Christianity and Art
Posted: Monday Dec 29th | Author: JohnO | Filed under: Contemporary Church | 6 Comments »For our loss, Protestantism destroyed lots of Christian art in its history. Not because it disagreed with the message, but rather it disagreed with art, as if in principle. So, it hasn’t created much art at all. But, not to gut the movement, it nearly single-handed lead to the focus on the written text, arguably as an art form. I came up in a Protestant, 70′s jesus-movement tradition which also had very little art, and no liturgy. I find this very disturbing because other Christian traditions have a rich history of art, and their liturgy is rich in music. It is one reason I enjoy going to Anglo/Catholic services.
An article on Handel’s Messiah in Christianity Today shows just how powerful music is. The Chinese government has banned the performance of western religious music. One word. Amazing.
In accordance with the understanding of the power and history of art in the Christian tradition, I hope to move our community in a more liturgical and artistic manner. I saw this discussion of art within Christianity and was very intrigued. Granted, it is a little high-brow, but here are the conclusions:
(8) Instead, art must be created or performed in such a way that it becomes a part of a life-giving process of mutually liberating solidarity with victims and survivors, the dying and those left for dead, around the world.
(9) Indeed, to think that art can ’seek the beautiful’, or be ‘a parable of redemption’, or come into the ‘proximity’ of the ‘beauty of God’ in the ‘crucified Christ’ apart from engagement in this life-giving process of mutually liberating solidarity is foolishness. Again, more strongly: to engage in artistic endeavours that seek the beauty of God (which is found in the crucified Christ), without simultaneously engaging the crucified Christ who is revealed in the poor people of history is, to borrow Adorno’s language, idiotic.
(10) To make this assertion is not to suggest that all art must then engage in some sort of overt or superficial didacticism. It is simply to suggest that the Christian artist — like Christians in every other profession — stands under the Lordship of Christ and is accountable to certain basic, and unavoidable, Christian commitments.
It sounds like a good starting point to me
It could be if we allow Adorno to have the last word on representation and trauma. But I really think we should have the resurrection have the last word on that.
Michael,
Thanks for stopping by. I think your interests in film give you much more credit to think about art than I do. I don’t know much about it, but I enjoy it as I participate more with it.
I think your point is exactly what Daniel’s is. Ardono raises the question, “How can we do art, since our culture is so bankrupt?”. Daniel’s answer is a Christian answer. Because of our Christian hope, the resurrection of Jesus changes the way in which we do and participate in Art. Maintaining our Christian commitments within the realm of art reveals his 8th point above.
Yeah, I don’t doubt the Christian-ness of his thought in that post. But Adorno’s thought ultimately leads us to a theory of representation in which there are certain things that will always remain unrepresentable – that being the horror of Holocaust trauma.
Theologically, this is backwards. God in all his holiness is inexpressable. Sin, trauma, these things are expressable, and were expressed on the cross. So, Adorno just isn’t the best person to evoke as a aesthete. Chagall, Heschel, Benjamin… these are Jewish thinkers that will get you to where Daniel is going in those theses without the problems raised by flaws in Adorno.
As a practicing artist, Adorno telling me to stop representing a particular response to trauma rubs me the wrong way. As a critic, Adorno telling me to stop watching Resnais or Malle is even worse.
I understand your reticence to let Adorno frame the argument. As much as it might be theologically backward, does the plight of the victim require us, because of our Christian commitments, to actually work backward and see them where they are? I can’t fathom how we do that, since I can only imagine the shock of finding out about the Holocaust. It just doesn’t play that big a role in my worldview. I have a feeling it is a generational thing, perhaps the Holocaust will not be framing the discussion of Art in years to come.
The question regarding the victim is a good one, and indeed one that Christian “cultural criticism” very seldom thinks about (if ever). I can’t tell why, for example, the Christianity Today Movies site doesn’t spend more time reviewing films about Sudan, Kosovo, Dharfur, Iran, or all these places that Jesus has called us to express solidarity with. One of the great unread Christian books about cinema is “Theology through Cinema,” in which N. Hurley describes how film is really the art of the dispossessed.
But I agree that using art to track backwards through the buzz of current events (what Koolhaas called the “empire of blur”) to actual victims is a primary concern for Christian art. I can think of a few ways in which this can happen without limiting reference to theoreticians like Adorno or Foucault… Inner city youth art programs like the ones that my church has developed, using Christian media to draw attention to artists in tune with this component of the great commission, the development of art galleries funded by local churches that prize artwork inspired by prophetic compassion. It is just time for the big magazines to start granting space to things other than Beyonce Knowles and suburbanite navel gazing on Modest Mouse and Facebook.
As far as the Holocaust is concerned, I am a bit double-minded. It doesn’t really inform us anymore because most of my generation only have contact with it through Schindler’s List. Due to the heritage of my significant other, it has a massive impact on our family history – or sadly, the lack thereof. But regardless, it seems that we can just as easily go to the Minor Prophets, or even the teaching of Jesus embodied in his death and resurrection to get to all these thoughts about victims and solidarity.
I am really enjoying this conversation Michael, thanks for coming back.
I couldn’t agree more.
I wasn’t able to find Theology and Cinema on Amazon, do you know any other places that carry it?
Regarding the Holocaust:
At this point that is a true statement. The horrific events of the holocaust are nothing but words on a page at this point to our generation. We are the ones who have to make those words live as we live. Nearly all who lived through that time, in a camp or not, and saw their eyes opened to the terrible acts of men are gone from the world. Perhaps in the next generation this question fades.