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The Modern Idea of Artists and the Arts

Modern culture’s ideas about art seems to designate “artists” as a specialized elite group of art-makers. First are the elite who’s artistic skills are very high. They possess an extreme level of virtuosity—whether as in Paul McCartney or Yo Yo Ma. Second are those who have either gained some level of fame or who have somehow found some commercial traction with their art-making. Third are the artists who have gained some traction with the general cultural elite – this could include popular graffiti artist David Choe.

There is also another way one could describe the modern view of the artist in the Western Modern World; that of high art which is related to institutions of high art. Christian and philosopher Dr. Nicolas Wolterstorff writes the following:

A striking feature of how the arts occur in our society is that there is among us a cultural elite, and that from the totality of works of art to be found in our society a vast number are used (in the way intended by artist or distributor) almost exclusively by the members of that elite. I shall call those works our society’s works of high art. The works of Beethoven, or Matisse, or Piero della Francesca, are examples. Correspondingly , our society’s institution of high art consists of the characteristic arrangements and patterns of action pertaining to the production, distribution , and use in our society of those works of art.

These notions of works of and institutions of high art are mentioned here for three major reasons:

• First, these categories are not biblical categories. They are not the categories, nor the realities that truly define either the essence of or the role of artistic expression, or artistic expressions themselves.
• Second, these categories seem to form the unconscious grid through which most Church Leaders evaluate artistic specialists and imaginative human expressions they facilitate.
• Third, Church Leaders generally hold these modern but incorrect views about the arts and artists; and that leads them to either see no connection between artists and the Church, or to fear that artists and arts might do damage to the agendas of the Church.

This preconceived concept about art, and its relationship to the Church, does major damage to the Church’s ability to pursue artist expression as a means for making worship central to the mission of the body of Christ. Church leaders need to reject this modern view of artist expression, which excludes the imaginative realm of metaphors, symbols and human expressions (or signal systems), and come back to a biblical view of the arts. In doing so, they will find new vitality for worship as the central agenda of the churches.

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• Imagination, as revealed in the Bible, is two-fold: First, humans have a capacity to invent things. This is the capacity to see what could be but is not yet.
• Second, humans have a capacity, through the working of the Holy Spirit, to interact with transcendence—including the ability to engage with God. This is the capacity to see through what is known into the realities beyond what is known.

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Once the Biblical concept (and definition) of imagination is seen in context with the biblical definition of the artist as a craftsman, the connection between God’s plan for worship and man-kind’s ability for expression can be seen. First, it affirms the way God has made human kind. Second, moves Christians to reject the notion that the arts and artists are simply elitist and somehow disconnect-from-main-stream-culture. Third presses Christians to seek out and include artists, creativity and beauty as mainstays in the life and worship of the Church.

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Throughout Scripture¹, and certainly exemplified in this Exodus 35 passage, one sees that God has directed His people to be engaged in a holistic, multi-sensory assortment of imaginative and emotional expressions to engage Him in worship—a worship-way-of-life. Dr. Ronald Allen, professor of Old Testament and Hebrew Languages at Dallas Theological Seminary addresses this issue:

Many Christians who cherish the bible for its teaching about Christ and about the nature of salvation have yet to learn to experience the Bible itself . . . We (must) learn how to develop the discipline of imagination from the Scripture in two ways. First, we must recognize the role of imagination in the very process of writing the bible. Second, we must exercise our own imagination in developing the art of creatively reading the Scriptures. . . . Many evangelical bible readers . . . read the Bible for its content, but we rarely linger over its style.. We read for doctrine, but we miss its art.²

God has created humans and human community to engage Him through the fullness of the mind: the imaginal dynamic of intelligence, the emotional dynamic of intelligence, and the intellectual dynamic of the intelligence. God designed man to enjoy all three dynamics in worship.

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    1 Other Scripture passages that reveal both, God interacting with believers, and directing believers to interact with Him, in multi-sensory ways are: The Three Visitors appear to Abraham, Gen 18:1-33; the ram in the bush and the voice of God for Abraham to substitute for Isaac, Gen 22: 1-14; Jacob wrestles with God, Gen 32: 22-32; Moses and the burning bush, Ex 3:1-22; Moses, Pharaoh and the ten plagues, Ex. 6-12; Moses and the Red Sea crossing, Ex. 13:17-14:31; God’s directions to build the Tabernacle Worship Center, Ex. 25-50; Joshua and the Jericho Battle, Josh 6:1-21; The Singers in Solomon’s Temple, 1 Chron. 25; Solomon, the Temple, and Huram-Abi, Solomon’s Temple Designer, 2 Chron. 2:13-5:1; Isaiah’s Vision, Is. 6:1-8; Ezekiel’s call, Ez. 1:2-29; King Belshazzar, Daniel and the Hand writing on the wall, Dan 5:1-30; Jesus’ Birth, Lk 1:26ff; Jesus’ baptism, Mt 3:13-17; Jesus’ Transfiguration, Mk 9:1-12; Paul’s conversion, Acts 9:1-19; John’s Revelation, Rev. 1:9-19; The New Heaven and Earth, Rev. 21-22. 2 Allen, Ronald Barclay. Imagination: God’s Gift of Wonder. Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1985, p. 9.

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Three Protestant Concerns with Imagination

In spite of the marvelous assets God gave to humans through imagination, Protestants historically manifest three concerns with the human capacity to imagine.

1. One challenge is that this term can be used to underscore wrong or evil imaginations. For example in Gen 8:21, “the imagination of man’s heart (is) evil,” or “I know there (evil or disobedient) imaginations even before I bring them into the land . . .” (Dt. 31:21). So apparently, Protestants have often thought about this term with negative feelings, unfortunately.

2. A second challenge imagination seems to bring before Protestants is that in passages where this term is used positively the translators use other English renderings which do not pick up the attribute of imagination. For example the King James Version translates in Isaiah 26:3 with the term mind, instead of the term imagination: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee . . .” The term is actually imagination, not mind. Note the thrust of the passage if the term mind were rendered more correctly, as imagination: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose imagination is stayed on thee . . .” Clearly, when the verse uses imagination there is far more mystery in this prophetic affirmation.

Given the orientation Protestant theologians have concerning the mind, the characteristics of the imaginal capacity of human intellect are sometimes lost. It seems that the Protestant community somehow takes a one-dimension view of that the human mind is only given to rational and information ideal. Certainly a life of faith will often move on past what seems rational to the “average person.” And, even the thoughts and mental engagement involved in worship itself encompasses much more than rational exercise or information.

3. A third challenge is the tendency to think of God’s attribute (or perfection) of creativity in terms of His POWER, and disregard the aspect of His own imagination. That is, God has the power to create (bara) all things from nothing. But here Scripture is emphasizing his power to make all things. This reality of His power is true, and the Hebrew term bara seems only to be used for God, suggesting that this bara-power is reserved only for God. But, God’s power to create also includes God’s yatsar-power—the ability to imagine—which, in Scripture, is not solely reserved for God. One sees this yatsar-power attributed to man as well (e.g. Is 26:3). So, if man is made in His imagine, God has given this power to people. Although Protestants seem to discount imagination, the God-given human capacity of imagination is perhaps one of the most important characteristics distinguishing people from lower animal life.

God is Transcendent. He is powerful, mighty and beyond our understanding. But, he is also imminent. God is also personal, loving and he chooses to live in the hearts of men and women. The very fact that He has superintended for us a method to see Him as or father, friend, companion, and comforter demonstrates His own ability to exercise imagination. And, He gives people the ability to imagine as they worship. Why? This is because God is both the object and the subject of human worship. Worship demands that humans enter a proximity with God they can neither completely understand or control. God allows imagination in worship so that we be engaged with the true God who is fully real and beyond all that could be imagined.

God directed Old Testament Israel to use metaphor and symbols and ritual activities as human aids to direct their faith into the realities of Himself. This God is beyond the metaphors and symbols. Ultimately, as Christians look at these Old Testament metaphors and symbols (types), a clear picture of the role Christ played in redemption is seen. This is the principle that the writer infers to in the Hebrew epistle:

“11 When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, . . .” (Hebrews 9:11-12 NIV).

In summary, one can see that in the Old Testament, and in the Hebrew world view in general, God engages humans through all three dynamics of human intelligence—the rational (information, first spoken, then written in propositional form), the imaginal (metaphors, symbols and multi-sense expressions), and the emotional (the heart,¹ the core or center of a person’s self).

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