{"id":13989,"date":"2017-09-13T19:16:05","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T02:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=13989"},"modified":"2017-10-10T11:49:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T18:49:33","slug":"the-visual-arts-and-an-acts-2-moment-for-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-visual-arts-and-an-acts-2-moment-for-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"The Visual Arts and an Acts 2 Moment for the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cI believe that making beautiful forms is theologically connected to our call both to listen and respond to God in prayer, praise, and sacrament.\u201d(1)<\/p>\n

The church in which I grew up met in a rather utilitarian building on the side of town that was filled with immigrants. As the church developed and grew it moved to another location, however, even the new building remained utilitarian in nature. Not many frills, but elegant in its own understated way. There were several reasons for this understatement; one of the main reason was that the founders of our church wanted little to do with the visually artistic expression of faith, Dyrness’ “beautiful forms,” or what some considered to be representations of the idols and images forbidden in the scriptures. Like the reformers, they too had \u201ccome out of\u201d Catholicism. For this reason, aside from the occasional chalk artist evangelist who visited our church, the visual arts were not particularly a part of our prayer, praise or sacraments. I came to realize that we were not the only church with the same point of view.<\/p>\n

Dyrness begins his book with the recognition that in recent history at least, art and the Protestant church have not been on good terms with each other. (2) Dyrness traces this line of thought through the reformation and then to the 20th-century evangelical movement. Briefly stated, the reformers felt that there was little need for the visual in worship. All that was required to mediate the presence of the Holy Spirit was the preaching of the Word of God. \u201cIn worship, it is the preached Word of God that gives entrance to God\u2019s grace.\u201d The scriptures alone are all that is needed.(3)<\/p>\n

Moving into the early part of the 20th<\/sup> century, the influence of liberalism was being felt in the evangelical church. To protect itself from the influences of the \u201cworld\u201d the evangelical church focused more on the \u201cinner life.\u201d This move in some ways worked to protect the faithful from the \u201cworld,\u201d but also created a, in some respects, a siloing of the church.(4) Not unlike Douthat\u00a0who argues that the American church has departed from its roots. (5) Dryness points to the past and reformation as the beginning of the church\u2019s departure, while Douthat points to present American culture as the cause. In both cases, the departure is seen as detrimental to the church and its mission.<\/p>\n

In his analysis of the current situation, Dyrness builds on the obvious that can sometimes go unnoticed in the church, namely that the world is changing, people are changing, attention spans are changing are changing, and the calls for one\u2019s attention are more varied and louder than ever before. (6) It is in this setting that Dyrness states \u201cIt is possible that we might actually win the battle of words but lose the battle of images. And losing that battle could well cost us this generation.\u201d (7)<\/p>\n

Dyrness addresses what can be done and considers this the time and era of new opportunities for the evangelical church and Christian involvement in the arts. He states that it is time for the evangelical church to \u201ccome to terms with the visual in a way that we have not had to do previously.\u201d(8) Coming to terms means that there is no need to choose between the visual and the verbal, both are necessary, both will only enrich worship. Accordingly, Christians need to be willing to return to their visual heritage and their visual imagination and use it as a means of not only\u00a0a mediation\u00a0of worship but as a clear message to the world.(9) He is calling for a renewal of worship, and Acts 2 moment for the church. \u201cClaiming the stimulus of the Holy Spirit is not an optional accessory of the Christian life, and any artistic renewal in and for the church can come only in connection with a renewal of congregational faith and worship.\u201d(10)<\/p>\n

Visual Faith <\/i>makes sense on many levels. There is an absence in the evangelical church of the visual art. There seems to be a trail back to the reformation and to the 20th-century Evangelical church\u2019s move to protect herself from the world. Furthermore, there is a return to the visual arts in the church. For example, the denomination to which I belong has a yearly event called the Fine Arts Festival. Thousands of youth participate.\u00a0 One of the categories is visual arts. Some of the work that the teenagers produce is incredible and extremely worshipful. In this there an acknowledgment of the importance of developing the arts and allowing a younger generation to express their faith and worship to God via the visual arts.<\/p>\n

My arguments with Dryness are few. Though the visual arts may not have been a driving force in the church from the Reformation forward, they were always present and are to some extent still present today. For example in the sacraments of communion (the bread and the cup) and marriage (the rings). These continue to be visual artistic expressions of our Christian faith. Even the hymnal is\u00a0a creative visual and tactile meditation of worship. There are those who would be concerned that the exploration of visual arts in the act of worship can draw attention away from God toward the visual art itself or even more problematic the one who created the visual art. Though I do not completely agree I do see this as a slight concern. \u00a0I do not, however, agree with those who would state that the trend toward visual arts in the church is an effort to create a fad to attract a new generation of worshippers.(11) I neither see it as a fad or an attraction, if that were the case, visual arts alone would be enough to have a growing church community. I see it more as Dyrness sees it, as a return to the roots of our Christian faith. That is why I would agree that this may be an Acts 2 moment for the evangelical church.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. William A.\u00a0Dryness. Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue<\/i>. Kindle ed. Engaging Culture, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001, 9.<\/li>\n
  2. Ibid., 11.<\/li>\n
  3. Ibid., 53.<\/li>\n
  4. Ibid., 14.<\/li>\n
  5. Ross Douthat.\u00a0Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics<\/i>. Reprint ed. Free Press, 2013.<\/li>\n
  6. William A.\u00a0Dryness. Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue,<\/i> 20.<\/li>\n
  7. Ibid., 21.<\/li>\n
  8. Ibid., 145.<\/li>\n
  9. Ibid., 156.<\/li>\n
  10. Ibid., 157.<\/li>\n
  11. Kaitlyn Zachary. \u201cVisual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue.\u201d (2015): http:\/\/artistictheologian.com\/2015\/04\/09\/visual-faith-art-theology-and-worship-in-dialogue\/ (accessed Sep 5, 2017).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u201cI believe that making beautiful forms is theologically connected to our call both to listen and respond to God in prayer, praise, and sacrament.\u201d(1) The church in which I grew up met in a rather utilitarian building on the side of town that was filled with immigrants. As the church developed and grew it moved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[289],"class_list":["post-13989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dyrness","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13989"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14289,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13989\/revisions\/14289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}