Art And All That Part VIII

As they say, it never rains but it pours!  The last couple of weeks I have struggled to come up with any kind of a blog post at all, finally resorting to posting someone else’s thoughts, and then to being grateful for the troll who started spamming the comments thread with Catholic dogma just so that I could make a post about posting rules.

True to Murphy’s Law (or one of its many corollaries), this week I have material for 3 different posts!  I decided to go with the more contiguous opportunity, and here we are at Part 8 of Art and All That.  Today my friend C. L. Dyck wrote a guest post over at the Speculative Faith blog on a subject closely related to that of the Part 7 post—how should Christian artists do what they do, and why?

We’ve all heard the term “senseless evil”.  In fact, through the magic of television, we’ve probably all witnessed the results of acts of senseless evil.  The term is bandied about by politicos, moralists, and anyone who wants to sensationally sling mud, and has become somewhat dumbed-down as a result.  C. L. Dyck mentions this example:

Wherever there’s a moral podium involved, we sure can make a lot of noise about senseless evil, as I witnessed recently when a young reader posted her (Christian) opinions on the manufactured inclusion of same-sex characters in YA books. Apparently her opinions were considered by some to be an act of senseless violence in writing. (Why yes. That dripping sound is the sarcasm tank leaking. I’ll have to fix that someday. In the meantime, don’t worry, it’s not too combustible.)

CathyLyn goes on to note that we all agree that senseless evil exists, even if we can’t agree on a definition for it.

Over the years I have had the experience of being taught that reading or watching stories containing acts of senseless evil was bad.  It sounded so right when someone suggested that it would be wrong to be entertained by something that was evil in the sight of the Lord, even if it wasn’t a true story.  These teachers use several scriptures to support their teaching.  Scriptures such as:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Philippians 4:8

22 Abstain from all appearance of evil. I Thessalonians 5:22 KJV

These teachers are forgetting, as I forgot when listening to them, that the Bible includes all kinds of stories containing acts of senseless evil, and that not only the Old Testament, but Jesus Himself used stories containing acts of senseless evil to illustrate principles He was teaching (see these, for example: 2 Samuel 12:1-4; Matthew 18:23-35).

Can we just all agree here that it is generally a bad idea to try to be holier than God?  Thanks for that, then.  Now we can move on.

We love to focus on that evil thing, whether we are enjoying it or whether we are sensationalizing it and opposing it.  We Christians specialize in being against things.  But what are we for?

But CathyLyn brings forward the arresting argument of senseless beauty:

In the kerfuffle, we forget that so does senseless beauty. Some things are inarguably beautiful, for no explicable reason. Argue with a sunset, if you will. That insensate phenomenon, without a word of reply, will make you look the fool.
Evil, we can wrangle. We can invent rationalizations. We can build boxes, however poorly we manage to stuff the vagaries of evil into them. But senseless beauty? Its only defensible, rational explanation lies in a personal, infinite and good Creator God.

Indeed.  In fact, I’m tempted to depart from the subject matter at hand to comment on the irrationality of an atheist or an evolutionist who holds their beliefs in the face of a sunset, or the complexity of a snowflake, or the symmetry and brilliancy of a dying leaf.  That is why Christians ought to do Art—though it is not senseless beauty, but rather sensible, it is modeled on that beauty God built into the world, and also is an expression of loving God with all our minds.

But I digress.  We’re talking about writing, specifically writing about senseless evil.  CathyLyn next makes a profound statement:

True beauty doesn’t shy from the wretched facts any more than it indulges them; rather, it transforms their context.

Isn’t that just what God does?  Isn’t that very God-like?  Consider the following:

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Romans 5:10

For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity. Isaiah 59:3

Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy. Micah 7:18

God doesn’t indulge us in our wretchedness.  Neither does He shy away from our wretched selves, but rather transforms the context:  we are made lovely because of Him and His Son’s finished work on the cross (a senseless evil if there ever was one—except that it wasn’t senseless.  It was planned by God Himself).

CathyLyn concludes this way:

Think about that every time you question what it is to write.
Two things, then, are necessary: to know God deeply, and to unabashedly refine your craftsmanship. Faithfulness and fluency. This is the transformation of an artist—a creature of darkness and fumbling ugliness—within a new context. (2 Cor. 5:17) God does not shy away from our wretched persons, nor our wretched facts.
When your writing of evil is a prayer of senseless beauty, you have defeated it. The pen is mightier than the sword.

THINKY THINGS

Wowza.  The only thing I would add would actually be to broaden the scope of what she said by allowing you to fill in the blank with your own choice of artistry where she has specified “write” and “writing”.  Thusly:

Think about that every time you question what it is to ___________.  When your ______________of evil is a prayer of senseless beauty, you have defeated it.

Do you know God deeply?  Are you unabashedly refining your craftsmanship?  What potential does your art have to become a prayer of senseless beauty, victorious over the evil?

HOLD FAST!
(P.S., you can read the entire article HERE .  C.L. Dyck has her own blog, well worth reading, which you can find HERE)