I went to an art-show last night! A couple of HSC students from my church had their major work on display at school, so a bunch of us went up to Cheltenham Girls, to check out their work, and to support them.

Hannah Power's Major Work. Major 'whoa!' moment for Keren and I.

Keren and I both had the same reaction: “whoa, this is awesome!”

It’s got me thinking about how we use art in Christian circles. Years ago I read a book called Addicted to Mediocrity by Franky Shaeffer (son of Francis Shaeffer). He basically slammed Christians for shunning art, and turning instead to tacky ‘Smile: Jesus Loves You’ pencils and daggy Thomas Kinkade paintings. He was pretty harsh in his criticism, and compared the church in the 20th century to the church in ages gone by, where some of the huge impressive artworks were sponsored by the church, told Bible stories and adorned church buildings. Example: St Peter’s Basilica.

I think the church has moved on a bit since the 80′s. Jim LePage’s impressive Word series is a great example of Christian art, even if some of it is tongue-in-cheek.

I was thinking today, that the Church can use art in at least three ways:

  1. Promotion. For our fliers for youth groups, I like to produce a postcard type thing with an image on one side that ties in with a major theme of the book we’re looking at. At Crusaders (school group at Arden), we’ve been looking at Psalms, so I’ve got this sketched looking tree thing that reminds me of the bit in Psalm 1, talking about the righteous person being like a tree planted by streams of water. Imagery can capture themes of Biblical books really well, and can evoke all the right feelings that these themes should raise.
  2. Decoration. I’m not saying we go all Eastern Orthodox and use images as prompts or tools of worship, but I think a tasteful image as a backdrop to a service or youth group can enhance the teaching element, and help the visual learners. eg: a talk about Poverty and what the Bible says can be really good if the talk is well packaged. Put a well packaged and prepared talk together with some images of extreme poverty (whether photographs or artistic representations), and the impact can be huge. Decoration can also be more light-hearted. Hannah showed me a picture of a room divider she made: themed like a city-scape with coloured lights, little windows and all kinds of cool stuff.
  3. Expression. Here’s where I want to do more thinking. We’ve got a handful of really creative people in our group at All Saints, and I want them to feel encouraged to use their God-given gifts in art. I don’t want to place many restrictions on that expression, but I think that expressing stuff that’s somehow related to what we’re teaching at Youth Group is a good idea. So for example, a series on hope in the book of Romans … how cool would it be to have some sort of artwork (a painting? a sculpture? a video?) that expresses the sure hope of salvation in Jesus, despite our failure as sinful people. It could also be used as a decoration thing, that reminds people about the stuff we’ve learnt. I wonder if Hannah Power’s awesome major work highlighting issues facing teenagers could lead into and complement a series on hope? Or if Gen Repko’s impressive water/friendship themed artwork could complement a series on relationships?

Probably the only issue I can think to be aware of is maintaining the primacy of the Word. God has spoken to us through Jesus, and it’s all been recorded in words for us to read. We don’t worship God through images (there’s a commandment about that…), but I don’t think that means we cut off art all together. How can art shed light on, or serve the Word?

And that’s my brain done for now. If you know of any good books on Christians and art, I’m not very arty and would love to read more!

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