On Tue, 30 Jul 2002 10:50:46 -0400 "Shuan Rose" <shuanr@boo.net> writes:
>
>
> Hey, we are making contributions in the field of arts. Think
> of the
> wonderful, best selling Left Behind series. CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien,
> move over
> :-)
> More seriously, you are correct in that a distinctively Christian
> contribution to the arts seems mostly absent, except from the field
> of music
> (Christian contemporary & gospel). I don't know of any major
> contribution by
> Christians in the field of painting, sculpture, or the
> representational arts
> in the last 100 years. There have been a number of Christian
> writers.But
> compared to medevial and Renaisance times, Christianity is not doing
> a lot
> the arts these days, and we should be doing more.
I'm not that certain of the contributions to music. What I encounter in
contemporary secular and religious music is cacophonous vapidity. In this
the artists reflect the malaise of our culture, with Islamic
fundamentalists trying to destroy freedom, the West with no fixed point
of moral reference, etc. This is not to say that the popular church music
of the past was all that great. A friend of mine pointed out that "What
Can Wash Away My Sin?" has words and music that are incompatible. The
text is serious and the tune is better adapted to something like Gilbert
and Sullivan's "The Birdies that Sing in the Spring, Tra-la." I cannot
commend the poetic depth of the words, except that the message is
serious.
I recall someone claiming that one can separate the poet from the
producer of doggerel by a simple question: are the words or the message
of primary importance. The one who loves the language may produce a poem.
The one who has to communicate a message will never write poetry, just
verse. I believe that Dorothy Sayers, whom David Campbell notes, would
argue that something similar holds between story and message. Her The
Mind of the Maker is highly relevant to this point. It seem obvious that,
whenever an actor comes front and center and harangues the audience, the
drama has degenerated into propaganda. This may also happen more
subtilely.
We may not echo Browning's "God's in His heaven, all's well with the
world" except with the qualification that he will ultimately intervene to
produce order out of the chaos men have produced. But this is the
ultimate Christian commitment. Meanwhile, he has established the
principles by which the redeemed should live. Consequently, committed
Christian artists will be out of step with the current state of affairs.
Dave
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