Redeeming the Arts
Interview with Colin Harbinson and Dick Ryanby Studentsoul.org
Excerpted from an interview published in Studentsoul.org.
What does it mean to be an artist and a Christian? What does an artist face
in communicating truth and grace to a broken world? And how does art play into
a life of faith and building God’s kingdom? Dr. Colin Harbinson and Dick
Ryan led the Arts, Media and Culture major at Urbana 06, a series of
seminars and activities designed to enable artists of all types to integrate
their faith and their art. Harbinson is Dean of the School of Arts at Bellhaven
College in Jackson, Mississippi. Ryan is Regional Arts and Artists Coordinator
for InterVarsity’s Great Lakes West region.
How are the arts important to the kingdom of God? To creation, our living our lives as beings made in his image?
Ryan: It’s interesting that in the beginning Adam and Eve were placed in a garden. It wasn’t a forest, or a desolate place, it was a garden, which implies a place of beauty. God enjoyed walking in the cool of the evening with Adam and Eve. The feeling you get is that God valued the aesthetic of feeling and of beauty from the very beginning of Genesis. It’s impossible to look around and miss the notion that God is an artistic creator.
I love the fact that God gave away the art he created. When Adam and Eve sinned and then hid in shame, God showed that he loved them more than his creation, because he killed some of the beautiful animals he had made for skins for them to wear. God loved Adam and Eve over his art. We can ask ourselves the question, are we self-serving artists or are we servant artists? Will we also give away what we’ve been given by God?
Harbinson: God’s kingdom reaches into every area of life and we don’t want to compartmentalize the kingdom of God as separate and isolated. God wants to restore and redeem every area of life. Christ died for every area of human reality, and that includes culture. He wants to restore the distortions that are in our culture as a result of the Fall, and artists are a part of that — we need to be present in Hollywood, on Broadway and in every other area, doing our job, and doing it well, with excellence and to the glory of God, and hopefully in the process bringing a biblical worldview to bear.
Can art be a medium to bridge the discussion around man’s sense of brokenness and spirituality? Have you done or seen anything cool along these lines?
Ryan: Sometimes we think of art in ways that can be too small. We think of it as beautiful or decorative, but art has a huge other side: truth. Art can reveal what’s really going on in the world. It can deliver incredible snapshots of pain, agony and the reality of a fallen world. Art is the communication of both truth and beauty.
Unfortunately the church often shies away from this powerful side of art, and wants it to stay pretty. We make crosses out of gold and shine them up, while the real cross was horrible hunks of brutal wood, and crosses were often reused many times. While the church may want to avoid confrontation and be liked by the surrounding culture, the artist wants to get out there and get into the truth. Many churches want people to be happy and to enjoy God’s glory, which is all wonderful, but they may not find it easy to focus on harsher truths. Artists can help do that, and in the process build bridges.
Harbinson: Regarding the idea of bridging, the arts are universal, because they come out of the image of God that’s been placed in every one of us, Christian or not. Wherever you go in the world, art is important. It captures what we believe; it captures our story, our worldview and our values. By looking at works of art in a particular culture, we learn a lot about the values of that people. Art is a language of exploration and discourse. It’s a bridge of love. When I’ve gone to China or Russia or Bulgaria with artists who are Christians, we see that bridge. We ask to see their art, and they ask to see ours. It’s not a typical evangelistic outreach, but more a sharing, respectful cultural interaction that leads us into dialog through our art. I’ve seen that happen in so many different ways. The conversation always goes deep.
When we were in China, where being a Christian is extremely difficult, we held an exhibit at a festival in a large city. We sent a Swedish artist ahead of us, and for three weeks, he worked with ten of the best art students and their faculty in one of the top institutes in China. The subject was the Hebrew exodus. They discussed the story of the exodus into freedom using the Bible as the text nearly every day. They asked for Chinese Bibles and actually got them! Out of that study, they created art — an installation for the festival — but what’s more, they talked about the significance of the exodus story, asking questions like, “What does this mean for us today? For us as Chinese people? What do oppression and freedom look like in our culture?” They were touching on some dangerous themes, but the result was deep conversation about the meaning of life.
Following that festival, that Swedish artist and the others opened an arts café in this large city. Artists would come and meet and talk with Christians who were also artists. It became so popular that they had to build a much larger venue which actually had studios and galleries. Talk about a bridge into ministry! Even nonbelieving artists would tell you that this was the place to go to talk about life and create art.
You’re co-leading a track at Urbana 06 on arts, media and culture. Who is it for, and what do you hope to see happen there?
Harbinson: We’d like to see people who are at the point of discovering that they have creative abilities, and we want to affirm them. They often ask if their calling is legitimate. “How does this fit with my faith? Does God even approve? Shouldn’t I be out on the mission field serving food to kids who are dying of hunger? How can I be in the studio painting and call that ministry?” We hope people will begin to understand that their creativity is a gift from God that they can develop to his glory.
We also hope people who are already well on the journey as artists will join us. Our hope is that they will recognize some of the stones artists face and can start to deal with those stones, to fully become who God wants them to be. Some will be “in exile” much like the Israelites in Isaiah — they may have given up on the church, or even given up their art. And yet the call of God comes through, much like it did through Isaiah to Israel to remove the stones, to rebuild a highway and restore the ancient ruins of their own nation [Isaiah 62:10]. Removing the stones for artists means entering into their artistic gifts wholeheartedly and seeing how art can be a way for God to build bridges of love to cultures worldwide.
Dick and I feel that something is stirring in the arts community. We want to help young artists engage the culture at a new level. We sense that it’s time for that, and students are hungry for it.
Ryan: I would just add that while we hope that many arts majors, faculty and even artists who have graduated will come, this is really intended for anyone engaged in the arts. Now, this really isn’t for people who just like listening to CDs or watching videos. But it could include anyone who is doing art in some way — writing, dancing, composing music — even if it’s been awhile since they’ve actively practiced art. We want our seminars to be active, and we are hoping there will actually be dancing, writing and music happening right on site at Urbana 06. We hope people will go home feeling a strong sense of God’s call on their lives as artists, as well as a sense of God’s empowering them in the arts.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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