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.

Motivated by Bitterness

My overly-simple definition of a novel is "a book with at least one four-dimensional character." In English, that means that at least one of a major character's three primary motivations changes over time. Bitterness is a powerful motivator, and it is one that needs to change unless you're writing a tragedy.

Bitterness is a black hole that sucks in all of life--but it makes for fabulous fiction. It's so easy to set up a story where the deepest and most desperate bitterness is justified. Our innate sense of justice makes us side with the wounded hero--we understand their pain and excuse their scars.

Bitterness sometimes looks like humility, from the outside. The bitter hero wins a great battle and then nobody can find him at the victory celebration--he is alone on the battlements, wrestling with unseen enemies that cannot be conquered.

A good example of how all this works in fiction is The Count of Monte Cristo. Edmond Dantes was a poor but honest sailor who was just about to marry the woman he loved and become captain of his own ship when three men conspired to betray and destroy him. He was falsely accused of treason and flung into the Chateau d'If, the notorious island prison in the harbor of Marseilles, doomed to rot his life away. But then, in the lonely darkness, an ancient priest tunneled his way into Emond's cell in his effort to escape. The priest, realizing he could never dig his way out, spent the rest of his days teaching the poor sailor all he knew--including the location of the fabulous fortune of Monte Cristo. When the priest dies and Edmond escapes, the stage is set for one of the greatest thrillers ever.

Alexender Dumas excelled at using bitterness as a motivator, yet he recognized the ultimate emptiness of revenge. Bitterness burns out the soul--it does not satisfy. The Count of Monte Cristo ends with Edmond's triumph, but his justice is tempered with mercy. He turns from wrath to a new and different life.

In my opinion, the end of the The Count is both right and wrong. Edmond's change at the end is too sudden. It is necessary, but inadequate. Bitterness is an addiction--it doesn't let go so suddenly. The only believable outcomes of addiction are tragedy or redemption. The Count got neither.

Dumas had the disadvantage of his times--his audience was not interested in tragedy or Christ. Those are the two appropriate ends of bitterness. We have the same disadvantage. Twenty-first century Americans aren't ready for reality when it comes to the bitter end of bitterness. That makes a book about a bitter hero easy to start and hard to finish.

Battles Between Gods

The ancient epics show humans acting in the foreground, but the gods loom large behind them. The earthly battles are driven by greater wars--Poseidon fights for the Trojans while grey-eyed Athena aids Odysseus. It's mythology, of course, but audiences love it.

Mythology has fallen on hard times, but earthly conflicts are still driven by the wars between the gods. Everybody worships something. Modern lips may not cry out to Zeus or Yahweh, but modern hearts are not that different from Achilles or King David.

C.S. Lewis said:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

God has placed eternity in our hearts. He created us to delight in His beauty forever. But our hearts are quick to worship other gods--and that's where human conflicts come from. The smallest spat between friends is a war between the gods.

That's good news for authors who want to write something real in an age of fantasy. We can sketch out these cosmic conflicts in our notes, then show (not tell) what happens when idols clash--or when the Almighty contends with the powers and principalities of this fallen world.

Fiction as Social Science

I love science--the "hard sciences," like physics and chemistry and biology. The so-called "soft sciences" don't impress me. Those are the disciplines that try to apply the methods of science to human beings, with questionable results. Anthropologists and sociologists and psychologists can gather all the data in the world about human behavior--but do they really know anything about any real human beings when they're done?

For my money, fiction authors are the true "social scientists." Do you really understand humanity? Then create a man from scratch. Lay the foundations of his motives and memories, frame his emotions and beliefs, finish him with all the details of his own life story. It takes artistic skill to sketch a human face on a sheet of paper (my best attempts are mere caricatures), but an author sculpts human souls out of a block of paper.

Readers know when the author has succeeded--or failed. We readers know a "cardboard characters" when we see one. They are "flat" because they are too trite, too predictable. The bad guys are all bad; the good guys are all good. It's bad writing--and it's false. Real humans aren't like that!

I have a simplistic rule for creating "three-dimensional characters." Every major character needs to have at least three primary and independent motivations. "Good characters" should have two good motivators and one bad one. "Bad characters" should have two bad motivators and one good one. (That can be a challenge if your plot requires a villain with no redeeming features--which is why I have reserved my own evil twin for any future plots that demand the ultimate evil. )

That's my rule for creating "three-dimensional characters," but novelists have to go a step further. I define a "novel" as a work of fiction where at least one major motivation of the protagonist changes over time. Since time is the fourth dimension, I call these "four-dimensional characters." They aren't just sculptures of static human beings--they have to move!

Successful authors make the reader want to keep on reading. They create characters that move--and move us. Beauty has that quality--it makes us want more. The beautiful novel presents characters that linger in the mind long after the book is over.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Let us study beauty!

Introducing Scott

I've been talking to the authors of this blog about art and God and art for over twenty years, so I am both flattered and humbled to be invited to join them here. I can't say I'm an aspiring author--I've written one book and spend a lot of time dodging fans who want the sequel.

I can't say I'm an artist, either (read the book and you'll understand). But I am an obsessive-compulsive philosopher who fell in love with the philosophy and theology of beauty after reading On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry.

Scarry identifies a defining trait of beauty--beauty makes us want to copy it, sustain it, repeat it. We sketch images, hum melodies, hang pictures on our wall. Beauty asks us to look twice--great beauty wants us to look over and over.

Scarry's observation enables us to ask new questions about beauty. With something specific to measure, we can identify beauty's extremes. Scientists do this all the time. For example, physicists define temperature as a measure of molecular motion. "Cold" means slow atoms; "real cold" means real slow; "absolute zero" means the atoms aren't moving at all. If beauty wants to be copied, then greater beauty wants to be copied more. Absolute Beauty would satisfy the viewer forever.

Lovers express this concept all the time. They say, "I could look at you forever!" The divorce rates prove that human beauty isn't really absolute. No earthly beauty is.

Beauty is real but it dazzles us. We look at a flame and think it is the sun. We look at the sun and are blinded. We can't imagine Light in such intensity that the sun is just a minor star lost in an average galaxy. Whenever my heart says, "I want to look at this forever," I make an idol out of something that can't really satisfy.

That is--unless the Beauty that moves my heart is really Absolute. For there is a Beauty that does satisfy forever.

And that's what Art&God&Art is all about...

Sorry for the inactivity

My bad. Here's a free sneak-peek image from my personal project as an apology:

Hoping to be back up and posting soon.

+David