domingo at Deo Gloria makes a good case for treating blogging as a spiritual discipline. He relies one of my favorite authors (John Piper) to make his point.

He quotes this paragraph from Donald Whitney (author of Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life), and suggests we substitute the word "blogging" for "journaling" throughout:

That there is a crying need for the recovery of the devotional life cannot be denied. If anything characterizes modern Protestantism, it is the absence of spiritual disciplines or spiritual exercises. Yet such disciplines form the core of the life of devotion. It is not an exaggeration to state that this is the lost dimension in modern Protestantism. One of the seldom-practiced but very valuable Spiritual Disciplines is journaling . Though not commanded in Scripture, God has blessed its use since Biblical times. Journaling is one way to express the pursuit of Christlikeness commanded in 1 Timothy 4:7: ‘Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.’

Christ and Culture

Better minds than mine have considered how Christ relates to earthly cultures. John Frame's introduction to a The Road from Eden outlines the five classic positions:

1. Christ Against Culture (some early church fathers),
   
2. The Christ of Culture (e.g. Clement of Alexandria),
   
3. Christ Above Culture (many medieval thinkers including Aquinas),
   
4. Christ and Culture in Paradox (Luther’s “two kingdoms”), and
   
5. Christ the Transformer of Culture (many Reformed thinkers, such as Abraham Kuyper).

John Barber, the author of The Road from Eden, firmly believes that Christ is the transformer of culture. Here's his thesis:

The Cultural Mandate is the church's directive to affect every area of life for King Jesus. Man's original stewardship of the earth developed beyond his humble agrarian beginnings to use all the earth's resources as a means to advance worldwide civilizations. Consequently, the work of the Cultural Mandate is an all-inclusive concept that extends to every sphere of life where man's mind and hands are employed to control and utilize the processes of nature for the good of all. The Church must see in this command its role in shaping every area of life according to God's will - including politics, the fine arts, science, law, medical ethics, and more.

It's hard to separate one's view of Christ's relationship to culture from one's eschatology, the doctrine of "the last things." If you think the world gets worse and worse until Jesus comes back, you don't tend to imagine the Gospel changing the global culture the way yeast leavens three measures of flour (Matthew 13:33). Premillenialism tends to produce a Christian subculture.

If you think the Church will be persecuted but must ultimately prevail, producing a "Golden Age" of health, peace, justice, prosperity, and beauty, then the Gospel must transform culture. Postmillenialism has fallen out of favor (World War I shook the West's faith in unbroken progress), but it used to be all the rage in Protestant circles. Postmillenialism is making a bit of a comeback in Reformed circles, but the primary focus has been on changing the laws rather than changing the arts.

Work in Progress

Last night, a friend asked me what I was working on these days. I told him, "A piece about Philippians 3:12-21, a piece about questions and answers, and a piece about Proverbs 1-9."

I thought you might be interested to see where I'm at with at least one of these... here's my current 1/3-finished Proverbs piece.


(Click image for the bigger, better view.)
+David

Reading Fiction to Understand Culture

Those who care about culture often mourn its absence in America. The land of big bucks and Big Macs has never been so big on some of the other things that make life richer. Way back in 1836, Alexis de Tocqueville observed how America's democratic impulses steered the young nation away from fine arts and the higher things. His words have proved a key to understanding American culture (or the lack of it) ever since.

There is an exception to every rule, and the South is America's exception. There is a distinctively Southern culture, which has produced distinctively Southern fiction. Christianity Today just published this review of Preachers and Misfits, Prophets and Thieves: The Minister in Southern Fiction, by G. Lee Ramsey, Jr., who explores the South and its fiction by studying the many examples of the preacher in Southern stories.

Ramsey holds up ministers both good and bad from Southern fiction as illustrations of the pastor's calling and responsibilities. He chooses this genre because he considers the South "particularly fertile soil for both religion and fiction." And he is adamant that every minister lives out his or her calling within a particular congregation in a particular place. To be effective, clergy must know their people and the culture in which they serve. As a minister and seminary professor of the South himself, Ramsey calls on Southern fiction to help him explain what churches there look for in a pastor.

Ramsey uses the fictional examples to help real pastors (and seminary students) understand what Southern churches want from their pastor. Authors have the freedom to explore the patterns of pathology, and Southern authors have plenty of opportunity to detail the dysfunctional churches and pathological pastors that make up such a prominent part of the Southern landscape.

But not all pastors are pathological--and Ramsey makes that point. Southern fiction provides rich examples of very human leaders who still intercede for their very human flock. These flesh and blood priests are just as real as the all-too-human scoundrels who use the power of the pulpit for themselves. Father Tim in Jan Karon's Mitford series is as sweet a saint as anyone could ask--who struggles day by day with donuts and diabetes and the thousands small temptations of real life.

Hat tip: Kevin at After Existentialism, Light.