Thinking Creator

Notes from my visit to a student opera production of Menotti’s “help help the globolinks!”

- I don’t want to be different for the sake of difference. Such absurdity is only ever an expression of vanity. And artistic immaturity.

-There are only two kinds of art: Good and Bad. Some bad art has potential.

- Don’t open an opera with dance. It’s a bait and switch.

-Digital music is growing so fast, it sounds dated.

-Why didn’t they use the horn from the car?

- It’s not that they sing, it’s that they say things we already know.

http://www.marshillaudio.org/resources/mp3/MHAJ-94-Begbie.mp3

Begbie’s the reigning king of Music/Theology, and is now a member of the faculty at Duke Divinity School.  He’s got some speaking engagements in the “center states” in the fall Indiana Wesleyan, Asbury, and one more I can’t recall…

K

So I guess there are really two conversations Stephen and I are having.

The first is the relationship between God, the Church, and human expression.  That’s the creation, incarnation & expression stuff.  And sortof the communion & contemplation stuff.  The icons, the non-icons, worship, the new icons, etc.

The second is the consideration of how media churches misuse often misuse creativity and expression and reveal a certain amount of ignorance of the first converation, and how use of the arts is going to be instrumental as churches transition to reaching postmoderns.

The second one is what I’m about to talk about.

“If there is a God, he’s not at Willow Creek.”

says my friend who shall remain nameless.

This friend has a degree in Technical Theatre from an evangelical christian college.  Willow has the largest stage in north america, and a tech team that numbers in the hundreds.  They have a real need for people like my friend, folks with classes in bible & lighting design under their belt.  Yet the very fact that they have  a large production department is what turns him off.  He has no idea about the missionaries that the WCA supports, or the soup kitchens they provide. Just that they have a food court, a big stage, and a waterfall.

Mega churches were built by and for modernist, baby boomer americans to reach other modernist boomer americans.  Church was reinvented to adress the negative experiences that boomers had had with their churches: amateur quality, and suffocating, awkwardly small worship services.  Church was recast as more like a spectator event.  Something to be watched, and something to learn at.  Meeting in movie theatres, having rock n roll bands, using radio hits, incorporating skits, and theming the messages into multiweek topical series all greatly impoved church from many boomers’s perspective.  And what happened? They grew. and grew. and grew. Commensurate with their growth, churches added staff: counseling staff, teaching staff, administration, and PRODUCTION staff.   With a strong commitment to excellence, and a desire to make worship services run smoothly.  Cues were organized by committee, and called by a producer, video staff was hired, some churches hired their rock bands, others hired their scriptwriters.  Church became more and more like a broadway show.  Or more acurately, like a weekly tv show.  Content was created every 7 days, and debuted before a live audience.  Edutainment in the vain of National Geographic, Bravo, or ESPN became a stylistic goal.

Much of this story is exciting to me.  Churches were run more professionally, services ran well, worship bands were well-rehearsed.  Preachers started dividing their duties so that the teaching pastor could have more time to write a better sermon.  Church staffs grew to the point where they could have better working conditions: days off, paid vacation, & rotating duties.  All this is really wonderful, I think.

Some question the validity of having large churches, but there is historic precedent in Pentecost, and in the early church it self.  The Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is reported to have had over 3000 worshipers, and a choir of several hundred in the days of torches and priests….surely they had a liturgy coordinator.  Just keeping the torches lit on time would be it’s own job, I’m sure.

So I just saw Gran Torino.  (Like, just).

What a strange redemption story.  I’m left with a heavy angst over the brutality of the gang culture.  Relevant magazine just ran a story covering the LA gang scene and referenced a hs senior with a basketball scholarship being shot nine times in the leg, just to ruin his prospects.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, all the affluent American Dream families are guilt-ridden (per Jim and Casper Go To Church).  No wonder; they’ve bought themselves out of the mess by moving.

The weight of this inequality is staggering.  The story we tell here in America, that we’ve been telling for 300 years, is that if you work hard and go to school, etc, you’ll succeed, and you won’t have to threaten to kill people to get home from school.  (Or take a different path every day so they can never find you).

So when the Marines are done in Afghanistan, do you think someone will ask them to use counter-insurgency tactics in our city centers?

I get that humanity is depraved.  I don’t understand how any humanists could successfully argue otherwise.  But it’s no comfort.

So if this were a modernist evangelical essay, I would pivot off of some bland verse or hymn and say “this is why Jesus came”.  But no such luck.  It’s a post-modernist, post-evangelical blog post.

I think a society’s justice should be judged by the least offenses; the way we judge workplace safety- if somebody dies, it’s not safe, not 99% safe.  It is unjust for humans to suffer under thug violence anywhere– and that makes America unjust. We shouldn’t judge our prosperity by the most prosperous, but by the least –if the poorest can’t afford life, we’re a poor country. This inequality is especially painful in a democratic country.  What are their tax dollars doing? Where’s the life and liberty? We’re supposed to be the one free and prosperous country!

And honestly, if were a bunch of blond haired, blue eyed basketball players being shot in L.A. the Marines would already be there.  The “Protestant work ethic” has at least one blind spot: poor people.  Somewhere in our collective subconscious is the thought that folks living in modern day ghettos deserve the life they live for not getting up and getting a good enough job. And we’re not that worried about the fact their schools suck so bad, or their roads aren’t repaired, or that the buses don’t run on time.  It’s scary and its dangerous.  The callousness is haunting.

I’m sure all of this gets to me because I must somewhere believe these things, and if anything close to the story of Gran Torino has EVER happened to anyone in this country; it shatters them to bits.  What are we to do when violence is the only answer?  The American dogma is to stay put, put up the good fight; work hard and buy your way out of the mess.  How is that really a solution?

there I go again, de-humanizing the Other.  Whose sin is greater, the thugs downtown or the society that looks the other way?

So I’m reading the next book in the Baker Academic’s Egaging Culture series: Visual Faith

I’m reading this in preparation for the continuation of a conversation with Mr Worship VJ, Stephen Proctor it’s got lots of awesome tidbits.. and I especially appreciate the common focus on Art rather than just visual art.   Dyrness is the Dean of Theology at Fuller Seminary.  He begins by sorting through the history of Christianity and visual art (which winds up mirroring or Being its relationship with all Fine & Performing arts), then he covers the use/reference of art and beauty in the bible, and finally explores the impact of art and worship.

In his Penultimate chapter, Dyrness drops this gem of a paragraph, which almost perfectly aligns with the discussions Stephen Proctor, Camron Ware and others are having about the role of media in worship:

p. 137

“Christians in the arts should do what [Lynn] Aldrich and [Makoto] Fujimura illustrate (two commited christians making headway in the art world).  They illustrate some ways (there are surely many others!)  of penetrating and engaging contemporary culture.

“…But the church also needs a growing number of artist who will work more directly in the church etting, who will find ways to connect with biblical patterns of worship. Perhaps we need to develop (or redevelop) the category of biblical spectacle.  I am not thinking here necessarily of the Crystal Cathedral variety Easter or Christmas pageants, although some of what happens there is worth noticing.  I am thinking instead of a public perfromance or display that makes use of music, lighting, and visual arrangements to elicit a response. Cyrilla Barr, in an important article on “Music and spectacle,” defines such events as “the literal incarnation of images derived from Scripture, liturgical practices and the exegesis certain post-Nicene church fathers.  It seems to me that such collaborative projects, which could be done on a small or large scale, correspond with both the biblical framework of drama and narrative an with scontemporary cultural sensitivities.

Why can’t artists, musicians, and technicians participate in creating experiences of worship? Perhaps visual artists, dancers and musicians could work together to elaborate on the Scripture passage and sermon. Or perhaps visuala artists could join with actors to create dramatic pieces that make use of creative lighting and moving images.  Most churches have a great deal of talent that could be used to enhance and expand worship, as well as personal and family devotional life.”

Read that twice.

Dyrness gets to this place by examining the characteristics of postmodern art… noting it’s lack of a cultural center; pluarlistic acceptance of multiple genres, styles, worldviews and mediums; emphasis on performance and interaction; and strong spriritual connections.  These values, especially cross-genre, spiritual experiences are well within the reach of a worship service…

More on this later, I’m sure.  Chew on that for the moment.

Oh, and i’m in Louisville this week in case you happen to be.