back to indexA Theology of Art in Five Minutes
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Pastor John, a listener named Alicia emailed to ask, "What role does the vast 00:00:09.740 |
field of art play in the Church? In a nutshell, can you give a theology of art?" 00:00:17.340 |
There are great books on art, and I haven't read most of them or written any 00:00:23.820 |
of them, but I'll tell you what I think, and that's all I can do, and if it 00:00:28.980 |
gives some help, I'm thankful. The word "art," I think, comes from a Latin word 00:00:38.740 |
"art" that means skill or craft or craftsmanship. So here's the way I would 00:00:44.780 |
define the word. Any effort to make something, and that could be an object or 00:00:52.140 |
an action, like you make a dance or you can make an action in a play, or an 00:01:00.020 |
object like a carving or a painting or a sculpture or a poem, so any action that 00:01:06.380 |
makes something that takes a special skill so that the result is more than 00:01:16.380 |
utilitarian or pragmatic but moves us more deeply with beauty or wonder or 00:01:25.300 |
something touching our soul with a sense that life is more than food and drink. 00:01:31.980 |
So that's a long, complicated definition, but basically it's a craft, a skill 00:01:37.780 |
that aims at an effect that is more than just keeping food on the table. And 00:01:45.980 |
what makes it Christian, I think, so here's the theology part, is God is an 00:01:55.580 |
artist. He made the heavens that are telling something about his glory. In 00:02:01.540 |
other words, he didn't just make the heavens to protect us from solar rays. 00:02:06.060 |
They're not just utilitarian, they're beautiful. They say something 00:02:11.180 |
about his glory. And Job is just great on this, as you read the last chapters of 00:02:17.220 |
Job, God is pointing to his artistry all over the place and what it says to Job 00:02:23.300 |
about his life from nature. And Jesus, you know, the lilies and the birds and the 00:02:33.380 |
leaven, all of it is more than utilitarian. So my first way of getting a 00:02:40.620 |
theology of art is that God is one. And then secondly, I would say the Bible 00:02:45.380 |
writers are one. They're artists. They put things--maybe three-fourths of the 00:02:50.980 |
Bible is crafted in some way linguistically so that it's poetic or 00:03:00.620 |
striking or unusual, and it obviously evidences some craft that is intended 00:03:08.580 |
not merely to communicate a raw fact but to produce a certain kind of effect in 00:03:13.540 |
us spiritually, which is what artists want to do. So there are acrostics in the 00:03:18.700 |
Bible and there are parallels in the Bible, there are metaphors in the Bible, and these 00:03:22.620 |
writers clearly are giving artful attention to how they are shaping their 00:03:29.340 |
words, and they're doing that under the inspiration of God. And maybe one 00:03:34.340 |
more thing, Paul says, echoing Jesus, "Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, 00:03:40.340 |
do all to the glory of God." Well that must mean take thought in everything you 00:03:47.820 |
do to try to craft it in such a way that it has an effect that opens the eyes to 00:03:56.500 |
see beauty, namely glory, the glory of God. Which means there ought to be a way of 00:04:02.100 |
eating pizza and drinking pop or doing the laundry and making your bed and 00:04:09.540 |
making meals and writing reports and driving your car that are not merely, 00:04:17.580 |
"I've got to get someplace," or "I've got to get something done," but rather, "I'm supposed 00:04:21.340 |
to do it so that it has an effect beyond the merely utilitarian." And Jesus said, 00:04:26.980 |
"Let your light, let your light so shine that men may see your good deeds and give 00:04:31.980 |
glory to your Father in heaven." So there, we're to take our bodies and our lives 00:04:37.260 |
and cause them to have a kind of brightness so that when people look at 00:04:43.580 |
them, they look at them and there is a kind of artful intentionality that 00:04:49.420 |
gets people to see something more than a mere body. So God is the Maker, 00:04:56.900 |
right? And we have the mind of the Maker. We talked about this once before, and 00:05:01.260 |
therefore it seems to me that Christians have the deepest and best 00:05:08.540 |
foundations for serious art than anybody. Thank you, Pastor John. We did talk about 00:05:16.100 |
vocation in episode 17 of this podcast series. Thank you for listening. Please 00:05:20.900 |
send your questions via email to askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Please 00:05:25.100 |
include your first name and your hometown. You can find thousands of other 00:05:27.780 |
free resources from John Piper online at DesiringGod.org. I'm your host Tony