Pragmatism and Artistic Stagnation

Phil Nellis has pointed me to a transcript of a speech by David Bazan (Pedro the Lion) on "The Role of Redemption in the Creative Process". It is a good read, if a tad muddled, and he has some really fascinating thoughts on art in the evangelical community.

One such thought - one that has been in my mind for some time - is the idea that Christians, particularly evangelicals, are creatively restricted by their dogged adherence to a vigorous pragmatism. Pastors, teachers and theologians have, for many years, been propagating the unbiblical idea that Christians are only "still on earth" for the purpose of evangelisation. In fact, the moniker "evangelical" might, partially, be blamed on this strange teaching. From it has come the notion that when a Christian communicates he is to communicate the "gospel message" - or, if he is communicating to other Christians, a Bible teaching (or at least one of the church's circulating cliches, alleged to have been born in scripture and frequently, eisagetically proved there). Thus, the arts are viewed as valid only insomuch as they fall into one of these two categories. Since the second is usually considered fulfilled by established church practice (preaching, hymns/choruses, devotionals etc), the first often becomes the only "useful purpose" for Christian art. (There is a movement in which art is used as a supplement for preaching, worship etc, but even this is highly functional - usually little more than an elaborate illustration or mood enhancer).

Bazan affirms this in his speech and suggests that such an attitude is what makes Christian art "not vital...not honest". Undoubtedly, however, it is not only this error that has squelched Christian artists but the narrow view of art itself. For many evangelicals art has ceased to be a form of expression and conveyance of truth and has become another word for mass media. Christian artists become no more than advertisers.

Iris Murdoch, an atheist, suggests that art is, possibly more than anything else except nature itself, man's best means of perceiving "The Good" - the Platonic supreme form - and, by that perception, of being drawn out of selfishness and into a meaningful engagement with life. The encounter with art, the very act of creating in one's own likeness is, as Bazan argues, one of the signs of God's image within man and a means, therefore of partaking in his nature. Both artist and "audience" are, through the encounter with art, transported in some sense, great or small, above and beyond themselves - they are ennobled and transformed by the experience. The very fact that a piece of literary art - the Bible - is considered one of the primary means by Christians of expereincing and encountering God, should lead us to suspect that Murdoch is right: God cannot be met with through a series of scientific summaries and exegetical cliches aimed at achieving some temporal end. He is not an end or a means and so we must not come to him as such.

Prgmatism can stifle art - it can stifle truth - and if evangelicals do not shake off the misconception that art is no more than a megaphone they may find themselves unable to engage with truth and, eventually - inevitably - unable to engage with God - cml.