Art Is a Visceral Encounter With the Most Important Ideas of Your Faith

Last autumn I had the chance to come across Dan Siedell, a boyfriend Lincoln native, when he made a trip back to Nebraska. (Dan teaches classes at both Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale and at The Rex's College in Manhattan.) We were able to accept lunch equally well as organize a brief discussion dark at my church on issues related to Christianity and art. Afterward our time together, I had several questions I wanted to inquire Dan based on his comments at the event. And then Dan and I stayed in touch and over the side by side few months did a long interview well-nigh the relationship between art, worldviews, and the life of local communities.

JM: In an interview in Curator, you said that if your first introduction to modern art had been with Hans Rookmaker, the Dutch critic who influenced Francis Schaeffer so deeply, y'all would have been forced to either requite upwards your art or your faith. Why is that?

DS: I came to Rookmaaker, similar I came to Schaeffer, after I'd already completed my course work for a Ph.D. in the history of modern art, after I'd moved to New York to study with a critic, moved once more to pursue doctoral studies. When I was writing my dissertation, I'd already been married for 3 years, had our commencement kid, and and so I already had considerable skin—and bone—in the game. I'd sacrificed then much and knew that I would be called on to sacrifice a lot more than to pursue my passion for mod art. [Rookmaker's work] but rang hollow to me.

And I think it rang hollow for me because Rookmaaker'southward and Schaeffer'due south worldview focus was intellectual—it was most ideas and thoughts—and art was e'er just an expression of such things. For both [of them] there was a certain distance—art was kept at arm'southward length, as information technology were. And that was not my feel. At present, I've had many people who studied with those ii men tell me that they were passionate almost it and encouraged their students to engage information technology. Merely their writing didn't communicate that to me. I was converted to modern fine art through writing, through words, and so I'1000 very sensitive to my own voice and communicating a passion for my subject, a passion that encourages participation, not dismissal. Their work was also about a particular moment in which the "Christian creative person" was a viable way to exist faithfully present in civilization. I don't think that'south the instance now.

JM: Then you felt similar they reduced art to a device for transmitting data about worldviews, every bit if art were some sort of mechanical thing–insert worldview x, produce aesthetic production y?

DS: Exactly. The "worldview" was more of import than actually listening to the piece of work of fine art itself. And the work of art was viewed as merely visual decoration of what the artist believes. But my work as a critic and art historian is predicated on the conventionalities that there is a substantial departure between what an creative person says he or she thinks about the world and what the work of art says virtually that earth. A piece of work of art is not the sum total of the worldview of the artist. Moreover, worldview thinking presumes that one's thoughts and beliefs are completely consistent and can exist articulated. And that's just not truthful. The very existence of poetry, painting, film, and music is evidence of that. Worldview thinking tin tend (not always, but it tin) to reduce all art to ideas in paint, or ideas in verse, or ideas in lyrics, which ignores the textile specificity of paint, words, sound—in other words, the grade.

JM: Tin y'all expand on what yous hateful by saying that beingness a "Christian artist" is no longer a feasible way of being faithfully nowadays in broader culture?

DS: I think at that place was a time in the 1970s, when Rookmaker and Schaeffer published their popular tracts on art, that there was a belief, derived, interestingly, from the avant-garde notion of "movement" fine art, that art could exist transformed by proliferating Christian artists and banding together to touch on social change. (One of the key characteristics of mod fine art is the belief on the part of artists and critics that art could transform guild—kind of ironic, given Rookmaker and Schaeffer's criticism of modern art!). The outcome virtually the Christian Artist comes out of the view that 1'south "beliefs" or "worldview" is produced seamlessly in the artistic artifacts.

I think Schaeffer and Rookmaaker believed that if the world were full of Christian artists, and then the art would reflect a Christian worldview. But what exactly a "Christian worldview" looks like in fine art is the trouble. Unfortunately, what a "Christian worldview" often coincides with art that is content to avert offensive imagery and tells familiar stories in familiar ways to produce familiar results. What likewise tin can happen is that self-described "Christian artists" piece of work to clear their Christian message and don't spend enough time learning their craft, learning the history and tradition of their craft, which includes the two centuries of modernism, through which every artist must piece of work. The history and tradition of modern art is the context within which gimmicky artistic practice takes place.

What can happen with self-conscious "Christian artists" is that they believe they tin can get back to some golden age of Christianity and Fine art, usually the Renaissance or the Bizarre periods, and operate under a different set of rules. Merely that approach isn't incarnational, information technology doesn't have seriously enough the embodied reality of art as information technology exists today, as it's taught in art schools, every bit it's presented in museums, galleries, etc and information technology tin tend to deny the possibility that God is actively at piece of work in this history and tradition. God is as actively at work in "modern art" as he is in the work of the Renaissance and the Bizarre. I'yard much more interested in listening to works of fine art out there in the world with Christian ears, than thinking nearly an artist's worldview or whether the artist comes from some Christian, spiritual, or religious perspective. I remember nosotros need more than Christian critics who can creatively love their neighbor by listening to the works of art they make and communicate that experience.

JM: I want to talk more near that issue of art and world-view. In thinking about art and worldview, what is the divergence between a Christian creating art explicitly to serve the church'south public worship, like one of Isaac Watts' hymns or the architects who congenital Chartres Cathedral, and a Christian creating art Non intended for use in public worship, such as O'Connor'southward short stories or Rembrandt'southward paintings? It seems like Christian fine art used in the liturgy ought to office more in the way Schaeffer and Rookmaker are describing.

DS: First, an important distinction has to be made between art made in the context of worship, in a liturgical context, and art made outside the church building. The problem is that art is a cultural and institutional practice that has evolved outside the church since the Reformation and so what it means to exist an artist is to exist initiated into those cultural practices and institutions that are outside the church. The church should embrace art as a secular vocation and encourage their artists to exist faithfully nowadays in all the nooks and crannies of the art earth as a ways by which God is agile in the world as we honey our neighbor.

If the church building wants an creative person to design a pulpit or brand a chalice or some other piece of liturgical furniture, I think that is terrific. But it causes confusion when that kind of work is regarded as somehow more spiritual, more worshipful, or a more valid embodiment of what "Art" should be. Secular work tin have religious content, like Rembrandt'south piece of work or Gauguin'due south, for that thing. But it's not intended to serve liturgical purposes—and that'due south important. Many artists in the church today want the church to exist a patron (pay for my piece of work, show my work) but don't want the church building to conscience their piece of work—but dorsum when the church building was the patron (the simply patron), ALL the church building did was censor. As someone who lives and breathes and has his beingness in the history of mod art, I am then thankful for the Reformation and the development of artistic practices that exists outside the purview of the church. In fact, I thank God each and every day that fine art operates in the secular realm and that the church is not the chief patron of art!

JM: Let'southward talk more than near the liturgical point. Liturgies do several things. They engage individuals on a very basic, emotive, almost visceral level, but they do more than just that. They besides shape the community toward sure things. Worshiping in a cathedral shapes the community in one manner, worshiping in a warehouse shapes the community in another fashion. The Latin mass shapes the community in different ways than the typical folksy hymn singing that characterizes many immature reformed churches. Then while I agree with yous that a work of fine art is mode more than an aesthetically pleasing world-view container, it seems similar fine art yet does push communities toward certain ends and beingness enlightened of those ends is important. Is that perhaps a more than acceptable way of stating some of Rookmaker and Schaeffer's ideas?

DS: I remember that is a great distillation of Jamie Smith'south project and its relevance for thinking nearly art. The way y'all've put it, with ii opposing liturgies, all the same, can feel Manichean to me, which implies that looking at art in a warehouse, for example, or participating in the secular art earth by definition is a competing liturgy, a competing worldview, a competing faith. I don't think that'south the case. I would put information technology rather, the church'southward liturgy, or the declaration of the Discussion (in Word and Sacrament) in the Divine Service allows u.s. to go out into the warehouse and into the world and experience fine art without turning it into an idol—without assertive that it gets us closer to God. The Divine Service allows the states to love our spouses and children without turning them into our gods, etc. In religion, we are freed to embrace the world as the world, creation equally creation, creatures every bit creatures, not gods. So, I'd say, the aesthetics of the Divine Service gives us the world as a gift through the crucified and risen Savior, which frees us to look at fine art in the warehouse, frees us as well to listen to it in a way that is sensitive to God's presence in and through all things (Col one), frees us to receive them as expert gifts, not every bit threats to our worldviews. So, in the end, I'd say that the artful practice of the liturgy in and through faith opens up the aesthetic practice of art in and through beloved of our neighbor.

JM: OK, so if nosotros agree nearly the Divine Service shaping united states, how do works of art exterior the divine liturgy shape us? Is information technology possible to talk most the formative impact of a testify like Breaking Bad, for example? What well-nigh the formative impact of a vocal like Katie Perry's Roar–which is basically a poppy, radio-friendly statement of private adequacy and self-appearing. Both these questions end upwards getting at the same basic issue. Or what most the formative deviation in watching a marriage like Eric and Tami Taylor versus a marriage like Frank and Marie Barone's?

We are in complete understanding that any analysis that reduces fine art to worldview analysis is wrong-headed. Just I desire to hear you lot say more than most the relationship betwixt art and personal and social germination. Essentially I'm trying to effigy out how to hold onto your concerns while still retaining some shred of what Schaeffer and Rookmaker seemed to be saying.

DS: What you lot've observed is, I call back, is maybe the challenge facing Christian reflection on art and culture. And I'chiliad in deep sympathy with how y'all've framed the challenge. Even so, I'm nervous, first and foremost, well-nigh ascribing to art a kind of virtue formation responsibility. In some ways, I tend to concur with the spirit of Oscar Wilde'due south quip, "all art is immoral." I think it's important to remember that we actually have to be told who we are (I'thou quoting Lutheran theologian Oswald Bayer here). We decline to believe 1) we're going to die 2) we will die alone 3) nosotros are cocky-actualizing, works-righteousness mongers who are not making "progress" toward deification. Bayer somewhere says that we don't even fulfill the constabulary when we've fulfilled it.

Then, I think there's an important part for art—whether it's Katie Perry or, my favorite, Miley Cyrus, to remind us that we're really But LIKE Katie Perry and Miley Cyrus. They are just like us, only more so. I besides call up your estimation of Perry'south song is a fleck unfair, if but considering at that place isn't a unmarried work that I've produced that is free of the accusation and dismissal that it's self-actualizing and a celebration of individual adequacy! I tend to believe that our virtue is inextricably spring upward with our vice, our "good works" intertwined with our sin. God works with broken vessels.

My worry in a lot of virtue-laden discourse is that "nosotros" (for all have sinned…) gets turned into "us" (righteous or righteous strivers) vs. "them" (unrighteous). You enhance a great point nigh what shapes usa, only you also have made value judgments nearly what are good marriage relationships and what are bad relationships that I think presuppose certain ends that I don't call up are necessarily truthful.

Showtime, I call back we accept to remember that Jesus says that what goes in doesn't defile u.s.; information technology's what comes out. Your instance presupposes the validity of a classical anthropology, one that presumes that our beliefs is shaped through faux. And I call back at that place's truth in it as far as it goes, simply I don't call back it goes all the way down, or, put ameliorate, all the way upwardly (to God).

I don't think watching a good marriage on TV makes me a better husband. My view of art, fifty-fifty popular art (music, motion picture, idiot box) is such that I can't dismiss out of hand that a portrayal of bad marriages, for example, aren't unhelpful. That is, I experience myself touched and described by bad union relationships as much equally proficient ones. And often it's in those bad ones that the beauty and tragedy of dear and sacrifice is so painfully fabricated clear to me. I fear that some of our talk nigh virtue formation doesn't really connect with where we are as husbands, wives, etc. In fact, information technology can teach united states of america dishonesty because we tin can't actually be honest with ourselves about our failures as fathers, husbands, etc. You might become a ameliorate citizen, a better participant in the public square, past watching skillful marriages on Idiot box, but you might not get a meliorate Christian, or a meliorate husband. I desire to maintain a space that a lesbian relationship on Glee can speak to me as a human being that at once discloses God's grace and reveals the dazzler and brokenness of the earth.

JM: OK, that's helpful. Irresolute topics a bit, allow'southward talk nearly the sacred/secular outcome. I think we're in full agreement that the sacred/secular stardom that privileges the sacred and denigrates the secular is simulated and dangerous. But isn't there another way of being dualistic in which we say "the sacred and secular carry equal weight just are governed by utterly unlike, singled-out criteria that cannot exist compared?" I'm trying to sympathize how the lordship of Christ manifests itself in both the church AND the art world. Can you help me understand that?

DS: That is a great question. Well, the classic Reformation distinction between active and passive righteousness, between faith and love, person and work, is important I retrieve. Although information technology but survives (somewhat) in the Lutheran traditions and in marginalized "law and gospel" pockets in the Reformed world. The early Reformers, initiated by Luther, said that we respond to God passively in faith (vertical) then we reply actively in love toward our neighbor (horizontal). Luther is adamant that what God requires of us is faith and that is a passive response. That passivity frees united states to work in the world for our neighbor. God doesn't need our expert works. But our neighbor does.

What that does is dramatically narrow the "sacred" sphere—through the Give-and-take that is preached through word and sacrament—in which God'due south promises of life are given to us to hear, taste, feel, and encounter. This dramatically opens upward the "secular" sphere for us to use our gifts to serve our neighbor. The worship that God requires is fulfilled by religion, what Ps 51 calls a "broken and contrite heart" or what is depicted past the King of Nineveh in the book of Jonah. When the disciples ask Jesus what must they be doing to practise the will of God, Jesus responds, in John four, "to believe in the one he has sent."

And then, in many means, the church and the artworld operate in the secular realm. If I'm cleaning toilets on Saturdays in the church, it'south not a special kind of work for God. I'one thousand just loving my neighbor. Cleaning toilets at church is thus no different than cleaning toilets at the local charter school or at the local museum. God is as active in the world in both locations. Our one-time Adam, however, wants to have what happens in the secular world, on the horizontal level, and pull it upward to God, as if we're offer to God something that he needs from us, something in add-on to the passivity and ego killing response of faith. Art tin can then become a means of "worshiping" God, of proving our holiness, spirituality, etc.

And then I'm very interested in preserving the horizontal location of art in the worldly sphere of loving your neighbor, not in climbing the ladder of Divine Ascent. God is at that place yet, but art is freed from the obligation of beingness "spiritual" in problematic means. For Luther God is at work in the virtually mundane jobs. On 1 hand, everything is "sacred" and on the other everything is "secular." I retrieve it's important to call up both ways, but as it'southward of import to recollect that although God sees united states of america as righteous through Christ, the Erstwhile Adam remains on this side of the eschaton.

JM: Final question, and another slight subject area change. If I'k understanding yous correctly, one of your chief concerns with Christians and the art globe is that we need to be shaped spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and so on before we tin can truly appreciate and receive a work of art. You're arguing that art is almost so much more than simple ideas we hold in our heads, and so comprehending and understanding that requires a certain amount of personal formation. So how do Christians and churches pursue that sort of germination equally individuals and communities?

DS: I retrieve that at that place is an aesthetic dimension to faith and the reception of the gospel that the arts can assist united states of america become much more sensitive to. I resist the urge to give to fine art prescriptive powers and responsibilities to shape minds (fundamentalists or evangelicals) or the imagination—fine art participates in doing both only we err greatly by prescribing it, which reduces art to what almost communities want art for—every bit a tool.

The near important matter that the church tin do is to encourage artists to participate in their art worlds—go to fine art school, exhibit their work in galleries, to brand fine art that is part of the conversation out there in the world—that to me is incarnational and being faithfully present. Sometimes, the church building's talk about Beauty, or the Practiced and the True, tin hinder that curl upwards your sleeves and get dirty in the realities of art making. Indeed, much conversation about "Beauty" is really a covert means to dismiss much if not nearly of fine art out there in the world.

Art is an historical concept before information technology is a philosophical or theological one. To come across the experience of a work of art as a spiritual encounter is first and foremost to stand before an artifact that has agency, that speaks—that addresses us. And that space is historically and institutionally constituted equally art has unfolded through generations and centuries. That encounter opens upwardly a space between the work and the viewer that is richly theological. When I look at a work of art, when information technology encounters me at a museum, for instance, It's ME non the creative person that is at issue at the moment. The work looks at and speaks to me. Of all the pairs of eyes over the decades or centuries that have looked at that painting before me, it is merely mine at that moment that are addressed by it. All of my work is intended to preserve the miracle of that moment.

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Source: https://mereorthodoxy.com/interview-dan-siedell-faith-art/

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