{"id":19550,"date":"2018-10-18T10:33:21","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T17:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=19550"},"modified":"2018-10-18T10:36:01","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T17:36:01","slug":"imagination-is-a-christian-virtue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/imagination-is-a-christian-virtue\/","title":{"rendered":"Imagination is a Christian Virtue"},"content":{"rendered":"

The driving questions of Dyrness\u2019 Visual Faith\u00a0<\/em>assume an unfortunate and erroneous relationship between art and the Christian faith. It strikes me that this book, and Dr. Dyrness\u2019 influence at the Brehm Center at Fuller over the past eighteen years have essentially made the book irrelevant anymore. There is a strong Reformed tradition at Fuller Seminary, and most the conflict between art and the Protestant Church goes back to Calvin\u2019s response to what he viewed as an obsession with relics, particularly among clergy. Calvin understood that there can be so much visual and other sensory influence that one can (and his assessment did) miss the purity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that is communicated\u2014his grace imparted unto us\u2014through Word and Sacrament\u2014the preaching of the Word and celebration of Baptism and the Eucharist. These were to be the symbols, Calvin understood, that would warm our hearts to God. Everything else was a distraction at best and idolatry at worst.<\/p>\n

When I was a ThM student at Princeton Seminary, I attended an old colonial church called Nassau Presbyterian Church.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Steeped in the Reformed tradition, built in a time where resistance to visual art was the order of the day in the Presbyterian Church, the only artifact of visual prominence was the pulpit, on which laid a massive Bible (that no one actually read). There was no cross, no ornamental beauty on the chancel, and most of all no cross\u2014certainly no crucifix, for any image of Jesus would be graven image, a violation of the first commandment.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I cannot say whether the last eighteen years of Bill Dyrness\u2019 book or simple common sense has changed the landscape to where virtually no tradition in the Evangelical community would fear their guilt of idolatry if they had a cross in the sanctuary or Christian art in the atrium or a mural of Noah\u2019s Ark in the children\u2019s room. Where the book is helpful is in describing its value of how art can enhance personal faith as well as to shape the imagination of a worshipping community.<\/p>\n

The only times in history when there was an aversion to art was when there was an aversion to social imagination. Nazi Germany \u2013 prohibit the music and art otherwise the oppressed might imagine their way out of oppression. And of course, according to Richard Hayes, what is vastly needed in this time of post-Christian west, is for the church to have a \u201cbiblical imagination,\u201d in order to see the creative things that God is doing in our midst and in order to join God there.<\/p>\n

Dyrness understands that art is central to the Christian faith because art is, essentially, creation. God is the Great Artist. We are made in God\u2019s image. That does not mean that we are all artists in the vocational sense, but we each have the capacity to create and imagine and do art at some level. I think most of the Evangelical world understands this by now. Congregations that have not seriously engaged the arts are viewed as dated and quite irrelevant to many in the watching world.<\/p>\n

In my former church, we had a significant art ministry, with an art gallery with rotating art shows for various purposes, and art that we would use in worship every week. It was so central to who we were as a congregation, and so much a part of the DNA of the church, that one cannot imagine a sanctuary without art.<\/p>\n

In our new venture, we are looking into how art can be used as a tool to not only help troubled youth find healing from trauma, but also to talk about faith and spirituality. One initiative is called Youth Interactive, and they do great work with helping kids use their artistic gifts to create artisan businesses.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youthinteractive.us\/exhibitions-at-state-gallery\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The driving questions of Dyrness\u2019 Visual Faith\u00a0assume an unfortunate and erroneous relationship between art and the Christian faith. It strikes me that this book, and Dr. Dyrness\u2019 influence at the Brehm Center at Fuller over the past eighteen years have essentially made the book irrelevant anymore. There is a strong Reformed tradition at Fuller Seminary, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"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":[],"class_list":["post-19550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19550","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\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19555,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19550\/revisions\/19555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}