Thou Shalt Not Steal…Unless You’re An Artist
I don’t watch a lot of movies these days, but several months ago I had some time and felt the urge to watch the new Elvis movie with Austin Butler. Austin 
ended up winning the Golden Globes Award for Best Actor in his portrayal as the “King of Rock”. I had a new appreciation for Elvis’ music and found myself searching for his songs on iTunes in the car for a few days following the movie. That didn’t last. I’m back to my VERY diverse playlists!
Elvis was certainly talented and unique. He seemed to offer something “new” to his demographic audience. However, he was highly influenced by multiple artists, genres, and styles. Of course, Hollywood has a way of embellishing and exaggerating history for the sake of drama and entertainment, but the producers did a good job showing that Elvis’ “originality” was not pulled out of thin air. As Austin Kleon says in Stealing Like an Artist while quoting the cartoonist Gary Panter, “If you have one person you’re influenced by, everyone will say you’re the next whoever. But if you rip off a hundred people, everyone will say you’re so original!”
In fact, John Lennon from the Beatles reportedly said, “Before Elvis, there was nothing.”[i] The movie shows that was certainly not true. Presley is shown to take gospel, blues, country, and rock genres and songs from various artists he was around then transform them into something of his own. This has actually brought some negative press to Elvis by some over the years. Nevertheless, Austin Kleon’s book further validates that originality is never really original. Pulling together existing styles, approaches, ideas, and concepts is actually the key to creating something “new”. Like my graduate professor Dr. David Michelson always said, “Everything is a remix”.
The main concept about stealing like an artist that I absolutely loved was imitation is not flattery. Kleon says, “Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes.”[ii] That will preach. One thing I respect about our senior pastor, John McLendon, is how he learned to see and think like his hero (Jesus of course!) when it came to his own approach to ministry and teaching in the 21st century.
Our pastor and his wife grew up and served in non-denominational, Pentecostal based, churches all their lives. One day while John (our senior pastor, not the apostle) was reading the gospel of Matthew, he noticed Jesus’ method of teaching in his context and time in first century Palestine. Jesus consistently used relevant and familiar imagery that people in that world could relate to and track with, to teach about God and faith. This is not a new concept, and most pastors today use relevant stories and topics to convey spiritual truths. John just took this idea and shot it with steroids.
Our church is different. Really different. My wife and I were hesitant when we first attended five years ago. We do pop culture dramas, shoot music videos with prophets dressed like hip hop artists. Our band plays songs each week that tie into the message ranging from Kacey Musgraves to Five Finger Death Punch to Tim McGraw to Chris Tomlin. We plant people in the crowd with mics who may start singing or asking questions in the middle of the message. We recently did a Jackson Five choreographed dance to illustrate a point about finding our gifts. On top of all of that we engage a lot of controversial topics on Sunday mornings. I realize how unconventional this all sounds, I’m struggling not judging it while I write, but it works and God uses it to create spiritual transformation in people’s lives.
I say all that to emphasize the portion of Kleon’s book that says, don’t just imitate, emulate. Learning how our influencers think, process, and see allows us to apply those principles and methods in our own ways and in our own contexts. For John (once again, our senior pastor not the apostle), this is how he took Jesus’ Spirit and approach to teaching in the first century and applied it in his in the 21st century. Take something that exists and is familiar and transform it into something new and unique.
A documentary named, The Creative Brain, that I can longer find on Netflix unfortunately, followed a neuroscientist who interviewed some of the most creative artists and innovators in the world.[iii] They covered several principles on creativity that reinforce and supplement what Austin says in his book. Balance was one of the key principles. Striking the right balance between art, inventions, or ideas that are familiar enough to get people’s attention, while different enough to keep their attention was a key to creative success and progress. The human brain likes both familiar things, to feel safe, but also needs novelty to enjoy new experiences. However, too familiar, it will be undetectable among everything else, but too different it will be indigestible and off putting.
When it comes to my NPO, this book gives me permission to be unconventional and creative with information that can be viewed as dry, dense, and complex. My goal is to take existing research, discoveries, and content from the ivory tower of biblical academia, especially those that are foreign to people in my context, and creatively present them in ways that are fresh, relevant, and engaging for the sake of biblical discernment, education, and integrity. After reading Steal Like An Artist, I feel completely justified in finding and using comic books and superheroes as a way to teach all kinds of ideas for the general public and fellow nerds.
[i] Lou Marrelli, “Six Musicians Who Influenced Elvis Presley,” PBS (Public Broadcasting Service, October 6, 2022), https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/six-musicians-who-influenced-elvis-presley/21850/.
[ii] Kleon, Austin. Steal like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative, (New York: Workman Pub. Co, 2012) 36.
[iii] “The Creative Brain,” IMDb (IMDb.com, April 25, 2019), https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10338308/.
About the Author
Adam Harris
I am currently the Associate Pastor at a church called Godwhy in Hendersonville, TN near Nashville. We love questions and love people even more. Our faith community embraces God and education wholeheartedly. I graduated from Oral Roberts University for undergrad and Vanderbilt for my masters. I teach historical critical Biblical studies at my church to help our community through their questions and ultimately deepen their faith. I love research, writing, learning, and teaching. I oversee our staff and leadership development. Before being at Godwhy I worked as a regional sales coach and director for Anytime Fitness. I've been married for over 13 years to my best friend and we have two amazing boys that keep us busy.13 responses to “Thou Shalt Not Steal…Unless You’re An Artist”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Adam
This is fantastic!
What a great example to lead with -Elvis! Even Elvis wasn’t an original. 🙂
I enjoyed reading Steal like an Artist so the title of your blog caught my eye- made it a “must read”!
This is one of the best quotes you share:
Kleon says, “Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes.”
Your church sounds unconventional and I loved hearing this:
“We plant people in the crowd with mics who may start singing or asking questions in the middle of the message.” It is fun to hear how creative you have been/your pastor has been in preparing a message.
What is a superhero or comic book that you have used in order to teach a message from the Bible?
Great read, enjoyed every bit!
Yeah its a very unique place, but I love it and love the community. Everyone is very accommodating to other peoples convictions and you never know what you are going to get!
I was partly joking and partly serious! lol I have actually used several of the DC characters especially Superman, Batman, Aquaman, and Wonderwoman to teach some things. Zack Synder put a lot of blatant Christ symbolisms in his movies of these characters (Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Zack Synder’s Justice League). A lot of the concepts and themes lay out pretty well with Joseph Campbells ideas on mythology and the hero’s journey.
So glad you enjoyed the posts, thanks for reading and responding! Have a great weekend!
There was a lot in your post to think through, Adam. Thanks for all the stimulating thoughts. One that stood out to me was toward the end where you talked about balance. “The human brain likes both familiar things, to feel safe, but also needs novelty to enjoy new experiences. However, too familiar, it will be undetectable among everything else, but too different it will be indigestible and off putting.”
This is an interesting addition to our growing knowledge on how our brain craves familiarity, but also needs to disruption. I am interested to hear where you think you will need to practice balance as you work on your project?
Thanks for responding to the post Jennifer! Great question for me to think through. I’ll need to balance several different things while I wade through my NPO.
1. When it comes to bridging gaps between higher education and the local church, I’ll have to balance my personal biases and comfort zones, higher criticism’s biases, and religious biases / agendas within our local churches.
2. During my research and design stages, balancing dense (many times foreign) information with familiar information and the implications it has on day to day faith, convictions, and devotion. Why do these things matter?
3. Finding creative ways to take ancient situations and ideas and connect them to modern situations and scenarios.
4. Incorporating playfulness and humor into the process of dealing with heavy and, sometimes controversial, topics.
Thanks again for the response and for the thoughtful question!
YES! I love that you are able to get “out of the box” when thinking about church and how we church. I think there is a lot of “wonderings” on how to get the younger generation engaged in the work of the church, especially within the formal walls of church. I believe there are many christians out there working for the Kingdown outside of the walls. I remember working in tandem with my husband in revitalizing a church and bringing in more young families. We did, by going outside of the walls first, but once they started stepping in through the doors there was a severe lack of adaptability that new people brought new ideas….they wanted new attenders to start doing the work of the church because they were tired, but were unwilling to let go of their idea of what church should look like! Come inside, worship with us, but you have to be like us. I love what you drew attention to that we don’t want to look like our heroes, we need to see like our heroes! THRESHOLD MOMENT! It’s a catching on to the Vision! To see the world as Jesus sees the world is transformative and can transform our world. Thank you for this. I’d love to hear more about your book:) and I’m curious how you can utilize some of this using pop culture references and connect with those of a much older generation? The technology age has sure set a division between generations (for the most part as that is not 100% true). How does your church address this type of creativity without alienating certain generations?
Like I always say, we are still learning and growing in this every week. Our church, “Godwhy” (already an “out of the box” type of name) naturally appeals to certain types of thinkers who are normally pretty open minded to begin with and adaptable, if not, they do not usually stay around. As soon as they come to a service they will either love it or its not their cup of tea and that’s ok.
The universal issue is bringing new conversations and issues into our church, as open minded as they might be, we are always evolving. Each generation has new values and priorities that emerge. Things that are major issues for our 55 and older are non issues for people who are 25 and younger. The keys for us has been baby steps and emphasizing grace for one another. All of our convictions (even those surrounding how to understand and interpret the Bible) are fallible. History proves this time and time again. We have core values hanging up in our halls, “diversity” and “respect” for others convictions being two of them. We put high emphasis on values over doctrine, dogma, and beliefs since many of these are so diverse (over 45,000 denominations). We still have our convictions, but realize we’re all seeing through a “glass dimly.” Thanks for you post Jana!
Thank you, Mr. Adam, for your posting. It is encouraging to learn that even the best of the bests. As you emphasized that even Elvis Presly learned from a lot and make it into his own in which we thought of him as one of the best or the best in the music industry. That’s definitely a lesson to learn.
Glad you enjoyed the post Noel!
Adam, my brother, you are a threshold moment. I loved your post and what your church is doing to impact the community. There is so much I could ask but I’ll just ask an two easy questions:
“Don’t just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes.”
Who is the hero you envision yourself seeing like and what do you envision your hero learning from you?
Without being tooooo cliche, Christ is my first and foremost hero! The more I learn about him historically and walk with this presence the more admiration I have. As far as other figures, Albert Schweitzer, the theologian, medical doctor, and scholar. (He is deceased now), but I have always admired his life and pursuit of truth.
Another hero that I got to meet several months ago was Dr. Raymond Moody. He holds two Ph.D’s, one in psychiatry and one in philosophy. He is also the “grandfather of near death experiences”. His books have put these experiences on the map and led the way into serious peer reviewed research at University of Virginia. He is also one of the nicest and most humble men I’ve ever met, he has such a curiosity and eagerness to learn.
As far as what I envision someone learning from me…staying curious. Curiosity and wonder has been a great hack for overcoming fear, staying motivated, connecting dots, and maintaining joy!
Whoa, Jesus, Schweitzer and Moody sound like some real deep guys, which tells me so much about you. Interesting, that even though you said different things about each person, the bottom line, character is important to you. Thanks for revealing that, man!
Your statement, “Curiosity and wonder has been a great hack for overcoming fear, staying motivated, connecting dots, and maintaining joy!” Adam, this is what you want others to learn from you…man this is deep, bro! Thank you! As I said before, You Are A Threshold Moment!
Adam, I’m going to “steal like an artist” some of the things you mentioned your pastor does. Great ideas! I’m looking forward to longer conversations with you about some things you’ve learned about engaging a rising generation (and we’ll throw in some DCU talk, too).
Feel free!! Looking forward to chatting with you as well, are you a DC fan?!