In my experience the world of the arts and the world of the Church are not dissimilar. There are many instances in which the Church and artists have found themselves on opposite sides of the fence. But, I wonder if that is just because we only hear about the splashy, controversial stuff. The funny thing is on a day to day basis, they share such similar callings to envision the world in new ways and make the invisible visible.
Lisa Cole Smith
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A writer for the National Endowment for the Arts describes art making and in particular the performing arts as creating space for “moments that transform individuals, make better human beings and create transcendent memories that inform the way people live their lives.” In worship we make space for God to transform our lives through the Scripture and ask the Holy Spirit to equip us to share a transcendent vision of reality based in Christ with the world.
These two worlds also share similar difficulties in communicating relevancy and value in a society where transcendent things seem less than immediate and essential. I often find myself reading an article about the state of the art world and think how much it applies to the Church world and vice versa.
One such article by Clayton Lord of the NEA was titled: “The Value of the Arts is Not Going to Be Found in Economics.” In it, he argues that arts organizations need to find ways of speaking about the intrinsic value of the arts and creating metrics to show it rather than basing its value primarily on extrinsic byproducts such as economic impact on the community.
Studies by organizations such as Americans for the Arts show that the arts do have extrinsic value in economic impact to local business, communities and even in job creation. Beyond that, arts education in schools is shown to result in better grades and concentration, eventually producing better citizens who are more active in public service. These are the measuring tools arts organizations all over the country rely on in order to claim relevance in our culture. The arts, which are transformational, become transactional by necessity. The problem is, while these benefits are true, useful, and measurable they fail to reflect the real value of the arts and art making. “The true impact of art [is]: empathy, intellectual stimulation, artistic growth, spiritual fulfillment, social connection.” If we cannot value the arts for their intrinsic values then they are vulnerable to other activities delivering the extrinsic values in a more efficient, cost effective and immediate way.
We come to value what we measure so it is vital that our metrics reflect the intrinsic value of what we are measuring. When what is meant to be a transformational encounter becomes transactional its true value is diminished significantly.
I think there is a correlated difficulty among churches. Perhaps articles similar to Lord’s could be written about the church with titles like “The Value of Christianity is Not to be Found in Saving your Marriage” or “The Value of the Church is Not in Having Someplace to Belong” or “The Value of the Bible is Not to be Found in its Usefulness in Explaining Life’s Difficulties” or “The Value of Christ’s Teaching is Not in Making You a Better Person.”
While these issues are certainly addressed and aided by Bible study, church involvement and a relationship with Christ, they are not the reason for Jesus’ ministry. Too often, we are expected (and feel obliged) to provide metrics for the benefits of accepting Christ’s message in extrinsic values such as neatly packaged answers for a systematic process leading to prosperous living, continual happiness and perfect people. Yet we do a disservice when we try to justify the value of the gospel through these limited expectations. In the end, it can lead to a church culture in which someone who does not find a better marriage, a good job, lose weight or stay out of a cycle of depression is free to trade Christianity in for something else that looks more promising. It also misses the point entirely.
N.T. Wright proclaims in his lecture “How Can the Bible Be Authoritative,” “God does not stand outside the human process and merely comment on it or merely issue you with certain tickets that you might need. … Rather, God’s authority is designed to liberate human beings, to judge and condemn evil and sin in the world in order to set people free to be fully human.”
Trying to justify our value artistically or spiritually from a transactional point of view lowers the volume of our voice. Instead we must shout from the roof that these are not transactional things at all. Some things are only of real value as transformational experiences. Perhaps we too can take up Clayton Lord’s challenge to the arts community: “We need to start valuing ourselves in this way.”
Lisa Cole Smith ([email protected]) is pastor of Convergence: A Creative Community of Faith in Alexandria, Va.