CONTENTS

TRANSCENDING LANGUAGE - THE ARTS IN MISSION

INVITATION to participate at the international PRAYER MAIL AND PRAYER NETWORK OF CHRISTIAN CLASSICAL MUSICIANS !!

Music & the Arts and the BIBLE - NEW

The Arts & Cultural Restoration

The Performing Arts: A Prophetic Voice to the Nations

More Articles - page two

TRANSCENDING LANGUAGE - THE ARTS IN MISSION
by Steven Jones (used with permission) - steven.jones@sympatico.ca
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"The man stood before the painting. Studying it feature by feature, from the bloody crown of thorns to the eyes of the convicted criminal, he suddenly saw deeply into its meaning and imagined himself in that
crucifixion scene. He was the thief worthy of death, the one snatched from hell by a last-minute request for mercy.
In that moment of self-recognition, he wept.

The painting was on loan to a friend from myself, the artist. The man viewing it was an Indonesian. I met him only after he saw the painting. In that first meeting with him, I experienced frustration; I had only been in his country four months with no formal language training. When I wanted to speak with him, the words just wouldn't come. But that didn't matter. Something of eternally greater value had already been communicated between us. I couldn't have wished for a better expression of himself than the
tears he had shed. Relationships are, after all, formed on the basis of communication, whatever form the communication may take.

That experience, and others like it, have made me marvel at the power with which the Holy Spirit speaks through the arts. And it strongly suggests that the artist has an important role to play in cross-cultural mission.
To the student of Scripture, this concept should come as no surprise. The Bible itself is a work of art, composed of poetry and songs, sermons, well-crafted letters, historical prose and epic stories. Its central
character, Jesus, is a master storyteller, a gifted inventor of metaphor and parable. Written over thousands of years by some forty authors, it still can convey to us today and to all cultures the Truth that is God.
To say that the arts can transcend language is not to diminish the importance of language. Without language we would not have the Bible. Without translators we would not have the availability of the Word for the greater part of the world. It is largely by means of language that critical relationships are spawned and developed. The arts are not a substitute for words.

But language communicates ideas and information - in effect, head-knowledge. That is its basic function. In matters where heart-knowledge - the emotions - are concerned, the arts, including the ones
that use language, are absolutely vital. Communication on that level cannot be ignored if we hope to impact a world of emotional beings, the human race.

The Christian artist, then, and indeed all Christians to some extent, have a responsibility to touch base with others and minister to them in the emotional sphere. This role is no less important than the other more traditional mission roles of evangelism, education and medical service, as we must minister to the whole person to truly be effective. The artist, pastor and teacher all share the difficulty that they cannot be certain exactly what effect they are having on a population. But since their work is assumed in faith to have an effect, their roles are not then made illegitimate by the immeasurability of the results.

The role of the artist in mission is multifaceted. To a certain degree, the arts play a prophetic function. Within the Church and outside it, Christian artists have both a proclamatory and visionary task. Whether or not we attach to artists the label of "spiritual gift of prophesy' is perhaps immaterial. The fact remains that the effect of the arts upon human history has been to lead people in moral and ethical directions. It was the philosophers and significant artists of the 18th Century who led Western
culture down the path of the so-called Enlightenment, and the secularization of the arts has continued to this day.

Since all art is a gift from God, the Church has a responsibility to earn a lead in the arts and claim all culture in the name of Christ. In order to do this, the Church must again foster the arts. Christian artists
must be recognized as more than entertainers or makers of pretty things. Artists themselves need to hone their skills and take their role seriously.

With all its potential, art is more than a hobby. If God gives people the talent for such work, He holds them accountable for it.
In the use of the arts cross-culturally, we must beware of the common assumption that Western culture is synonymous with Christian culture. Any Christian who analyzes the culture that produced Rambo and The Exorcist will know better. Since all culture is the product of a fallen race, we need to expect that no culture is exempt from the need for redemption. So the proper aim of the artist in cross-cultural mission is not to promote Western culture but to help redeem the foreign culture for Christ.

What has been a traditional conflict between anthropologists, who seek to study culture for preservation, and some of the old-style evangelists, who have sometimes changed it recklessly, need not be a conflict for the artist.

Some element of respect for the existing culture may be retained while the artist earnestly works toward instilling in the people a Christian world view. Not all aspects of culture are inherently sinful, and in fact there may be much in any given culture that is worth teaching to a Western missionary.
In the area of Indonesia where I lived, the Dayak tribes, who are animists by origin, have highly developed decorative art forms and unique methods of weaving and beadwork. Some of the images they produce reveal their animistic world view, but the vast majority of their decorative arts are merely decorative, though quite intricate and beautiful. These works may be seen as a reflection of the kind of detail the Dayaks see daily in God's own handiwork. In that light, that aspect of their culture need not
be redeemed, and should be encouraged. A cross-cultural missionary cannot bring improvements in that area of their lives except to facilitate it. What if the artist's cultural motive in producing this art is ungodly?

If what seems to be, on the surface, a neutral or positive cultural activity, such as decorating, is actually done for motives which are offensive to God, that issue needs to be addressed within the culture, and
that culture's paradigm needs redemption. But the problem is not solved by denying that there is beauty or goodness or skill in the finished result. We get nowhere by denying that the sovereign goodness of God can be found even in faulty motives. This is why Paul says that, whether from false motives or true, Christ is to be preached. The Truth is gloriously wild, living a life of its own, and will outlive all human concepts of what is good or evil in culture. And we must be seekers of Truth and beauty no less
than those to whom we wish to minister, for Jesus is the Truth, and beauty is one of God's attributes.

Nor should we ever assume that something outside our own culture we don't personally see as beautiful is necessarily evil or demonic. We know that our tastes have a lot to do with what we are used to. Tastes change as we grow more accustomed to certain kinds of art. What we sometimes mistake
for a feeling of the presence of a demonic power in a work of art may simply be a dislike for art forms with which we may not yet be familiar.
Often an art form, previously used for an unholy purpose, can be salvaged for use by God. Martin Luther did this by taking some of the tunes from the drinking songs of his day and refitted them with lyrics that acknowledged God's goodness. Today's Christian rappers and rockers are doing something similar: transforming musical forms that originated in the secular realm but are by no means irredeemable and are powerfully emotive, to boot.
Because the Christians of today are not yet inventing significant art movements of their own, they cannot be said to be leading the culture. But at least they are heading in the right direction by cutting down on the lead the secular artists currently have. If Christian artists are to be truly effective and truly original, they will have to come up with art forms that deeply satisfy the spiritual questions of the secular population as well as to satisfy the need for integrity in the Church. But if imitating current art forms is the best the Church can do at this time for answering those needs, we need to accept that for the time being.

As well as the prophetic role, the artist in mission can play a part in world economic development. No society is without cultural expression. Those expressions (dance, theatre, music, the visual and tactile arts, etc.) are economically viable products because they are valued both within that society and often outside of it as well.

Both artists and persons with training and experience in marketing can be used to train people in the marketing of their crafts. Items of clothing are particularly marketable because everyone needs to wear something at some time. The possibilities in silkscreening, for example, are vast. People can organize themselves into guilds to make an enterprise more risk-proof. Churches in the West can sponsor guilds or individuals, send capital for investment, or set up a market for the products in their own country.
Equipment for a guild could be purchased by a Western church if it is not locally available to the nationals. Perhaps the best part of this way of working is that the artisans become self-sufficient; the investment made by Western churches would not be a mere handout or create dependencies.
In the developing world, it is women who are most often financially victimized. Yet it is women who are most often skilled in the designing and making of decorative crafts and clothing in most cultures. Providing the means for them to organize their labour into a profitable business could help to alleviate them from severe economic straits. In many cases the money could go directly into their hands and release them from complete financial dependency on a husband. While in some societies the logistics of
such a plan may not be feasible, there may be many cultures in which variations of it could be implemented.

One problem here is that the art may lose its spiritual value if it is produced merely for monetary profit. This error can be largely avoided if the artist is encouraged to think of his/her work as an act of worship, all to be done for God's glory. As well, the artist may set aside the top margin of earnings as a tithe, or choose to do a work which is not market-oriented but is intended solely to help others clearly acknowledge the glory of God. Though this requires sacrifice, we must remember that Jesus commended the widow for the giving of her mite. The poor, no less than the rich, can be in danger of becoming lovers of money.
The artist in mission may yet play a third role besides the prophetic and developmental: the artist as healer. The arts have a therapeutic aspect to both the creator of art and the recipient of it. The creative process does not drain a person the way unimaginative tasks do, but is a means by which God can replenish a person's psychological well-being. This is an area now being heavily researched and applied in Western hospitals and medical clinics. Why not apply it in cross-cultural settings to mission
hospitals?
I can personally testify to the effect of art therapy on my emotional well-being, if not my physical. At the age of ten I was hospitalized with diabetes for three weeks. Every weekday one of the nurses would invite me to the children's craft room, where I was allowed to create anything I wanted with the available materials. I worked in plaster, in poster and oil paints, and constructed large configurations with the lowly popsicle stick medium.

During that time I forgot about my troubles, about missing my family, and was able to produce something tangible from my efforts. Weekends were intolerable because the craft room was closed then! That craft room experience was perhaps one of the significant influences in my
becoming an artist.
A much more recent experience reminded me afresh of the therapeutic nature of the arts. Two years ago I entered several paintings into a hospital art show, from which some of the sales profits were used to help fund the facilities. All the works of art were hung in a beautiful, sunlit hallway for patients, staff and visitors alike to see. Ironically, I was placed in that same hospital with an infected foot while the art show was still on! It didn't take me long to figure out what I was going to do with my time. Every day I wheeled myself along that hallway, staring at the pictures. Nor was I the only one. The whole hall was lined with people in hospital gowns, sporting intravenous poles, limping in bandages, absorbed in observation of the paintings. They had stepped outside their own miseries into a world of relief.
With the threefold potential as prophet, world developer and healer, the artist has a huge mandate to fulfill.
The pitfalls are equally large.

A looming pitfall is the tendency for promoters of a particular cause to turn art into propaganda. The Christian artist is no less susceptible to this error than any other artist. Propaganda is the opposite of what good art is all about. Good art encourages contemplation, prayer, inspiration, the opening up of a person to explore truth. Propaganda shuts all of this down. It leads to a single, narrow point of view. It tries to force God into a nicely portable box, to reduce Him to a tamed pet, not worthy of worship, denied of majesty. But God will not be caged, nor will he bind the minds of His children. "You will know the truth," Jesus says, "and the truth will set you free."
Another pitfall is the glorification of the art and the artist. The Christian artist in mission does not think in terms of "art for art's sake", but "for God's sake, art". Sadly, it was the gross exaltation of the arts
within the Church that led the Reformers to swing the pendulum too far the other way and neglect the artists in the Protestant and Anabaptist churches.
Neither does the missionary artist think in terms of the romantic, for whom any daring of God was acceptable behavior, as if the romantic artist was somehow exempt from moral laws. God is not looking for heroes to fill His kingdom, but obedient and humble servants. If it is heroes we want, we already have One. There are yet other pitfalls - shoddiness, melodrama, art that is for only the highly educated, art that is merely illustrative with no power of its own, and art that is merely critical or reactionary. What is therefore required of the artist in mission is discernment for following God on such a thin path. To succeed, we need to keep our long-term goal in sight: God's glorification.

Francis Schaeffer, a noted Christian scholar in the region of the arts, wrote in his book Art and the Bible that an artist's ultimate mission is to make of his very life a work of art, a thing of great beauty and lasting meaning and integrity. He is to be, as the Bible puts it, like clay in the hands of the Potter until the Potter has shaped him to be what He desires. The exciting part is that God invites us to partake of that creative process in becoming who we were meant to be. To that end, we are all artists with a
mission."

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