my thoughts on being a christian artist.
LET ME PREFACE THIS WITH THIS IS ALL FREE FLOWING THOUGHT AND NOT VERY CONNECTED AT ALL...
Firstly, what is postmodernism, what does it mean for us as artists/christians/Christian artists? Postmodernism, I believe is the end stange of modernism, not nessacary a new stage. I wonder, does the fact that we labeled our time as modern and postmodern while we were still in the period have an effect on what has become of these times? Can we really label and objectively view somthing while we are in the midst of it? For example, Renissance, or Romantic were not labled durring, only after were they fully defined. Also, the fact that we named this modernity, modernism, the definition of Modernity is definded as The state or quality of being modern or the quality of being current or of the present.
Modern is defined as,
1. Of or relating to recent times or the present: modern history.
2. Characteristic or expressive of recent times or the present; contemporary or up-to-date: a modern lifestyle; a modern way of thinking.
3. Of or relating to a recently developed or advanced style, technique, or technology: modern art; modern medicine.
4. Avant-garde; experimental.
So if that is what modern is definied as, and we have definied our times as post modern, why then should we wonder at the fact that degernerate art has been created? If postmodern can bedefined as deconstructed, decentered, unbounded, lack of social constructs, a state of multiplicity, and the post modern self has no core existiance, it is only defined by an external picture of who we look like, who are associated with and how we adorn ourself? What is the relationship between what we have intitled our time period as and the state of the world, humanity, and the art we create is headed? How do we relate our theology in this postmodern world and the culture that exists today?
"Given these two complex realities - Christ and culture - an infinite dialogue must develop in the Christian conscience and the Christian community. In his single-minded direction toward God, Christ leads men away from the temporality and pluralism of culture. In its concern for the conservation of the many values of the past, culture rejects the Christ who bids men rely on grace. Yet the Son of God is himself child of a religious culture, and sends his disciples to tend his lambs and sheep, who cannot be guarded without cultural work. The dialogue proceeds with denials and affirmations, reconstructions, compromises, and new denials. Neither individual nor church can come to a stopping-place in the endless search for an answer which will not provoke a new rejoinder." (39-40) Christ and Culture H. Richard Niebuhr
"The comtemporary American Chruch is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or to act... our consciousness has been claimed by false fields of perception and idolatrous systems of language and rhetoric. " Bruggamen The Prophetic Imagination
"It is the task of profhetic ministry to bring the claims of the tradition and situation of enculturation into an effective interface." - Bruggamen The Prophetic Imagination
My other issue that I am struggling with is the fact that we now live in a globalized world, yet in post modern time tend to accept globlization and embrace localiztion as said by.... crap... I forgot his name and am too lazy to look him up. Does this not mean that my art school be addressing the global world and not just wheaton college? Doesnt this mean that before anything I should consider my citizenship to the world before I think of myself as a New Yorker? If it is true than what are the implications for our role as Christians, and more importatantly, what is my role. I cannot even begin to look at anything but a breif fragment of what this means, I pray that I can at least address it. We need to recognize moral obligations to the rest of the world that are real and that are many times left unnoticed. I think I could be a cosmopolitain thinker....
"What are Americans to make of the fact that the high living standars we enjoy is one that very likely cannot be universilized, at least given the present coasts of pollution controls and the present economic situation of developing nations, without ecological disaster? If we take Kantian morality at all seriously, as we should, we need to educate our children to be troubled by this fact. Otherwise we are educating a nation of moral hypocrites who talk the language of universalizability but whose universe has a self serving, narrow scope." - Martha C. Nussbaum (Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism)
Also, Marcus Aurelius said in reference to changing a single greek letter to turn the word limb, into the world part, "If, changing the word, you call yourself mearly a a detached part rather than a limb, you do not yet love your fellow men from the heart, nor derive complete joy from doing good; you will do it merely as a duty not as doing good to yourself."
Now is there any hope? I think there is in that the artist plays the role of a prophet in many ways, as as Bruggeman defines the prophets of the old testiments he talks about them as energizers and through that giving hope. Prophets do not tell people what to do or what to think, they address the situation and bring about the realities of the situation. Brueggeman difines Solomonic Achievement or Royal Consciousness into three dimensions that summarize the dominant culture against which prophets (artists) have to fight against, they are unseemly similar to those counterpoints in todays society. These are affluence, oppressive social policy and static religion. Bruggeman also talks about the 3 tasks of the prophetic imagination to cut through numbness and be able to recognize Christ as Lord. First is to offer symbols that can adequately address the problems and horrors from historical symbols that have been vehicles for redemptive honesty. The second is to bring public expression to fears and terrors that have been denied for so long. And the last is to metaphorically, but concretely address the deathliness that is within us all. "Passion as the capacity and readiness to care, to suffer, to die, and to feel is the enemy of imperial reality" (p 35). The artists goal is not to scold or reprimand, but rather to bring attention to the issues. Therefore I think in many ways, Christian or non-Christian, it is the artists role to be a prophet. So as a Christian we better be stepping up. So here are some closing quotes to think about.
and a quote from Flannery becuase I'm obsessed with her. Yes, obsessed.
"Redemption is meaningless unless there is a cause for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operation in our culture the secular belief that there is not such cause... his (the Christian Artist's) problem will be to make these distortions appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience." - Flannery O'Conner (p 33) {VISION AND JUDEGEMENT}
O that my head were waters
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
for the slain daughter of my people!
-Jerimiah
Firstly, what is postmodernism, what does it mean for us as artists/christians/Christian artists? Postmodernism, I believe is the end stange of modernism, not nessacary a new stage. I wonder, does the fact that we labeled our time as modern and postmodern while we were still in the period have an effect on what has become of these times? Can we really label and objectively view somthing while we are in the midst of it? For example, Renissance, or Romantic were not labled durring, only after were they fully defined. Also, the fact that we named this modernity, modernism, the definition of Modernity is definded as The state or quality of being modern or the quality of being current or of the present.
Modern is defined as,
1. Of or relating to recent times or the present: modern history.
2. Characteristic or expressive of recent times or the present; contemporary or up-to-date: a modern lifestyle; a modern way of thinking.
3. Of or relating to a recently developed or advanced style, technique, or technology: modern art; modern medicine.
4. Avant-garde; experimental.
So if that is what modern is definied as, and we have definied our times as post modern, why then should we wonder at the fact that degernerate art has been created? If postmodern can bedefined as deconstructed, decentered, unbounded, lack of social constructs, a state of multiplicity, and the post modern self has no core existiance, it is only defined by an external picture of who we look like, who are associated with and how we adorn ourself? What is the relationship between what we have intitled our time period as and the state of the world, humanity, and the art we create is headed? How do we relate our theology in this postmodern world and the culture that exists today?
"Given these two complex realities - Christ and culture - an infinite dialogue must develop in the Christian conscience and the Christian community. In his single-minded direction toward God, Christ leads men away from the temporality and pluralism of culture. In its concern for the conservation of the many values of the past, culture rejects the Christ who bids men rely on grace. Yet the Son of God is himself child of a religious culture, and sends his disciples to tend his lambs and sheep, who cannot be guarded without cultural work. The dialogue proceeds with denials and affirmations, reconstructions, compromises, and new denials. Neither individual nor church can come to a stopping-place in the endless search for an answer which will not provoke a new rejoinder." (39-40) Christ and Culture H. Richard Niebuhr
"The comtemporary American Chruch is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or to act... our consciousness has been claimed by false fields of perception and idolatrous systems of language and rhetoric. " Bruggamen The Prophetic Imagination
"It is the task of profhetic ministry to bring the claims of the tradition and situation of enculturation into an effective interface." - Bruggamen The Prophetic Imagination
My other issue that I am struggling with is the fact that we now live in a globalized world, yet in post modern time tend to accept globlization and embrace localiztion as said by.... crap... I forgot his name and am too lazy to look him up. Does this not mean that my art school be addressing the global world and not just wheaton college? Doesnt this mean that before anything I should consider my citizenship to the world before I think of myself as a New Yorker? If it is true than what are the implications for our role as Christians, and more importatantly, what is my role. I cannot even begin to look at anything but a breif fragment of what this means, I pray that I can at least address it. We need to recognize moral obligations to the rest of the world that are real and that are many times left unnoticed. I think I could be a cosmopolitain thinker....
"What are Americans to make of the fact that the high living standars we enjoy is one that very likely cannot be universilized, at least given the present coasts of pollution controls and the present economic situation of developing nations, without ecological disaster? If we take Kantian morality at all seriously, as we should, we need to educate our children to be troubled by this fact. Otherwise we are educating a nation of moral hypocrites who talk the language of universalizability but whose universe has a self serving, narrow scope." - Martha C. Nussbaum (Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism)
Also, Marcus Aurelius said in reference to changing a single greek letter to turn the word limb, into the world part, "If, changing the word, you call yourself mearly a a detached part rather than a limb, you do not yet love your fellow men from the heart, nor derive complete joy from doing good; you will do it merely as a duty not as doing good to yourself."
Now is there any hope? I think there is in that the artist plays the role of a prophet in many ways, as as Bruggeman defines the prophets of the old testiments he talks about them as energizers and through that giving hope. Prophets do not tell people what to do or what to think, they address the situation and bring about the realities of the situation. Brueggeman difines Solomonic Achievement or Royal Consciousness into three dimensions that summarize the dominant culture against which prophets (artists) have to fight against, they are unseemly similar to those counterpoints in todays society. These are affluence, oppressive social policy and static religion. Bruggeman also talks about the 3 tasks of the prophetic imagination to cut through numbness and be able to recognize Christ as Lord. First is to offer symbols that can adequately address the problems and horrors from historical symbols that have been vehicles for redemptive honesty. The second is to bring public expression to fears and terrors that have been denied for so long. And the last is to metaphorically, but concretely address the deathliness that is within us all. "Passion as the capacity and readiness to care, to suffer, to die, and to feel is the enemy of imperial reality" (p 35). The artists goal is not to scold or reprimand, but rather to bring attention to the issues. Therefore I think in many ways, Christian or non-Christian, it is the artists role to be a prophet. So as a Christian we better be stepping up. So here are some closing quotes to think about.
and a quote from Flannery becuase I'm obsessed with her. Yes, obsessed.
"Redemption is meaningless unless there is a cause for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operation in our culture the secular belief that there is not such cause... his (the Christian Artist's) problem will be to make these distortions appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience." - Flannery O'Conner (p 33) {VISION AND JUDEGEMENT}
O that my head were waters
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
for the slain daughter of my people!
-Jerimiah