Imagination

Pieter Brueghel, The Triumph of Death, detail

Imagination has had a bad rap in Protestantism and Western culture for a long time. Take the phrase “figment of the imagination.” I always understood it to mean that no part of the imagination is equal to the “reality” of reason. I don’t think the word “imagination” was ever part of any sermon I heard or teaching I received.

When I look the word up in the NIV, it appears four times, all in the Old Testament, always as a sin that has distanced people from God. The situation is even worse in the King James, the translation of my upbringing. Here “imagination” shows up 20 times, including twice in Genesis as an inborn and continuing evil and three times in the New Testament as ingredients of pride and idolatry. Again, most instances link the imagination with adjectives like wicked, evil, and vain. Only when David prays for his son Solomon and for God's people does he associate the imagination with God.

The first time I ever heard the word imagination used in a sermon was about two months ago. Jennifer Cumberbatch, a guest preacher at Hope, was the perpetrator. She used it not to describe a sin but to describe a part of the mind’s life that God can redeem, like all other parts. She spoke of the “sanctified imagination.” As the sermon was not about the imagination, she did not mention it again nor expound upon it theologically. She merely used the word as if we all knew that such a thing is part of our faith, and went on.

I want more of that kind of talk! I want preachers and teachers to understand the sanctified imagination and be so comfortable with it that they refer to it without fear and with the assurance that such a thing is not only possible but part of God’s plan. Maybe we need some theological teaching about the difference between the wicked, vain use of the imagination and the sanctified imagination to do that, but maybe we don’t. Isn’t it obvious that both exist and which is to be resisted and which embraced? I think if preachers could invite the concept of the sanctified imagination into their, excuse me, imaginations, and assume its value to us all, we would hear some talk about creativity’s role in the Christian life that would be very refreshing to artists and would also be a connection point between artists and nonartists.

A Trip to NYC

Last week I got to go to New York with a friend. We went for the express purpose of seeing the Kandinsky retrospective at the Guggenheim and the O’Keeffe abstracts at the Whitney. We also visited the Museum of Biblical Arts (MOBIA) without knowing what might be there. What a great confluence of paintings!

Wassily Kandinsky, Accompanied Contrast

Like most people, I suppose, I have had to work at understanding non-objective art – art with no immediate reference to natural objects – because it seemed to be without content, without a story to tell. Abstract art – the altering of recognizable images – is easier. But when I first saw reproductions of Kandinsky’s paintings, I just smiled. They made me happy. He pulled me in. So it was at the Guggenheim. I smiled all the way up the long spiral ramp as Kandinsky moved from abstraction to non-objectivism and developed his skill in making art that reflected his emotions and spirituality. Kandinsky made religious art. And being surrounded by nearly 100 of his paintings powerfully communicated to me both his spirit and His Spirit to mine.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Grey Blue and Black, Pink Circle

On to O’Keeffe. She was playing around with similar ideas in her art as Kandinsky, at about the same time. Her abstract and non-objective work uses curves and has a sensuous, soft, integrated look, whereas his are full of triangles and brightly colored blotches that seem almost antagonistic to each other. But they both were playing with color and form as expressions of their inner lives.

Tobi Kahn, Svirh

The work of Tobi Kahn was on exhibit at MOBIA. While not (yet) in the league of Kandinsky and O’Keeffe as a painter, still I saw more of the same – an exploration of the spiritual hidden in the material. MOBIA was a friendlier environment – no crowds to peer around, a smaller room, a place to sit and gaze. There I could imagine Kahn’s work surrounding me in a church (it was actually made for a synagogue) and living with it week in, week out, like those stained glass windows from my childhood.

These exhibits were all, to me, an “aroma of Christ,” even a feast. The art and its artful placement created holy places, sanctuaries from the American "real world" that no place represents better than New York.

That's why I care so much about bringing the visual arts into the church.

Why art in church?

I was recently asked why I care so much about bringing arts into the church. The question took me by surprise.

Raised an Episcopalian, as a child I attended a beautiful tall stone church set in a plain of one-story brick and cinder-block buildings. I was entranced by the brilliant reds and blues of the stained glass windows. I walked and knelt on a plush red carpet to take communion out of a polished silver plate and gold-lined chalice. I learned to read music from my own white leather-bound hymnbook, and reveled in the huge sound of the pipe organ that could vibrate my very bones with a joyful noise. I knew by heart the Shakespearean language of God! How on earth could anyone not care about bringing arts into the earnest asceticism of the Bible church where I found myself as a newly reborn adult believer?

One of the first things I did when I decided to follow Christ was to take a Bible study class. The intense young pastor of my small congregation of former hippies taught us well, and the final assignment was to write a paper. I dove in, wrote passionately, and then did something that to me seemed so right – I drew a picture for the cover of my paper. It was not a terribly skillful or original drawing, but also not at all morally challenging. During the last lesson everyone read their papers. My drawing garnered puzzlement from my pastor. He obviously did not understand why I would do such a thing and also seemed to be trying to figure out if he needed to admonish me. I don’t remember him saying anything negative, but was he worrying for my soul over a drawing?

As a new believer, I also looked for books about contemporary Christians and art. Back in 1979, there weren’t many. The only ones I found were Franky Shaeffer’s Addiction to Mediocrity, which was pretty discouraging, and a little gem by Elizabeth O’Connor, Eighth Day of Creation. O’Connor’s book is more about creativity in the context of community than about art or artists, but it kept a hope alive in me that the stained glass and hymns of my childhood had birthed.

I understand the historical forces in Luther’s and Calvin’s time that rejected a beauty corrupted. I too rejected the beautiful church that did not help my family grieve a divorce and later our mother’s death. I too found God again only through a stripped-bare gospel. But I was never meant to remain naked. God takes away so as to restore.

So I believe it is time for the Church to put on the garments of praise in a new way. No doubt whatever we do will get corrupted again, historically speaking. But now is a time for creativity and imagination and beauty to be restored.

Jurying vs. Editing

HopeArts writers have at last met and identified themselves! For the past 10-12 years, the visual and performing artists have been in the spotlight, while the naturally more invisible writers have worked, literally, behind the scenes. Jane Bryant put out a call and over 20 people responded, many of whom I had no idea were writers. The most exciting thing to me about this is the opportunity to serve the writers better than I and others served the visual artists.

We were groping in the dark when we started the visual arts ministry at Hope Chapel, and took our cues from the secular art world as to how to set things up. In many ways this decision served us well, but in one way it didn't. Jurying or not jurying was the stumbling block. Jurying is good and necessary, at least to some extent – a church with its gallery in the sanctuary must jury for content. But jurying for aesthetics is a much tougher choice. Who is qualified to judge beauty? How can you avoid letting one or a few persons' taste dictate what is hung? How do you encourage beginners if you reject less skilled work, but if you don't how do you encourage excellence?

Much of this angst could have been avoided if we had listened to the writing world instead of the art world. Writers expect to be edited. Visual artists do get critiques in school and often continue to ask for input from trusted cohorts, but when they answer a call for entries, they know their work will be accepted or rejected with no explanation. Writers, however, expect someone from the publishing house (or film studio or business client) to mark up their work, to suggest or demand changes. Of course, I doubt that writers who have proven their skill are edited much, if at all. But the point is that most writers, and most artists, need good critiques long after they are out of school. And this is where we at HopeArts can serve better than we have.

Editing is essentially collaboration with a teacher. Jurying is judging. Personally, I have had enough of judging. I want to teach.