Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Art and the Resurrection

There are a lot of things in the world that people really, really love and enjoy, but there are almost always people who dislike, or even hate, that same thing.

As popular as football is in the United States, there are still many who could care less about Super Bowls and collective bargaining agreements. And even though The Godfather is largely considered the greatest movie of all time, some people even calling it “the perfect film,” there are still plenty of people (including my wife) who were ready to turn off the TV after hour two. Even when it comes to something as precious and innocent as a baby, there are those who oogle and ogle at the sight of a newborn and those who would probably prefer trying to dismantle an atomic bomb.

But music is different.

Some people enjoy Bob Dylan, and others enjoy Britney Spears, but everyone likes some kind of music. I have never known a single human being who hasn’t owned at least a handful of albums.

I don’t have to try to convince anyone that the arts are a powerful medium for inspiring, influencing and energizing people. We’ve all experienced in some capacity the ways in which music has moved us like nothing else can.

When I was younger, I listened to a lot of hard rock. Bands like Staind, Slipknot, and Metallica. I felt like I could relate in some way to the music that I was listening to. Even though there were almost no glimpses of hope or positivity, at least someone else was going through and able to verbalize some of the same things that I was feeling at the time.

But music like that also held no power to change my attitude or to lift me out of the moments of depression I was experiencing.

In his book, Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright assesses art and culture in this way:

The second feature of many communities both in the postindustrial West and in many of the poorer parts of the world is ugliness. True, some communities manage to sustain levels of art and music, often rooted in folk culture, which brings a richness even to the most poverty-stricken areas. But the shoulder-shrugging functionalism of postwar architecture, coupled with the passivity born of decades of television, has meant that for many people the world appears to offer little but bleak urban landscapes, on the one hand, and tawdry entertainment, on the other.

And when people cease to be surrounded by beauty, they cease to hope. They internalize the message of their eyes and ears, the message that whispers that they are not worth very much, that they are in effect less than fully human.

Wright’s quote is written in the context of the resurrection, the ultimate doctrine of hope in the story of the Gospel. And this is our hope - Jesus died, He arose, and we too will one day rise with Him when He returns to make all things new and to restore all beauty and all justice.

As Christ-followers, if we’re living as a part of this Story, the hope of the Gospel and of the resurrection should overflow out into our work, the way we spend our money, the way we spend our time - and into our art.

Despair, references to sex, demeaning language, and hopelessness don’t have to rule the airwaves, but not because we’re fighting a culture war in an effort to replace this present kind of art with “Christian art” that drips with cheesiness and ignores the problems in the world.

“[But] when art comes to terms with both the wounds of the world and the promise of resurrection and learns how to express and respond to both at once, we will be on the way to a fresh vision.” (Wright)

-CK

No comments: