Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
C. S. Lewis
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
5.12.2014
5.28.2011
12.27.2010
NT on Art
While I liked all of this video, I was particularly intrigued by his comments on the role of artists in communicating truth...
Zion & Babylon
Oh great mammon of form and function
Careless consumerist consumption
Dangerous dysfunction
Described as expensive taste
I’m a people disgraced
By what I claim I need
And what I want to waste
I take no account for nothing
If it’s not mine
It’s a misappropriation of funds
Protect my ninety percent with my guns
Whose side am I on?
Well who’s winning?
My kingdom’s built with the blood of slaves
Orphans, widows, and homeless graves
I sold their souls just to build my private mansion
Some people say that my time is coming
Kingdom come is the justice running
Down, down, down on me
I’m a poor child, I’m a lost son
I refuse to give my love to anyone,
Fight for the truth,
Or help the weaker ones
Because I love my Babylon
I am a slave, I was never free
I betrayed you for blood money
Oh I bought the world, all is vanity
Oh my Lord I’m your enemy
Come to me, and find your life
Children sing, Zion’s in sight
I said don’t trade your name for a serial number
Priceless lives were born from under graves
Where I found you
Say, my name ain’t yours and yours is not mine
Mine is the Lord, and yours is my child
That’s how it’s always been
Time to make a change
Leave your home
Give to the poor all that you own
Lose your life, so that you could find it
First will be last when the true world comes
Livin’ like a humble fool to overcome
The upside-down wisdom
Of a dying world
Zion’s not built with hands
And in this place God will dwell with man
Sick be healed and cripples stand
Sing Allelu
My kingdom’s built with the blood of my son
Selfless sacrifice for everyone
Faith, hope, love, and harmony
I said let this world know me by your love
By your love
Oh my child, daughters and sons
I made you in love to overcome
Free as a bird, my flowers in the sun
On your way to Mount Zion
All you slaves, be set free
Come on out child and come on home to me
We will dance, we will rejoice
If you can hear me then follow my voice
11.19.2009
11.08.2009
Christian Storytellers Pt VIII
There is a scene in the film A Time to Kill where the lawyer tells the story of the young African-American rape victim. It was her rape, torture, and humiliation that motivated her father to kill the two Caucasian men who committed the act. As he tells the story to the all-white jury he ends with a picture of the young girl brutalized, and then instructs the jury, "now imagine she is white." This elicits gasps from the jury and the entire chamber full of people...
=======================
Art is able to speak to people in one world, about realities in another world. Art speaks in the language people know, but invites them into a world beyond. It is this very thing that is so perplexing and compelling about the parables of Jesus. He invites his listeners into a story that they are familiar with, but it drops them into another world! A world where our enemies are the good guys; where moral people are on the wrong side of God; where rich people are the truly needy ones; and where honest, hardworking, and resentful older brothers are revealed to be just as self seeking as prodigal younger brothers...
...but of course, the real deal is not telling the story, it is living in the Story!
It is entirely possible to tell a story, without it being the controlling narrative of your life, and with this story, that would be a bummer...
=======================
If the call of the Christian artist is to tell the story in the language of the world, then the call of the Christian, is to live the story in this world. To know the plot, to understand our role, our relationship to the plot and the other characters, and ultimately, to take our cues from the playwright!
We are supposed to be living parables, not by our own creativity and voice, (perhaps, not even directly aware of it) but because we are connected to the One who tells the story best...
=======================
Art is able to speak to people in one world, about realities in another world. Art speaks in the language people know, but invites them into a world beyond. It is this very thing that is so perplexing and compelling about the parables of Jesus. He invites his listeners into a story that they are familiar with, but it drops them into another world! A world where our enemies are the good guys; where moral people are on the wrong side of God; where rich people are the truly needy ones; and where honest, hardworking, and resentful older brothers are revealed to be just as self seeking as prodigal younger brothers...
...but of course, the real deal is not telling the story, it is living in the Story!
It is entirely possible to tell a story, without it being the controlling narrative of your life, and with this story, that would be a bummer...
=======================
If the call of the Christian artist is to tell the story in the language of the world, then the call of the Christian, is to live the story in this world. To know the plot, to understand our role, our relationship to the plot and the other characters, and ultimately, to take our cues from the playwright!
We are supposed to be living parables, not by our own creativity and voice, (perhaps, not even directly aware of it) but because we are connected to the One who tells the story best...
11.04.2009
Christian Storytellers Pt VII
...and so the call goes forth!
The world (and the Church) is in dire need of Christian storytellers. Women and men who will tell the story not merely accurately, but compellingly, beautifully, with skill and power. Exciting the imagination, stirring the emotions, challenging the intellect, and directing the will; the creation of culture must not be left in the hands of those who listen (willfully or ignorantly) to other stories...
I have often thought of art as a valid, but peripheral concern to the purpose of the Church. I have in recent years been chastened. The arts are indispensable.
In a very real sense the arts are the medium for telling the story at the meta-cultural level.
The call of the Christian storyteller is neither superficial sentimentality, nor is it raw self expression; rather it is something more closely approaching prophecy. To return to the grey room and the glorious spring of our previous post; much of Christian art is essentially describing the spring flowers; secular art describes the colorless gloom; some Christians in an attempt to avoid painting daisies collapse into the secular pursuit of painting grey windows in grey rooms...
The call of the Christian storyteller is neither to describe the flowers outside the window, nor to describe the shadows inside the window; the call of the Christian storyteller is to break the window!
We must tell the story of the Spring within the world of the room.
===============
In drama and dance, in narrative and screenplay, in music and lyric, in clay and in paint, in philosophical treatise and in political speech, we need to tell the story. Not in a polemical or proselytizing manner, but in a provocative and intriguing tone. We are not convincing, but rather inviting; we are not fighting, but rather dancing; we are not conquering, but rather wooing...
The world (and the Church) is in dire need of Christian storytellers. Women and men who will tell the story not merely accurately, but compellingly, beautifully, with skill and power. Exciting the imagination, stirring the emotions, challenging the intellect, and directing the will; the creation of culture must not be left in the hands of those who listen (willfully or ignorantly) to other stories...
I have often thought of art as a valid, but peripheral concern to the purpose of the Church. I have in recent years been chastened. The arts are indispensable.
In a very real sense the arts are the medium for telling the story at the meta-cultural level.
The call of the Christian storyteller is neither superficial sentimentality, nor is it raw self expression; rather it is something more closely approaching prophecy. To return to the grey room and the glorious spring of our previous post; much of Christian art is essentially describing the spring flowers; secular art describes the colorless gloom; some Christians in an attempt to avoid painting daisies collapse into the secular pursuit of painting grey windows in grey rooms...
The call of the Christian storyteller is neither to describe the flowers outside the window, nor to describe the shadows inside the window; the call of the Christian storyteller is to break the window!
We must tell the story of the Spring within the world of the room.
===============
In drama and dance, in narrative and screenplay, in music and lyric, in clay and in paint, in philosophical treatise and in political speech, we need to tell the story. Not in a polemical or proselytizing manner, but in a provocative and intriguing tone. We are not convincing, but rather inviting; we are not fighting, but rather dancing; we are not conquering, but rather wooing...
11.03.2009
Christian Storytellers Pt VI
So we have introduced the framing story as a concept, as well as compared several false stories to the story...
...so what?
=======================
Christian Art often falls into one of two categories. Kitsch or a not-so-subtle attempt to avoid kitsch...
Neither rises to either originality or, more importantly, the grand legacy and calling of the christian artist...
Much of Christian art is kitsch, a candle-holder that spells Jesus, or a painting of an idyllic Church building. This is simply an unreflective sentimentality about superficial aspects of our faith that are pawed at through the use of some artistic medium, but there is not much depth or power behind it. There are many Christians who decry such stuff. They create art that is as far from this as possible, and in so doing end up falling into the stories of the world. Art simply becomes an excuse for self-expression. A way of sharing personal experiences, thoughts, or feelings...
Again, neither approach rises to the calling of Christ on the author, sculptor, playwright, musician, or painter.
=======================
We live in a room with a single window. The glass is stained and tainted with soot and grime, impossible to get clean; only distorted glimpses of the outside world can be caught with strained eyes. The grey window colors everything behind it with smokey haze.
Outside the spring is dancing and singing! Delightful colors and sounds, new life, budding flowers and gurgling waters...
The sounds are faintly available to life inside the room, but impossible to see, and so easily dismissed as fantasy.
=======================
I cannot find the quote, but remember once reading a paragraph or two by C.S. Lewis wherein he describes the common Christian experience. We arrive at a worship service, hear the story told in scripture and the creeds for an hour, and then march back out into a world for an entire week, (the world in which we work, play, live, eat, and sleep) in which that story is not so often directly denied, but is routinely ignored. Other stories are told, and in fact, in order to successfully work, play, live, eat, and sleep in that world, we must often act is if those other stories are the true ones... and it is the storytellers who are the combatants in this particular confrontation. This is not a war of ideas and truths, but a war of propaganda. The winner will not be the one who tells convincing truths, but rather the one who paints compelling pictures, the one who tells exciting stories...
In our culture we no longer call them storytellers. Instead we call them artists, musicians, professors, even politicians; playwrights and directors, songwriters and sculptors, philosophers and social critics; advertising executives and tech-company CEO's...
...these are the culture creators, the women and men who tell the stories we live in and live by. And they are largely successful in telling stories so loudly, creatively, and compellingly, that we believe them. Even as Christians who know the truth, we believe the false stories...
=======================
We Christians get to hear sermons about life outside the grey room. We are told, sometimes with wondrous flourish, about the Spring that is erupting outside the window
...we are told for an hour a week.
The rest of the week we live in the room, surrounded by those who tell a different story. "The room is all that there is; the many shades of grey, the taste of ash, the smell of soot, is all that is real."
...so what?
=======================
Christian Art often falls into one of two categories. Kitsch or a not-so-subtle attempt to avoid kitsch...
Neither rises to either originality or, more importantly, the grand legacy and calling of the christian artist...
Much of Christian art is kitsch, a candle-holder that spells Jesus, or a painting of an idyllic Church building. This is simply an unreflective sentimentality about superficial aspects of our faith that are pawed at through the use of some artistic medium, but there is not much depth or power behind it. There are many Christians who decry such stuff. They create art that is as far from this as possible, and in so doing end up falling into the stories of the world. Art simply becomes an excuse for self-expression. A way of sharing personal experiences, thoughts, or feelings...
Again, neither approach rises to the calling of Christ on the author, sculptor, playwright, musician, or painter.
=======================
We live in a room with a single window. The glass is stained and tainted with soot and grime, impossible to get clean; only distorted glimpses of the outside world can be caught with strained eyes. The grey window colors everything behind it with smokey haze.
Outside the spring is dancing and singing! Delightful colors and sounds, new life, budding flowers and gurgling waters...
The sounds are faintly available to life inside the room, but impossible to see, and so easily dismissed as fantasy.
=======================
I cannot find the quote, but remember once reading a paragraph or two by C.S. Lewis wherein he describes the common Christian experience. We arrive at a worship service, hear the story told in scripture and the creeds for an hour, and then march back out into a world for an entire week, (the world in which we work, play, live, eat, and sleep) in which that story is not so often directly denied, but is routinely ignored. Other stories are told, and in fact, in order to successfully work, play, live, eat, and sleep in that world, we must often act is if those other stories are the true ones... and it is the storytellers who are the combatants in this particular confrontation. This is not a war of ideas and truths, but a war of propaganda. The winner will not be the one who tells convincing truths, but rather the one who paints compelling pictures, the one who tells exciting stories...
In our culture we no longer call them storytellers. Instead we call them artists, musicians, professors, even politicians; playwrights and directors, songwriters and sculptors, philosophers and social critics; advertising executives and tech-company CEO's...
...these are the culture creators, the women and men who tell the stories we live in and live by. And they are largely successful in telling stories so loudly, creatively, and compellingly, that we believe them. Even as Christians who know the truth, we believe the false stories...
=======================
We Christians get to hear sermons about life outside the grey room. We are told, sometimes with wondrous flourish, about the Spring that is erupting outside the window
...we are told for an hour a week.
The rest of the week we live in the room, surrounded by those who tell a different story. "The room is all that there is; the many shades of grey, the taste of ash, the smell of soot, is all that is real."
11.02.2009
Christian Storytellers Pt V
Jesus's lives out an essentially subversive narrative. He does not push His own agenda on us, but rather subjects himself to the false stories, the destructive behaviors, and the ignorant actors... He offers another story, not by telling the story, but by living it out in such a way that the other stories are shown to be imposters.
He is the actor who arrives onstage and brings a massive course correction to the plotline of the existing play, not in terms of interrupting the play and going over the acts and lines with the actors, but rather from within the story itself, by responding from a place within the world of the play, yet motivated by the realities outside of the play...
=====================
He does not tell the Roman story of progress, nor go the way of the Sadducees who attempt to 'go along to get along' with the Romans. Nor does He tell the various Jewish counter stories of revolutionary aggression, purifying contempt, or retreating isolation. He confronts evil, but recognizes evil in both Roman and Jew. He stands against evil, but not by condemning and shaming people. He spurns evil, but not by retreating from it. He engages the brokenness of the world with love, not violence.
He offers a way of 'being in the world, but not of the world,' a way of confrontation without condemnation, a way of collaboration without collusion, a way of engaging without endorsing, a way of combating without aggression. Jesus clearly shows up the powers of the world for what they are, pretenders.
He does this by living in God's story, even though He is doing so in a world that has largely ignored that story...
=====================
Jesus is the summing up of all of God's hope for mankind, both in terms of Adam (made of dirt and filled with the breath of God, the unique connecting point between God and His Universe; designed to reflect the glory of the Creator into the creation) and in terms of Abram (called from the ranks of sin-stained humanity for the purpose of incarnating God's plan of redemption, the unique connection between the future hope of God's promise and the present reality of brokenness; designed to live out that hope as a light to the dark world). His work, and very person, are the perfect fulfillment of God's original intent for humanity (hence the title 'Son of Man'), and simultaneously the very image and power of the Godhead (hence the title 'Son of God'). His death on the cross is both the suffering of all the brokenness and rebellion of humanity and the victory of God over that brokenness; His resurrection is the foretaste of the fulfilled promises for humanity, and the in-breaking of God's future kingdom into the present.
Jesus is the climax of God's story, the point at which the end of the story crashes into the beginning.
Jesus is also the subversion of the world system; the point at which the alternative power-stories are shown up for frauds and parodies...
=====================
And so we see that Christianity is certainly a meta-narrative all it's own; but it is both controlling narrative and subversive deconstruction of all existing narratives...
He is the actor who arrives onstage and brings a massive course correction to the plotline of the existing play, not in terms of interrupting the play and going over the acts and lines with the actors, but rather from within the story itself, by responding from a place within the world of the play, yet motivated by the realities outside of the play...
=====================
He does not tell the Roman story of progress, nor go the way of the Sadducees who attempt to 'go along to get along' with the Romans. Nor does He tell the various Jewish counter stories of revolutionary aggression, purifying contempt, or retreating isolation. He confronts evil, but recognizes evil in both Roman and Jew. He stands against evil, but not by condemning and shaming people. He spurns evil, but not by retreating from it. He engages the brokenness of the world with love, not violence.
He offers a way of 'being in the world, but not of the world,' a way of confrontation without condemnation, a way of collaboration without collusion, a way of engaging without endorsing, a way of combating without aggression. Jesus clearly shows up the powers of the world for what they are, pretenders.
He does this by living in God's story, even though He is doing so in a world that has largely ignored that story...
=====================
Jesus is the summing up of all of God's hope for mankind, both in terms of Adam (made of dirt and filled with the breath of God, the unique connecting point between God and His Universe; designed to reflect the glory of the Creator into the creation) and in terms of Abram (called from the ranks of sin-stained humanity for the purpose of incarnating God's plan of redemption, the unique connection between the future hope of God's promise and the present reality of brokenness; designed to live out that hope as a light to the dark world). His work, and very person, are the perfect fulfillment of God's original intent for humanity (hence the title 'Son of Man'), and simultaneously the very image and power of the Godhead (hence the title 'Son of God'). His death on the cross is both the suffering of all the brokenness and rebellion of humanity and the victory of God over that brokenness; His resurrection is the foretaste of the fulfilled promises for humanity, and the in-breaking of God's future kingdom into the present.
Jesus is the climax of God's story, the point at which the end of the story crashes into the beginning.
Jesus is also the subversion of the world system; the point at which the alternative power-stories are shown up for frauds and parodies...
=====================
And so we see that Christianity is certainly a meta-narrative all it's own; but it is both controlling narrative and subversive deconstruction of all existing narratives...
11.01.2009
Christian Storytellers Pt IV
So now we come to another story...
=======================
Some would say, "Christianity is it's own meta-narrative; it is a framing-story all its own."
...and on the face of it, perhaps, and after we define some terms, it is; but it isn't so simple as "this is the story of the Christians." We have already alluded to the fact that different people have told the Christian story in many different ways, some in an attempt to tell it faithfully, others in a deliberate bid for control, and still others out of ignorance to God's authorship, design, direction, and action...
=======================
From the outset the story of God, is precisely that, a story about His activity and creativity. We tend to tell stories about a reactionary God, we are the primary actors, He the responder. (If we will just X, then He will Y)
The unfolding narrative of scripture says it quite differently... "in the beginning God..." "...and then God spoke..." "...and God said to Abram..."
It is a story of a God who creates, a God who calls, a God who initiates and invents, a God who imbues and inhabits.
This is a story that we are offered a participatory role in, but it is not our story!
=======================
However, the very role that we are offered, the chance we were/are given to shape the unfolding story, to 'put our fingerprints on the world' as it were, is God's risk. He risked love, created something other than Himself, and gave Himself to it in communion. In a sense, God became vulnerable to our choice...
...and we chose poorly. We choose poorly still.
=======================
And so the story continues. The actors on the stage are ignoring the cues of the director, rewriting the lines of the playwright, and abusing the props made by the set director...
Many an author I know would simply pull the play! Fire the actors and find new ones!
God takes another approach. He begins to interact with the actors on their own terms. Within the scope of the story they have hijacked, He makes promises to a man and his descendants, He begins to act decisively on behalf of that people, He teaches and shapes them, He speaks to them of a future hope, of new creation, of redeemed lives, of holy purpose...
And then He writes Himself into the story.
=======================
Some would say, "Christianity is it's own meta-narrative; it is a framing-story all its own."
...and on the face of it, perhaps, and after we define some terms, it is; but it isn't so simple as "this is the story of the Christians." We have already alluded to the fact that different people have told the Christian story in many different ways, some in an attempt to tell it faithfully, others in a deliberate bid for control, and still others out of ignorance to God's authorship, design, direction, and action...
=======================
From the outset the story of God, is precisely that, a story about His activity and creativity. We tend to tell stories about a reactionary God, we are the primary actors, He the responder. (If we will just X, then He will Y)
The unfolding narrative of scripture says it quite differently... "in the beginning God..." "...and then God spoke..." "...and God said to Abram..."
It is a story of a God who creates, a God who calls, a God who initiates and invents, a God who imbues and inhabits.
This is a story that we are offered a participatory role in, but it is not our story!
=======================
However, the very role that we are offered, the chance we were/are given to shape the unfolding story, to 'put our fingerprints on the world' as it were, is God's risk. He risked love, created something other than Himself, and gave Himself to it in communion. In a sense, God became vulnerable to our choice...
...and we chose poorly. We choose poorly still.
=======================
And so the story continues. The actors on the stage are ignoring the cues of the director, rewriting the lines of the playwright, and abusing the props made by the set director...
Many an author I know would simply pull the play! Fire the actors and find new ones!
God takes another approach. He begins to interact with the actors on their own terms. Within the scope of the story they have hijacked, He makes promises to a man and his descendants, He begins to act decisively on behalf of that people, He teaches and shapes them, He speaks to them of a future hope, of new creation, of redeemed lives, of holy purpose...
And then He writes Himself into the story.
10.28.2009
Christian Storytellers Pt III
I went to see a staged reading of a play with Tamy the other day...
It was a story about a poetic young man who has dreams of beauty and purpose, yearns for significance, talks about revolution, and gazes at the stars; however, this young man spends his days drunk, having sex with someone else's girlfriend, proclaiming their undying love in one moment and their disgust for each other in the next. His friend encourages him to 'destroy' her...
Through it all is the running theme of limbo, a grey state of nothingness, no pleasure, no pain... a lack of meaning permeates the world of the play.
===============================
It was a brutal play, beyond vulgar, and yet I left the reading (and the audience dialogue after) with my brain in motion. I felt this play had put a finger on the pulse of our culture in a very significant way. This play, in fact, tells the the story of young people caught up in one of the most powerful framing stories of our culture and generation...
===============================
The story is a story of distrust. Essentially, this story is that there is no story, and anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something you don't wanna buy...
It is a fascinating (and depressing) thing to see a whole generation fall for this nihilistic vision of the world. But this play, while capturing in many shades of grey the conviction of pointlessness, the acidic cynicism, and the vain attempts at self-seeking behavior; also captures the sliver of color that is the dissatisfaction with this nihilistic vision. (Not, mind you, a belief that the vision is wrong; merely a, perhaps vain, hope that it might possibly be wrong.)
===============================
This is in fact, one of the most powerful framing-stories on the intellectual market today, it is swallowing up whole swathes of culture. It may or may not be the most popular, there are certainly competitors, but it's pessimism is alluring and it's skepticism is addicting... It is clever, it is sexy. It may not be wise (in fact I think it quite lacking in depth of insight and wisdom), but wisdom is one of the markers of those other framing-stories, the ones people use to control you; "we aren't fooled by your attempts, you can't control us!"
It is the story told by the generation that kills prophets and kings alike. And yet, it is also the generation that longs for prophecy and justice...
It was a story about a poetic young man who has dreams of beauty and purpose, yearns for significance, talks about revolution, and gazes at the stars; however, this young man spends his days drunk, having sex with someone else's girlfriend, proclaiming their undying love in one moment and their disgust for each other in the next. His friend encourages him to 'destroy' her...
Through it all is the running theme of limbo, a grey state of nothingness, no pleasure, no pain... a lack of meaning permeates the world of the play.
===============================
It was a brutal play, beyond vulgar, and yet I left the reading (and the audience dialogue after) with my brain in motion. I felt this play had put a finger on the pulse of our culture in a very significant way. This play, in fact, tells the the story of young people caught up in one of the most powerful framing stories of our culture and generation...
===============================
The story is a story of distrust. Essentially, this story is that there is no story, and anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something you don't wanna buy...
It is a fascinating (and depressing) thing to see a whole generation fall for this nihilistic vision of the world. But this play, while capturing in many shades of grey the conviction of pointlessness, the acidic cynicism, and the vain attempts at self-seeking behavior; also captures the sliver of color that is the dissatisfaction with this nihilistic vision. (Not, mind you, a belief that the vision is wrong; merely a, perhaps vain, hope that it might possibly be wrong.)
===============================
This is in fact, one of the most powerful framing-stories on the intellectual market today, it is swallowing up whole swathes of culture. It may or may not be the most popular, there are certainly competitors, but it's pessimism is alluring and it's skepticism is addicting... It is clever, it is sexy. It may not be wise (in fact I think it quite lacking in depth of insight and wisdom), but wisdom is one of the markers of those other framing-stories, the ones people use to control you; "we aren't fooled by your attempts, you can't control us!"
It is the story told by the generation that kills prophets and kings alike. And yet, it is also the generation that longs for prophecy and justice...
10.21.2009
Christian Storytellers Pt II
We also talked through some false framing stories, both from Scripture, and from our current context:
=======================
The Story of Progress
Out of the chaos and darkness of history comes the order of Rome. Through conquest, rule, and organization, Roman power will bring peace, security, and prosperity to the entire world.
This story answered questions about purpose and value, and gave significance and direction to the various peoples, castes, and situations of the Empire. It was a great story, unless you belonged to the throng of unfortunate slaves and subjugated peoples upon whose backs the Roman empire was built!
=======================
The Jewish people were one such subjugated people, and so the beginning of the various stories they told were often identical to each other. Because they were Jews, with a common hope and vision for the future, the end of the stories they told were often similar as well. The middle, however, was quite distinct for each of the major groups of Jews we meet in the New Testament...
The Story of Rebellion
The Zealots told the story of Roman Oppression. God had allowed the Romans to place their boots on Jewish necks; He was waiting for the Jews to rise up, take a stand for their God, and stab a Roman in the belly with sword or spear. When they did this, God would reward them by ushering in His Kingdom. The Jewish people would live in peace and prosperity...
=======================
The Story of Purity
The Pharisees told the story of Roman Oppression. God had allowed the Pagan Romans to invade and interfere with Jewish culture and religious practice; He was waiting for His people to live holy and righteous lives. The people of God simply needed to impose the law upon themselves and the sinful people in their midst. When they did this, God would reward them by ushering in His Kingdom. The Jewish people would live in peace and prosperity...
=======================
The Story of Isolation
The Essenes too told the story of Roman Oppression. If they would retreat from the pagan culture, leaving behind the other apostate Jews, they would be able to create an alternate society of true believers in the caves and deserts. When they did this, God would reward them by ushering in His Kingdom. The Jewish people would live in peace and prosperity...
=======================
Many of these exact stories are told today; stories of progress and purity, or isolation, or rebellion. The Zealots were simply the ancient version of Al-Qaeda, bombing bridges and assassinating dignitaries. Many of these stories are even told in the Christian church; we isolate from our culture like modern day Essenes...
=======================
The Story of Progress
Out of the chaos and darkness of history comes the order of Rome. Through conquest, rule, and organization, Roman power will bring peace, security, and prosperity to the entire world.
This story answered questions about purpose and value, and gave significance and direction to the various peoples, castes, and situations of the Empire. It was a great story, unless you belonged to the throng of unfortunate slaves and subjugated peoples upon whose backs the Roman empire was built!
=======================
The Jewish people were one such subjugated people, and so the beginning of the various stories they told were often identical to each other. Because they were Jews, with a common hope and vision for the future, the end of the stories they told were often similar as well. The middle, however, was quite distinct for each of the major groups of Jews we meet in the New Testament...
The Story of Rebellion
The Zealots told the story of Roman Oppression. God had allowed the Romans to place their boots on Jewish necks; He was waiting for the Jews to rise up, take a stand for their God, and stab a Roman in the belly with sword or spear. When they did this, God would reward them by ushering in His Kingdom. The Jewish people would live in peace and prosperity...
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The Story of Purity
The Pharisees told the story of Roman Oppression. God had allowed the Pagan Romans to invade and interfere with Jewish culture and religious practice; He was waiting for His people to live holy and righteous lives. The people of God simply needed to impose the law upon themselves and the sinful people in their midst. When they did this, God would reward them by ushering in His Kingdom. The Jewish people would live in peace and prosperity...
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The Story of Isolation
The Essenes too told the story of Roman Oppression. If they would retreat from the pagan culture, leaving behind the other apostate Jews, they would be able to create an alternate society of true believers in the caves and deserts. When they did this, God would reward them by ushering in His Kingdom. The Jewish people would live in peace and prosperity...
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Many of these exact stories are told today; stories of progress and purity, or isolation, or rebellion. The Zealots were simply the ancient version of Al-Qaeda, bombing bridges and assassinating dignitaries. Many of these stories are even told in the Christian church; we isolate from our culture like modern day Essenes...
10.20.2009
Christian Storytellers Pt I
We talked this past Sunday about our story. The text was Acts 3:11-26. Peter explains the healing of a man by pointing to the story of God, back to the beginning and forward to the end, as a way of answering questions about the middle. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is really going on? What is the goal? What is important?
It is those large stories about the universe that we tell to give answers to these and other questions. Philosophers call them meta-narratives, on Sunday we borrowed McLaren's term, 'framing-stories.'
We took a quote from CS Lewis, "miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see." We used this to think through the 'now-but-not-yet' nature of the Kingdom of God. The fact that we live in the middle of the story. There is a beginning that explains how we got here, and why things are the way they are; there is also an end that tells us where we are going, what the goal is. But it also explains why we are left hanging, why not everyone gets healed, why some questions don't have answers...
The story is still being told...
So miracles are important at least as much as signs or pointers to the larger story, as they are for the particular healing, or providence, or revelation that they provide.
It is those large stories about the universe that we tell to give answers to these and other questions. Philosophers call them meta-narratives, on Sunday we borrowed McLaren's term, 'framing-stories.'
We took a quote from CS Lewis, "miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see." We used this to think through the 'now-but-not-yet' nature of the Kingdom of God. The fact that we live in the middle of the story. There is a beginning that explains how we got here, and why things are the way they are; there is also an end that tells us where we are going, what the goal is. But it also explains why we are left hanging, why not everyone gets healed, why some questions don't have answers...
The story is still being told...
So miracles are important at least as much as signs or pointers to the larger story, as they are for the particular healing, or providence, or revelation that they provide.
5.13.2008
A Call to Artists...
The following excerpt from N. T. Wright's recent book Evil and the Justice of God is a compelling charter for painters, sculptors, authors, musicians, playwrights, et al.
I challenge those from among us who are creative, what is it you are doing?
...reacting to the world you see?
...or working to create a new one?
...simply describing the way things are?
...or subverting the status quo?
Anyone can engage in culture, or even engage in cultural critique... Christ's call upon us, however, is neither engagement, nor is it mere critique, rather it is change; implementing in advance what God is promising to do for the world as a whole.
"How can the Christian imagination be reeducated so that we can become conscious of living between the victory achieved by Jesus and the ultimate renewal of all things? At this point we must speak about art. One aspect of being made in God's image is that we ourselves are creators, or at least procreators. The extraordinary ability to bring forth new life - of course through begetting children, but in millions of other ways as well - is central to the mandate the human race is given in Genesis 1-2. To make sense of and to celebrate a beautiful world through the production of artifacts which are themselves beautiful is part of the call to be stewards of creation, as was Adam's naming of the animals. Genuine art is thus itself a response to the beauty of creation, which is itself a pointer to the beauty of God.
But we don't live in the Garden of Eden. Art which attempts to do so quickly becomes flaccid and trivial. We live in a fallen world, and any attempt to plug into some kind of pantheism, worshipping the creation as if is were itself divine, always runs up against the problem of evil. At that point, art, like philosophy and politics, often swings round the other way, and determinedly responds to ugliness with more ugliness. The British arts world has a rash of this at the moment: a kind of brutalism that, under the guise of realism, simply expresses futility and boredom. Surely there is a wonderful opportunity here for Christians with an integrated worldview and with the longing to love God with heart, mind and soul, to find the way forward - perhaps to lead the way forward - beyond this sterile impasse.
Once again Paul can help us. In Romans 8 he affirms that the whole of creation is groaning in travail as it longs for its redemption. Creation is good, but it is not God. It is beautiful, but its beauty is at present transient. It is in pain, but that pain is taken into the very heart of God and becomes part of the pain of new birth. The beauty of creation, to which art responds and tries to express, imitate and highlight, is not simply beauty which it possess in itself but the beauty which it possess in view of what is promised to it, as an engagement ring is beautiful not least because of the promise it symbolizes, and as a chalice is beautiful because we know what it is meant to be filled with. If Christian artists can glimpse this truth, there is a way forward to celebrating beauty, to loving God with all the soul, without lapsing into pantheism on the one hand or harsh and negative "realism" on the other. Art at its best not only draws attention to the way things are but to the way things are meant to be, and by God's grace the way things one day will be, when the earth is filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. And when Christian artists go to that task they will be contributing to the integration of heart, mind and soul which we seek, to which we are called. They will be pointing forward to the new world God intends to make, to the world already seen in advance in the resurrection of Jesus, to the world whose charter of freedom was won when he died on the cross. It is by such means as this that we may learn again to imagine a world without evil and to work for that world to become, in whatever measure we can, a reality even in the midst of the present evil age."
p 126-128
I challenge those from among us who are creative, what is it you are doing?
...reacting to the world you see?
...or working to create a new one?
...simply describing the way things are?
...or subverting the status quo?
Anyone can engage in culture, or even engage in cultural critique... Christ's call upon us, however, is neither engagement, nor is it mere critique, rather it is change; implementing in advance what God is promising to do for the world as a whole.
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