Aesthetic Idolatry
A few weeks ago, a church off of Sunset Blvd called Reality LA started a lecture series called Equip ’09. The discussions are designed to equip Christians to interact with issues arising from practicing faith in the modern world, and the first topic focused on the arts. It was providential timing, since the intersection of faith and art is a subject I’m deeply interested in and one that attracted me to Fuller in the first place.
I grabbed a few friends and drove to the Barnsdale Gallery Theatre, and for two hours we listened to the teaching pastor Tim Chaddick introduce ideas about worldview, culture, the arts, and how Christians should interact with it. At one point in the lecture, Tim said something that stung me: “Art can become a demon in time if you demand from it what only God can give.” He said it in passing, but the words had weight to them, heavy and sharp with truth meant for my ears.
I did undergrad work in English, I buy books faster than I can read them, I listen to music daily, and I frequently try to create my own. So I’ve naturally grown quite accustomed to my regular diet of the arts. It has been a healthy feast for sure, but one that can slowly become more like gluttony, a vice that can crowd out any space for cultivating a hunger for God.
Tim’s words convicted me, and I’m thankfully starting to realize how easy it is for a healthy love of the arts to become an idolatrous obsession with the created object rather than the Creator it should be pointing to. Frankly, feeding only on human expression, no matter how transcendent the work seems, will not provide lasting spiritual sustenance.
When I look solely to the arts for meaning and transcendence, I’m soon lost in a house of broken mirrors, only seeing distorted images of myself. But if I can remember that my experience of the arts should always direct me to God, then art becomes more like a stained glass window, allowing light to shine through all its brokenness.