A couple generations ago, theologian H. Richard Niebuhr wrote what is now considered the classic Christ and Culture. Rather than a detailed discussion of the relationship between being a Christian and living in society and participating in culture, it was a meta-narrative of various ways Christians have and do live in relation to the culture in which they find themselves. A student of the religious philosopher (he was once a theologian, but turned in later life to a more detached view) Ernst Troeltsch, Niebuhr approached the question of the relationship between being a Christian and living in society from the outside.
Rather than take such an "angel's eye view" of the issue, I much prefer to stand firmly at the intersection of my faith and the culture within which I live, and try to understand what it means to be a Christian. My various wrestlings with music, literature, art, pop culture in general, all start from the premise that, as a believer in Christ, I live my life in-between what has been - a world separated from God - and what will be - a world redeemed by and in full communion with God. I suppose I am a bit more Reformed than Arminian/Wesleyan in this way, because I take it for granted that all we do, all we strive after, our attempts to create beauty, to make our lives more livable through the aesthetic experience in all its variety take part in this "in-between" reality. On the other hand, I think I redeem my Arminian roots to the extent that I believe pursuing greater, deeper understanding through a continued pursuit of ever richer aesthetic experience is part and parcel of what John Wesley called "going on to perfection in this life."
To the extent that I am wrestling with cultural experiences in this blog, I believe that is part of my own journey of understanding. It is evident, I think, that of all the arts, music is the one closest to my own heart. At its best, music transports the listener to that place described in Revelation, where the blessed stand before the Throne and sing, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD". Those songs which speak to us most deeply, which give us greater understanding of our world, which move us to laugh and cry - they are dim echoes of this one, final song we shall all stand and sing together. This is not hyperbole or metaphor, but something I believe with my whole heart.
Yet, music is not the whole of it. Because we are a people formed by the Word, quite literally (just read Genesis, say, or the prologue to the Gospel of St. John), considering literature should also be important for Christians. We have those particularly gifted to shape whole worlds through marks on a page; we enter the lives of people who have never and will never exist, whole worlds that cannot exist, and through their experiences come to understand something of our own. We learn of love and loss, of war and peace, of struggle and triumph and failure. Through their words we might even add a word or two to our own understanding of the world, making it a little brighter, a little more hopeful.
The aesthetic experience is participation. It is not just standing (or however you wish to consider your position) and gazing. It is active, taking part, making something outside part of one's set of tools for understanding the world. Even if that understanding is only that momentary, "Ah! I always thought the world might be this beautiful!", this expands our own understanding of the world just that much. We might get a glimpse of the possibility of living a truly human life, of creating a truly human society. Even that art that presents the terrible and awful bares our darker tendencies. It can serve as a warning of the depths to which we human beings can sink.
All this is by way of introduction, as it were, to my own recent indulgence in considering issues of our received and current culture. These are not something human beings do as a sideline. They are now and have always been tools we use to come to terms with our existence. Being a Christian does not mean we forfeit our humanity to the extent that we can neglect the aesthetic experience; on the contrary, we are called to full participation with our fellow human beings in this life, and the aesthetic experience is part of being fully human. From art in its variety we can understand something of what God meant in Genesis 1 when it is said, after creation, that God said it was "very good."
Virtual Tin Cup
