1 00:00:05,680 --> 00:00:09,000 Spring is undoubtedly a season of rebirth, but in springtime, 2 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:12,200 especially early, we also discover a tension between hope 3 00:00:12,440 --> 00:00:15,640 and our human tendency to despair that will shape us if we 4 00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:18,480 let it. Before gardens rise from the 5 00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:21,120 dirt, seeds must first die in burial. 6 00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:24,480 Before Christ rose from the tomb, he had to be stricken, 7 00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:28,440 smitten, and afflicted. Before Easter comes Lent, and 8 00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:32,080 even as God makes all things new, we must still journey on, 9 00:00:32,080 --> 00:00:33,520 often through pain and suffering. 10 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:37,880 Where do stories and songs and art fit into all this? 11 00:00:38,080 --> 00:00:41,160 Should they be positive and encouraging, giving us a 12 00:00:41,160 --> 00:00:44,280 sentimental escape? Or should they portray the harsh 13 00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:48,120 reality of life as it appears to be, disregarding hope if the 14 00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:51,360 artist doesn't feel it? A couple weeks ago, the Anselm 15 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:54,240 Society partnered with the NICAEA Study Center, a Christian 16 00:00:54,240 --> 00:00:57,480 study center active in Colorado Springs, to host an event 17 00:00:57,600 --> 00:01:00,560 exploring this question. You can learn more about the 18 00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:02,920 Nicaea Study Center at the end of this episode. 19 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:05,200 We recorded the event to share with you. 20 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:08,440 As a bonus episode on the podcast, we were delighted to 21 00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:11,920 host our friend Wesley Vanderlucht from Gordon Conwell 22 00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:13,960 Theological Seminary to give this talk. 23 00:01:14,520 --> 00:01:18,760 Doctor Vanderlucht is the author of Beauty is Oxygen, Finding a 24 00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:22,200 Faith that Breathes. He teaches theology and is the 25 00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:25,760 acting director of the Leighton Ford Center for Theology, the 26 00:01:25,760 --> 00:01:28,160 Arts and Gospel Witness at Gordon Conwell. 27 00:01:28,960 --> 00:01:32,120 Dr. Vanderlucht also Co founded the organization Kinship Plot, 28 00:01:32,400 --> 00:01:35,240 which is a community dedicated to uplifting, resonant 29 00:01:35,240 --> 00:01:38,120 relationships. Doctor Vanderlucht has served in 30 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:42,040 many ministry roles and is an advocate for beauty and the 31 00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:45,040 arts. He is a kindred spirit and a 32 00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:47,920 friend to the Anthem Society. We were very excited to have him 33 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:49,640 with us. I hope this talk is as 34 00:01:49,640 --> 00:01:52,160 strengthening for you as it was for us. 35 00:01:57,440 --> 00:02:01,520 Well, good evening everyone. I'm so glad you're here. 36 00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:06,560 And I think that pie, whether the mathematical formula or the 37 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:09,960 edible dessert, is a beautiful thing to celebrate. 38 00:02:09,960 --> 00:02:11,640 So I think it's entirely fitting. 39 00:02:11,640 --> 00:02:15,600 I love it and even though I I've just recently written on beauty, 40 00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:19,360 I'm not really talking about that tonight directly. 41 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:23,320 I heard about this theme of hope and despair and dialogue with 42 00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:27,680 Brad some and and so looking more specifically at the issue 43 00:02:27,680 --> 00:02:31,800 of hope and artistry, gritty hope and the gift of art from 44 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:33,760 sentimentality to you, catastrophe. 45 00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:38,440 And I think you'll hear some bits about beauty in there, even 46 00:02:38,440 --> 00:02:40,480 if I'm not addressing it directly. 47 00:02:40,480 --> 00:02:42,720 And of course, we can go anywhere you want to go in the 48 00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:49,240 questions. In 2015, American journalist and 49 00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:52,400 writer Tanahisi Coates wrote a powerful book called Between the 50 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:56,520 World and Me, which won the National Book Award and was a 51 00:02:56,520 --> 00:02:59,840 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In the book, which is written in 52 00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:04,600 the form of a letter to his son, Coates issues a warning against 53 00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:09,360 any art that tries to provide what he calls specious hope, 54 00:03:10,760 --> 00:03:14,760 particularly given what it's like to inhabit a body of color 55 00:03:14,760 --> 00:03:17,840 in the United States. And Coates argues that it's the 56 00:03:17,840 --> 00:03:22,840 responsibility of an artist to look unflinchingly at reality 57 00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:27,840 and then present it in a way that connects with others and 58 00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:31,200 resonates with others. In an article called Hope and 59 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:34,240 the Artist, The Virtues of Enlightenment over Feel Good 60 00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:38,800 ISM, which was published in The Atlantic in 2015, Coates 61 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:42,600 challenges the notion that artists should in any way aim at 62 00:03:42,600 --> 00:03:46,120 providing hope. By contrast, he argues that the 63 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:51,480 primary goal of art is enlightenment, which he 64 00:03:51,480 --> 00:03:56,960 describes as the rendering of dead stats into something 65 00:03:57,040 --> 00:04:01,200 touchable. Coats doesn't actually fault any 66 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:05,040 artists for seeking to express hope, if that feeling is 67 00:04:05,040 --> 00:04:09,480 authentic and genuine. But he then delivers a warning 68 00:04:09,480 --> 00:04:13,360 against any artist that is oriented toward hope as a goal. 69 00:04:13,880 --> 00:04:18,079 Here's what he writes, he says hope for hope's sake, hope as 70 00:04:18,079 --> 00:04:21,560 tautology. Hope because hope, hope because 71 00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:24,760 I said so, is the enemy of intelligence. 72 00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:28,560 One can say the same about the opposite pull of despair. 73 00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:34,040 Neither neither of these, hope or despair, are wrong. 74 00:04:34,520 --> 00:04:37,680 They each reflect human sentiment, much like anger, 75 00:04:37,840 --> 00:04:42,680 sadness, Lovejoy. Art that uses anything, any of 76 00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:45,240 these, to say something larger interests me. 77 00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:50,320 Art that takes any of these as its aim does not. 78 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:54,800 The Burgers of Calais doesn't need to smile for me. 79 00:04:55,440 --> 00:04:57,720 And I don't need Macbeth to be a fairy tale. 80 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:01,840 Even our fairy tales are rarely fairy tales. 81 00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:07,200 So that's Tommy Heely Coats. That's his challenge that he has 82 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:10,600 levied against people, like people of faith, who are 83 00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:13,600 oriented toward hope. And so how do we respond to 84 00:05:14,280 --> 00:05:16,240 Coats? How should artists of faith, 85 00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:20,480 artists for whom hope is essential as faith and love are? 86 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:25,120 How do we respond to Coats's thesis that art should not aim 87 00:05:25,280 --> 00:05:28,480 at hope? And to what extent is hopeful 88 00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:31,960 art, however you might define that, the enemy of intelligence? 89 00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:36,880 When does hopeful art degenerate into sentimental art? 90 00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:41,200 And can you be a serious artist and still love fairy tales? 91 00:05:41,880 --> 00:05:44,840 That's what we're going to get. But I want to begin with an 92 00:05:44,840 --> 00:05:49,600 agreement with Coats. I resonate totally with Coats 93 00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:54,120 concern that art oriented toward specious hope. 94 00:05:54,600 --> 00:06:00,040 It's an important qualifier. Superficial hope can easily and 95 00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:05,120 does often become the enemy of enlightenment and a feel good 96 00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:07,920 opiate for spiritually inclined masses. 97 00:06:09,320 --> 00:06:11,840 Now an all too easy target. I think often for over 98 00:06:11,840 --> 00:06:16,080 sentimentalized, so so-called hopeful art is the paintings of 99 00:06:16,080 --> 00:06:20,680 late American artist Thomas Kincaid, widely known as the 100 00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:24,080 painter of light. Kincaid's stated purpose was to 101 00:06:24,080 --> 00:06:28,040 bring light into people's lives and to help them feel good. 102 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:32,800 Whatever his actual motives, making people feel good is a 103 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:37,080 really good business plan, and Kincaid once explained that the 104 00:06:37,080 --> 00:06:42,840 success of his paintings lies from his goal, to quote, portray 105 00:06:42,840 --> 00:06:47,440 a world without the fall, a world without evil, a world with 106 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:53,360 nothing to elicit anxiety. Or if you don't know Kincaid, 107 00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:56,800 take the 2013 song Happy by Pharrell Williams. 108 00:06:58,280 --> 00:07:02,440 He wrote that for Despicable Me Two, and it's sore to the top of 109 00:07:02,440 --> 00:07:05,520 the charts. I think my latest check is that 110 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:10,280 the music video has been viewed more than 1.4 billion times on 111 00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:12,680 YouTube. And so the video and the follow 112 00:07:12,680 --> 00:07:15,760 up project, 24 Hours of Happy, which is super addicting. 113 00:07:15,760 --> 00:07:19,400 By the way, don't start watching 24 Hours of Happy it. 114 00:07:19,400 --> 00:07:22,960 It just features people of all shapes and sizes and locations 115 00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:28,120 around the world dancing to his song, dancing the whole song, I 116 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:32,840 should say around the clock for 24 hours And and the video is 117 00:07:32,840 --> 00:07:36,480 infectious. But the more you you watch it, 118 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:39,720 the more you can begin to actually believe what it says, 119 00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:43,840 which is happiness is the truth and can't nothing bring me down. 120 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:51,720 But in the real world we live in, is this some kind of joyful 121 00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:56,080 resistance or is it sentimentality gone wild? 122 00:07:58,200 --> 00:08:04,840 Back when Twitter was a thing, someone tweeted something about 123 00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:09,560 Farrell's song, how he hated it, and Farrell retweeted that with 124 00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:11,720 one word. Same. 125 00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:17,920 And that exploded the social media spheres, and people 126 00:08:18,280 --> 00:08:21,360 started admitting their annoyance and dislike of the 127 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:24,600 song, arguing in the threads that it's emotionally 128 00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:28,600 simplistic, it's sonically boring, it's lyrically naive. 129 00:08:29,520 --> 00:08:32,480 In other words, it's classic sentimentality. 130 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:37,720 And it may make you feel good for a while, but it doesn't 131 00:08:37,720 --> 00:08:41,960 stick like a sugar rush. So the world of Kincaid 132 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:46,160 paintings, Feral song. It's not the world we live in, 133 00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:49,280 right? It's not the world experienced 134 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:53,240 viscerally, be it by Coates and his son, nor the world 135 00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:57,160 experienced by Kincaid, who died at the age of 54 from acute 136 00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:01,360 intoxication, nor the world experienced by Feral, whose 137 00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:03,720 cousin was shot and killed by Virginia police. 138 00:09:04,960 --> 00:09:10,880 And and this kind of sentimentalized art fails by 139 00:09:10,880 --> 00:09:16,760 Coats's rule or standard to make our actual world touchable. 140 00:09:18,360 --> 00:09:21,360 And while some may argue that enjoying a Kincaid landscape or 141 00:09:21,680 --> 00:09:24,680 singing along to happy, which I've done, I admit it, it's 142 00:09:24,680 --> 00:09:28,560 fine, can get your mind off trouble and maybe even get your 143 00:09:28,560 --> 00:09:31,720 mind on the reality of God and his promised future. 144 00:09:33,760 --> 00:09:37,080 But even in that reality, Christ still has wounds. 145 00:09:38,240 --> 00:09:42,160 Even in that reality, there still exists what poet Gerard 146 00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:45,160 Manley Hopkins called a pied beauty. 147 00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:51,320 This reality is not all light and shallow happiness. 148 00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:55,400 It incorporates, as Hopkins writes in his poem, pied beauty. 149 00:09:55,840 --> 00:10:00,600 All things counter, original, spare, strange, whatever is 150 00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:05,720 fickle, freckled, who knows how, With sweet, slow, sweet sour 151 00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:08,840 dazzle. A dim he fathers forth whose 152 00:10:08,840 --> 00:10:10,880 beauty is past change. Praise him. 153 00:10:13,240 --> 00:10:19,440 And who are we really to improve on this cosmic pied beauty, The 154 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:22,560 undulating contrast of dappled things, the interplay between 155 00:10:22,560 --> 00:10:27,400 light and shadow. So whatever hopeful art is, it 156 00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:32,240 must be something more than just a landscape of light in which 157 00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:36,920 happiness is the truth. The Christian philosopher and 158 00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:40,000 art critic Calvin Sayreveld once wrote this in reference to 159 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:43,360 sentimentalized art. This is from his wonderful book 160 00:10:43,360 --> 00:10:45,840 A Christian Critique of Art and Literature Committed to You. 161 00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:52,120 He says all such sincere Sunday schoolish artificial projects 162 00:10:52,400 --> 00:10:56,760 are pseudo Christian and they're innocuous presentations, not 163 00:10:56,760 --> 00:11:01,640 only devastate understanding art, but also misrepresent and 164 00:11:01,640 --> 00:11:05,640 take the bite and the grit and the life out of our Christian 165 00:11:05,640 --> 00:11:09,720 commitment. Artists who approach their 166 00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:12,200 making from a Christian commitment, in other words, 167 00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:16,360 should be alert to what Jeremy Begby calls the pathologies of 168 00:11:16,360 --> 00:11:19,760 sentimentality. So Begby leads the initiative 169 00:11:19,760 --> 00:11:22,320 and Theology in the Arts at Duke University. 170 00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:26,960 He identifies 3 primary pitfalls of sentimentality of this 171 00:11:26,960 --> 00:11:34,120 pathology #1 is misrepresenting or evading evil #2 is placating 172 00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:39,200 the emotions, and #3 is avoiding costly action. 173 00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:44,360 I want to look at those a little bit in light of how art can 174 00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:48,560 avoid those errors and move us toward a more gritty hope. 175 00:11:48,920 --> 00:11:55,120 Let's take that first pitfall. Sentimental art flirts with or 176 00:11:55,840 --> 00:11:59,520 explicitly goes about evading or trivializing evil. 177 00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:04,080 Good art should not ignore, like a Thomas Kincaid painting, that 178 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:09,400 we live in this world, this fallen, groaning, broken world. 179 00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:13,720 Good art does not naively assume that all human beings are 180 00:12:13,720 --> 00:12:18,440 basically good, and society is inevitably moving toward greater 181 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:23,400 harmony and justice. The role of art, good art, as 182 00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:29,120 Emily Dickinson says, is to tell all the truth and tell its 183 00:12:29,120 --> 00:12:33,840 slants, which includes slant truth telling about the struggle 184 00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:37,880 between good and evil that constitutes the drama of history 185 00:12:37,880 --> 00:12:42,360 and all of our lives. Art tells slant the truth and 186 00:12:42,360 --> 00:12:46,640 reality of cosmic struggle, personal sins, systemic evil. 187 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:52,840 Art can tell all that truth slant while at the same time 188 00:12:53,680 --> 00:12:57,560 bearing witness to hope the same way the Scriptures do. 189 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:02,640 Telling truth about the insanity of our sin, the flourishing of 190 00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:07,160 injustice, the meaninglessness of life under the sun, while 191 00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:13,440 also bearing witness to a God who took on our sin and ended 192 00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:17,920 the curse and defeated death. A God who loves us and is 193 00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:23,600 subversively and surely making all things new, including people 194 00:13:23,600 --> 00:13:28,160 like you and me. So God is making all things new 195 00:13:28,160 --> 00:13:32,680 in Christ by the Spirit. And yet the world is not 196 00:13:32,680 --> 00:13:36,800 currently remade. The hope we have, therefore, 197 00:13:36,800 --> 00:13:42,520 cannot be naive nor sentimental. We have hope, yes, but it's a 198 00:13:42,520 --> 00:13:47,800 hope that takes seriously our personal and cosmic cries for 199 00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:52,040 healing and for justice, all of which can and should be 200 00:13:52,040 --> 00:13:57,480 expressed through our art. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, 201 00:13:57,960 --> 00:14:03,000 in the midst of the Nazi regime, the only one who cries out for 202 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:05,720 the Jews may sing Gregorian chants. 203 00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:09,680 I think he's stating that very wisely. 204 00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:14,480 And the difficulty and urgency of telling truth slant about the 205 00:14:14,920 --> 00:14:18,800 the ruinous glory of the world, the Sinner St. quality of our 206 00:14:18,800 --> 00:14:22,880 lives is precisely why we need artists. 207 00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:27,960 The vocation of artists is to tell all the truth, but tell it 208 00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:32,880 slant elusively, imaginatively, holistically. 209 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:38,040 Whereas didactic presentations of truth textbooks, textbook 210 00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:40,480 statements about the intermingling of evil and hope, 211 00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:44,960 I think have a harder time holding on to or holding 212 00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:48,720 together the paradox and and some of the tensions of the 213 00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:52,840 gritty and the glorious. But the gift of art is the 214 00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:57,320 ability to tell all the truth until it's slant in a way that 215 00:14:57,320 --> 00:15:00,560 get gets behind some of our natural defenses and moves us 216 00:15:00,560 --> 00:15:04,600 and transforms us. To quote again from Cervelt, 217 00:15:05,160 --> 00:15:09,840 biblically true arts will show the hurt and the laughter, the 218 00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:15,640 thorough, going kiaroscuro to flowers and desires and prayers 219 00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:18,760 alike. It will let a childlike gladness 220 00:15:18,760 --> 00:15:24,960 of hope well up through the total groaning of all creation 221 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:30,040 for the great day still to come. So you have a poet like Gerard 222 00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:33,120 Manley Hopkins, one of my favorites, who can in literally 223 00:15:33,120 --> 00:15:38,840 in one breath almost be telling slant the truth of hurt and also 224 00:15:38,840 --> 00:15:43,840 the truth of hope the same time. So you get a couple lines like 225 00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:47,840 from his poem God's Grandeur. Generations have trod, have 226 00:15:47,840 --> 00:15:52,440 trod, have trod, and all is seared with trade, bleared, 227 00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:57,160 smeared with toil, and wears man's smudge and shares man's 228 00:15:57,160 --> 00:16:01,720 smell. The soil is bare now, nor can 229 00:16:01,720 --> 00:16:07,200 feet feel being shot. And then right into the slant. 230 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:11,520 Truth of hope. And for all this nature is never 231 00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:15,640 spent there lives the dearest freshness deep down things. 232 00:16:15,640 --> 00:16:20,640 And though the last lights off the black W went oh, morning at 233 00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:23,080 the brown brink eastward springs. 234 00:16:23,360 --> 00:16:28,600 Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm 235 00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:30,960 breasts and with, ah, bright wings. 236 00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:35,360 He's doing both at the same time. 237 00:16:36,040 --> 00:16:39,880 So I think a poem like that is the kind of art that bears 238 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:44,400 witness to hope, but not in a way that evades evil or is is 239 00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:48,040 falling prey to sentimentality. This is not hope for hope's 240 00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:52,440 sake, hope as tautology, Hope because hope as Coats warns 241 00:16:52,440 --> 00:16:56,160 about. It's hope that emerges through 242 00:16:56,160 --> 00:17:00,000 the Crucible of trotting, trotting, trotting, and 243 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:04,960 everything being smeared and and and seared so good art can 244 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:09,560 witness not merely to a feel Good Hope, but to a gritty 1. 245 00:17:10,760 --> 00:17:15,480 Only art that expresses A specious hope, as Coates calls 246 00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:19,160 it, will be emotionally self indulgent. 247 00:17:19,440 --> 00:17:22,000 That's the second trap of sentimentality. 248 00:17:22,920 --> 00:17:27,280 Art that taps into true hope is hope that is deep and it's 249 00:17:27,280 --> 00:17:32,120 thick, which has the power not only to elicit emotions, to 250 00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:36,120 expose our emotions, but actually to heal and even 251 00:17:36,120 --> 00:17:40,360 reshape them. And this will only be the case 252 00:17:40,360 --> 00:17:45,960 if we view hope as something that includes but is more than 253 00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:50,480 mere human sentiment. This is a key point thinking, 254 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:53,960 interacting with anyone who doesn't share this this 255 00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:58,080 imaginary. In Coates's article about hope 256 00:17:58,080 --> 00:18:01,600 and the artist, he identifies hope and despair as opposite 257 00:18:01,600 --> 00:18:04,880 poles on the spectrum of human sentiment. 258 00:18:06,600 --> 00:18:09,760 I don't think they fit equally on that spectrum. 259 00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:14,120 He affirms that if an artist genuinely feels any of these 260 00:18:14,120 --> 00:18:16,840 things, then, well, it's fitting to express them. 261 00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:20,080 And I think he's right about that if we're talking about 262 00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:24,040 feeling. But feeling hopeful, I believe, 263 00:18:24,040 --> 00:18:29,080 is different then receiving the gift of hope and seeking to bear 264 00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:32,200 witness to that gift through art. 265 00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:37,840 From a Christian perspective, hope is less of a feeling than 266 00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:42,320 it is a revelation. A revelation of a new future, 267 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:46,080 the gift of a new story to inhabit, a new identity to 268 00:18:46,080 --> 00:18:49,720 embrace. And and so hope is a it's a holy 269 00:18:49,720 --> 00:18:54,040 spirited, gifted confidence. So feeling is involved in a God 270 00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:58,760 who has promised to make all things new, even in the midst of 271 00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:01,680 feeling lament and sorrow and despair and everything else. 272 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:06,800 And so seen in that way, hope as a gift, not just as sentiment, 273 00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:14,120 art can witness to hope and not merely make us feel good, but 274 00:19:14,120 --> 00:19:18,360 actually has the potential to reshape us emotionally, to give 275 00:19:18,360 --> 00:19:22,360 us the capacity to feel the fullness of human emotion, 276 00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:27,960 including both grief for what is and joy for what will be. 277 00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:32,960 I mentioned Jeremy Bagby. He's he's a composer and a 278 00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:35,760 musician and a theologian. I commend his work to you. 279 00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:39,600 In in his book Resounding Truth, he writes about the particular 280 00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:44,760 power of of music to voice not only what we currently feel, but 281 00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:47,760 even what we could or perhaps should feel. 282 00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:51,840 He writes, is this not what Bob Dylan did for a whole generation 283 00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:55,000 in the 1960s? Is this not what we shall 284 00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:58,880 overcome did for thousands in the civil rights struggle? 285 00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:04,080 It changed those who sang it. It helped them find fresh hope 286 00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:06,400 and courage. And is this not what the 287 00:20:06,400 --> 00:20:10,680 greatest hymns do? They not only help us sing what 288 00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:13,520 we already experienced emotionally. 289 00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:20,360 To some extent, they also educate and reform our emotional 290 00:20:20,360 --> 00:20:24,080 experience. Now, of course, singing about 291 00:20:24,080 --> 00:20:27,720 what we already experience is a beautiful and wonderful thing as 292 00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:30,040 well, and part of the gift of of art. 293 00:20:30,360 --> 00:20:33,640 Giving expression to human experience, including giving 294 00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:37,680 expression to pain, to trauma. It's a necessary part of 295 00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:41,640 actually developing gritty hope, and it's a part of the gift of 296 00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:46,120 art that out of the bentness of suffering we get the bent notes 297 00:20:46,120 --> 00:20:51,160 of the Blues right out of a sense of God forsakenness, we 298 00:20:51,160 --> 00:20:57,640 get psalms of lament. So expressing pain can begin the 299 00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:00,760 process of healing and developing and clinging to a 300 00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:05,840 kind of weighty gritty hope. And there's a powerful scene in 301 00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:08,920 the film 12 Years a Slave. Has anyone seen this film? 302 00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:12,200 I think illustrates this really well. 303 00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:16,080 It's a film that tells a story about about Solomon, who's 304 00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:18,240 kidnapped in the North. He was forced to be a slave for 305 00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:22,360 12 years in Mississippi. And you know, without a doubt, 306 00:21:22,360 --> 00:21:26,040 his emotional life. It's fear, it's anger, it's 307 00:21:26,320 --> 00:21:30,040 desperation, it's depression. Hope had literally been beaten 308 00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:33,240 out of him. But in the midst of all that 309 00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:36,600 pain and suffering, there's this really moving scene where we see 310 00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:40,800 the enslaved community gathering to sing these these songs of 311 00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:46,600 lament mixed in with hope. Songs like Roll Jordan Roll, and 312 00:21:46,600 --> 00:21:50,600 which through their melodies and lyrics and repetition, it's 313 00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:56,600 slowly coaxing Solomon to sing out of his pain and toward hope. 314 00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:01,440 I think that's what a lot of really good art does move us to 315 00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:06,120 to express our pain toward an emotion we don't yet have, 316 00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:08,680 toward a reality in which we don't even yet live. 317 00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:13,640 And if art can express hope in a way that does not evade evil, 318 00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:17,280 but tells all the truth, slant. And if heart art can express 319 00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:21,480 hope in a way that avoids emotional self indulgence in 320 00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:24,920 order to engage and shape the fullness of our emotional life, 321 00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:30,400 then this kind of hopeful art will be well poised to dodge 322 00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:34,080 that third pitfall of sentimentality, failure to 323 00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:39,560 generate costly action. Sometimes the very activity of 324 00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:43,600 art making and art appreciating is accused of being negligent. 325 00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:45,680 Have you heard this argument before? 326 00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:51,640 That art distracts us from the real work of justice and loving 327 00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:53,560 our neighbor and mercy and compassion. 328 00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:57,520 So the objection is that art is essentially it's a waste of time 329 00:22:57,520 --> 00:23:00,920 and money. It's like fiddling while Rome 330 00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:04,920 burns. And of course, some art does 331 00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,520 that. Some art can wall us into 332 00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:12,920 apathy, cause us to remain, I think, tragically disconnected 333 00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:16,000 with the way things really are from costly action. 334 00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:20,800 But often art that that does that has already fallen into the 335 00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:25,280 two, the first two pitfalls that it's ignoring reality and it's 336 00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:27,000 placating our emotions. OK. 337 00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:32,480 By contrast, the art has had the art that has the courage to make 338 00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:37,640 reality touchable while alluding to the possibility of reality 339 00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:43,240 remade has an essential role to play in any movement for change 340 00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:46,640 in our lives. Personal transformation, social 341 00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,080 justice. Whatever the case may be, art 342 00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:54,280 has the power to help us imagine a new reality, which can then 343 00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:58,400 motivate our individual and collective action, even within 344 00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:01,360 situations that that may seem hopeless. 345 00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,800 In his book Christianity, Arts and Transformation, South 346 00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:10,880 African theologian John Degrucci makes a compelling case for the 347 00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:14,000 necessity of hope and arts in the face of injustice. 348 00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:17,440 The power of arts to to bear witness to that hope. 349 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:21,160 So, he writes, this hope is about the production of a new 350 00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:25,880 reality for a damaged society. This is a far cry from an easy 351 00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:30,360 optimism about the future, but it is also a refusal to succumb 352 00:24:30,360 --> 00:24:34,200 to despair. Hope alone provides the vision 353 00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:38,280 and dynamic for a dynamic social praxis. 354 00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:43,200 During the struggle against apartheid, keeping hope alive 355 00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:46,960 was of the essence. To lose hope was to surrender 356 00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:51,560 the power to bring about change, and the same remains true for 357 00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:54,120 the process of social hearing and transformation. 358 00:24:54,320 --> 00:25:00,280 In a post apartheid era, keeping hope alive is universally one of 359 00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:02,000 the most urgent demands of our time. 360 00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,080 As in the need to offer alternative ways of conceiving 361 00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:07,840 reality and how we envision the future. 362 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:10,360 And that's his bridge to talk about the arts, goes on to 363 00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:16,120 explain how artistic creativity, any kind of creativity, even 364 00:25:16,120 --> 00:25:21,280 when it doesn't have hope as its primary aim, can be indicative 365 00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:26,480 of hope simply because it's making something new out of the 366 00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:30,120 reality that is. So he writes, this artistic 367 00:25:30,120 --> 00:25:33,120 creativity can never be satisfied with Nietzsche's 368 00:25:33,120 --> 00:25:36,400 nihilism, even when it despairs of the world. 369 00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:41,880 For it is of the essence of creativity that it continually 370 00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:47,800 imagines new futures as it seeks to transcend the cul de sacs of 371 00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:51,000 the past. Hope enables us to transgress 372 00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:55,280 boundaries of what is presently deemed realistic and possible. 373 00:25:56,800 --> 00:25:59,200 Another theologian, Wendy Farley, puts it this way. 374 00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:06,320 The very act of creation is a refusal to accept tragedy as 375 00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:09,720 final. Creativity, perhaps 376 00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:14,840 paradoxically, allows us to grieve and lament even as it 377 00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:19,320 testifies by its very existence to the remnant that survives. 378 00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:26,240 And that's the dynamic that TA Nehisi Coates misses, that even 379 00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:31,040 when an artist is not intending to communicate anything hopeful, 380 00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:36,200 the very act of making something new challenges despair. 381 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,200 A work of art encounters us with new mixtures of sounds, new 382 00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,560 combinations of colors, new sequences of words, new 383 00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:49,080 amalgamations of movements. And human artistry is never 384 00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:54,080 creation out of nothing, creation X nihilo, but it's 385 00:26:54,080 --> 00:27:00,040 creation out of anything, creation X aliquo, a fashioning 386 00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,320 of something new, anything new out of what currently is. 387 00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,080 And art is therefore a testimony to the possibility of newness. 388 00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:13,040 No matter what, Artistry is a living, breathing alternative to 389 00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:17,280 ultimate tragedy. You might be familiar with the 390 00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:22,440 story of Vedron Smelovich, cellist who gained notoriety for 391 00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:29,760 playing Albinones Adagio and G Minor in the ruins of a downtown 392 00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:32,600 Sarajevo market following a brutal attack. 393 00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:38,920 And what made him notorious in playing that adagio is that he 394 00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:45,360 didn't just play it once, but he played it over and over for 22 395 00:27:45,360 --> 00:27:50,120 consecutive days. And as one writer puts it, 396 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:56,040 straddling debris balanced between wreckage, he drew his 397 00:27:56,040 --> 00:28:00,200 bow and filled those aching ruins with music. 398 00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:05,800 He's not denying the existence of suffering and death, but he 399 00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:10,840 divide defied death with a song. He showed how something new 400 00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,520 could arise out of the wreckage. And that engenders hope. 401 00:28:15,360 --> 00:28:18,680 That's what the arts can do. The arts are a gift for our 402 00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:22,760 battered lives because they help us to imagine new possibilities, 403 00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:26,320 help us at least begin to wonder what if? 404 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,680 What if, you know, when Jesus began his public ministry, 405 00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:35,440 declaring good news, providing hope to those weary from 406 00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,760 centuries of waiting, battered by the Roman Empire? 407 00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:45,000 His preferred method of communication, stories, images, 408 00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:51,400 metaphors, Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, like yeast, 409 00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,600 like a hidden treasure, like a net, like a banquet with the 410 00:28:54,600 --> 00:29:00,000 most unlikely people and and by using this artful form of 411 00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:05,640 communication, Jesus is helping his hearers imagine the now and 412 00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,080 not yet reality of God's presence in Kingdom. 413 00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:13,200 He is telling slant the truth of God's Kingdom through stories 414 00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,640 and images, helping listeners in every culture. 415 00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:22,520 Now imagine a new economy, a new reality, a new family in which 416 00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:24,840 the last are first and the first are last. 417 00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:30,840 And so, as we inhabit these stories, we are invited to 418 00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:34,880 imagine a new Kingdom emerging within the shadow of empire, 419 00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:39,400 heaven and earth merging, beginning now and on into 420 00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:42,720 eternity. Art can reveal the the 421 00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:46,000 brokenness and get us in touch with all that needs to be 422 00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,880 restored, and then surprise us with delight and remind us of 423 00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:55,920 our deepest longings. There were some who listened to 424 00:29:55,920 --> 00:30:00,280 Jesus parables, both then and now, that dismissed them as mere 425 00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:05,480 fairy tales, nice stories, little or no bearing to reality. 426 00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,920 And to circle back to Coats's words or his question, can't we 427 00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:16,440 just do away with fairy tales? At the same time? 428 00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,840 There's a tender moment in In Between the World and Me, his 429 00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:23,720 book, where he wonders if he's missing something in Speaking of 430 00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:25,560 his distance from the church, he writes. 431 00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:29,320 I often wonder if in that distance, I've missed something, 432 00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:34,400 some notion of cosmic hope, some wisdom beyond my mean physical 433 00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:38,040 perception of the world, Something beyond the body that I 434 00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,640 might have transmitted to you, my son. 435 00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:46,840 And I just wonder, what if the something that Coats could have 436 00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:50,520 transmitted to his son was the gift of fairy tales? 437 00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,440 Fairy tales that exist not because of wishful thinking and 438 00:30:56,200 --> 00:31:01,480 sentimental thoughts, but because good endings are just as 439 00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,680 real, if not more real than tragic ones. 440 00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,680 And if that's true, then fairy tales introduce us to the way 441 00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:15,040 things really are. Broken, yes, but capable of 442 00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:17,800 repair beyond what we can actually imagine. 443 00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:23,000 They introduced us to the possibility of you catastrophe, 444 00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:27,240 that wonderful world word I'm finally getting to in the 445 00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:31,480 subtitle of my talk tonight, You catastrophe. 446 00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:35,800 From sentimentality to you catastrophe did not invent that 447 00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:36,800 word. I wish I had. 448 00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:41,320 It's a great word comes from the writer JRR Tolkien, author of 449 00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:44,600 Beloved Lord of the Rings. And he uses that word, you 450 00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:49,760 catastrophe, to describe the nature of fairy tales, to move 451 00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:53,160 through catastrophe to a good and happy ending. 452 00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,560 And in doing so, Tolkien argues that fairy tales are not an 453 00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:01,480 escape from reality. It's key to his argument. 454 00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:06,200 But they're actually an introduction to primary reality, 455 00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:12,600 the one true story, a story that is propelled by grace and will 456 00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,600 end with the joyous transformation of tragedy into 457 00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,600 comedy. He has this delightful little 458 00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:24,160 essay called on fairy stories. I'll just read a paragraph, he 459 00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:25,680 says. The consolation of fairy 460 00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:30,120 stories, the joy of the happy ending, or more correctly, of 461 00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:33,160 the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous turn. 462 00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:35,960 For there is no true end to any fairy tale. 463 00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:40,680 This joy, which is one of the things which fairy stories can 464 00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:46,200 produce supremely well, is not essentially escapist or fugitive 465 00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:50,160 in its fairy tale or other world setting. 466 00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:56,080 It is a sudden and miraculous grace never to be counted on to 467 00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:59,440 recur. It does not deny the existence 468 00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,400 of this catastrophe, sorrow and failure. 469 00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,200 The possibility of these is actually necessary to the joy of 470 00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,960 deliverance. It denies, in the face of much 471 00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:13,040 evidence, if you will, universal final defeat. 472 00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:21,720 And in so far is Evangelion, A fleeting glimpse of joy, joy 473 00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:25,680 beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief. 474 00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:31,520 And he's talking about the kind of art he's trying to create as 475 00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:36,840 he's writing Lord of the Rings. Yes, it's art that brings us in 476 00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:41,360 touch with reality, but it's also art that gives us a picture 477 00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:47,000 of what could be that includes within its space for for sudden 478 00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:50,120 and miraculous grace for you, catastrophe. 479 00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,120 And I think one of the reasons why Lord of the Rings is so 480 00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,760 powerful and so popular, frankly, is because it's the 481 00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:02,520 kind of art that can truly inspire us and give us gritty 482 00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:07,320 hope which will last and actually enable us to persevere 483 00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:12,960 even when things feel hopeless and to maintain hope in that 484 00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:17,159 ultimate new catastrophe when God will make all things new. 485 00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:20,000 And we need that today more than ever. 486 00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,000 And so I just want to close today with some some wise words 487 00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,159 from a biblical theologian, NT right, who beautifully ties 488 00:34:28,159 --> 00:34:31,960 together some of these themes and shows how art can provide 489 00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:36,600 gritty hope. The Christian contribution to 490 00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:40,000 the world of the arts is therefore neither to collapse 491 00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:44,960 into sentimentality, to murmur the easy half truths which 492 00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:50,199 comfort for a while, but wither in the face of the horror of the 493 00:34:50,199 --> 00:34:57,400 world, nor to connive at that brutalism which under the guise 494 00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:02,120 of telling it like it is. That's Coats denies the very 495 00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:06,240 possibility of hope. The Christian contribution to 496 00:35:06,240 --> 00:35:11,920 the arts must lie along the line of listening to the longing and 497 00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:16,360 groaning of creation, a longing which is itself multi 498 00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:20,120 dimensional because it is the evidence of the spirits groaning 499 00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:25,240 and longing within the world and expressing and portraying that 500 00:35:25,240 --> 00:35:31,600 longing both in its present agony and in its certain hope. 501 00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:40,280 Thanks. All right. 502 00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:44,880 So we have some time for questions. 503 00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,720 So I, I think this is how it's supposed to work. 504 00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:52,440 If you have a question, raise your hand and I'll come racing 505 00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:54,840 over to you with the microphone so everybody can hear the 506 00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:57,920 question. So go. 507 00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:04,120 Kind of strike while the iron's hot. 508 00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:09,360 You use the word slant in a way that I have not heard before. 509 00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,080 I wondered if you could kind of help me with that. 510 00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:14,880 Yeah, absolutely. I'm still on. 511 00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:15,240 Right. Yeah. 512 00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,280 OK. So, yeah, tell all the truth, 513 00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:19,120 but tell. It's slant that comes from Emily 514 00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:23,320 Dickinson's poem where she's talking about it's a defense of 515 00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:27,280 her poetry, but it's a defense of all artistry because she says 516 00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:32,760 that there is a certain success that ends circuit lies because 517 00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:37,000 she says the truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind. 518 00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:41,600 So there's a sense of if truth is presented to us directly and 519 00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:43,000 This is why Jesus taught in parables. 520 00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:46,360 It's just like this is exactly what's going to happen when it's 521 00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:48,640 going to happen. There would have been an 522 00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:52,120 immediate rejection of that. You know, natural defenses go 523 00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:55,960 up, but also there wouldn't have been the kind of genuine 524 00:36:55,960 --> 00:37:01,080 reception that happens when you come into a story, when you 525 00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:05,520 start contemplating an image and you have an aha moment, you 526 00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:09,680 know, So this is David as he's listening to the prophet explain 527 00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:14,200 the story about a man's best loved sheep and it was taken and 528 00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:16,120 slaughter. And he's like, how dare he? 529 00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:19,160 That man must be killed, right? He's got him in the story. 530 00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:25,240 He's like, that's you, bro. That's what Telling Truth Slant 531 00:37:25,240 --> 00:37:30,360 does, is it gets us involved in a way that we are either going 532 00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:33,320 to have to reject it or receive it. 533 00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,000 And that was the response to Jesus Parables. 534 00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:45,040 Yep. Hey, so you know, I agree with 535 00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:54,560 you, but I'm wondering if you think that sometimes art that is 536 00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:58,880 simple and basic and basically still based in Eden. 537 00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:03,760 You know what I mean? Like the dumb sitcom, the just 538 00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:05,800 ridiculous little picture of a bird. 539 00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:11,560 If there isn't justification sometimes for art that hasn't 540 00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:16,960 experienced the fall yet, because we've experienced the 541 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,600 fall and we just need a little break. 542 00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:25,400 Do you know what I mean? So, yeah. 543 00:38:25,720 --> 00:38:27,120 What do you think of that? Yeah. 544 00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,360 For sure, No, absolutely. A couple of things I want to say 545 00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:35,720 about that one. One is not all art needs to do 546 00:38:35,720 --> 00:38:40,040 everything, you know, and some artists are particularly gifted 547 00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,640 to enter the big one true story at a certain point. 548 00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:45,480 Sometimes it's the goodness of creation. 549 00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:46,960 They're really good at portraying that. 550 00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:49,000 Sometimes it's the brokenness of the world, sometimes 551 00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,000 transformation or whatever the case may be. 552 00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:55,400 And you know, so, so that's something to consider. 553 00:38:56,160 --> 00:39:01,600 And also, I think, yeah, it's, it's OK to just have a break in 554 00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:05,400 the Daydream. You know, I think the, the 555 00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:09,800 vision I was trying to put forth is the, the overall role of 556 00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:14,640 Christians in the arts. Like what, what can we make 557 00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,880 that's a unique contribution? And I think it's telling the 558 00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:20,280 whole story and telling the whole story slant. 559 00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:24,320 But there may be times because not all one artist can do it all 560 00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:30,000 and artists have different gifts to, to not focus on the whole 561 00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:32,800 and just take a little part. And it's the goodness of bird 562 00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:36,800 song, you know, that's great. I was in in Nashville just a 563 00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:39,000 couple days ago, and there was an exhibit, this wonderful 564 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,200 artist whose name I'm forgetting in the moment. 565 00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:48,520 But she has just taken these little parchments that she made 566 00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:52,680 and made marks in them as she's listening to birds and as a 567 00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:56,400 record of her attentiveness to birdsong that has just a 568 00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:59,760 lightness to it, you know, that draws you to the beauty of that. 569 00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:05,640 But, you know, her art should exist along other art that 570 00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:09,400 illumines other aspects of reality in other parts of the 571 00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:11,320 story. Yeah. 572 00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,520 Good. Is there a responsibility that 573 00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:20,880 we all have to be participants in, in creating beauty in 574 00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:27,360 different forms? There's there's a lot of, you 575 00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:30,600 know, the the idea of developing good tastes of recognizing 576 00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:34,240 goodness and beauty when we see it and and celebrating it, 577 00:40:34,240 --> 00:40:38,600 admiring it may be commending it to others, but given thank you 578 00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:40,560 for your talk tonight, by the way, but given what you said 579 00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:44,480 tonight, is there is there something that comes out of 580 00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:47,000 this? It's almost a duty for us to 581 00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,560 even just attempt to create beauty. 582 00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:54,840 Yeah, absolutely, 100%. Yeah. 583 00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:59,800 So every single human being is creative. 584 00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:02,880 We are made in the image of a maker to make things. 585 00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:08,480 And our making should follow the pattern of of God's making, you 586 00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:11,360 know, And I love how Dorothy Sayers talks about it in her 587 00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:12,920 wonderful book, Mind of the Maker. 588 00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:16,040 It's like we're all we're all created in God's image to make 589 00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:17,480 things. Could be a spreadsheet, could be 590 00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,280 a Symphony, could be a garden, you know, could be, could be a 591 00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,680 wonderful painting. And we all have ideas for things 592 00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:27,960 to create. We all have certain gifts doing 593 00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,320 this because she talks about it as the triangle of the Trinity. 594 00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:35,520 So we all have the idea to create things and activity or 595 00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:39,560 energy to bring them into the world and inspiration to do so 596 00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:43,040 that also inspires others. And that our ideas and our 597 00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:47,280 making and the power of those things should be oriented to 598 00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:49,920 truth and goodness and beauty, you know, and should. 599 00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:53,280 That's how they give glory to God and, and are good for the 600 00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,840 world and our neighbors. So could be absolutely anything, 601 00:41:57,320 --> 00:41:59,720 but we all are participating in the story in that way. 602 00:42:00,720 --> 00:42:04,480 Yeah. Good evening. 603 00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:07,160 My name is Mac Pitt. Thank you so much for your talk 604 00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:08,120 tonight. It's been wonderful. 605 00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:12,320 So I am a, a college student. I'm studying theater. 606 00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:14,560 I'm actually also studying communication. 607 00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:16,520 So don't worry, I will be making money. 608 00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:22,040 I, I attend a Christian university and part of our 609 00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:24,520 theater department have been involved in a lot of shows. 610 00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:28,760 And one of the, the points that has come up throughout my time 611 00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:33,720 at this particular university is that we will come up with ideas 612 00:42:33,720 --> 00:42:35,480 for shows that you want to do, shows that have been written. 613 00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:38,640 And there's a lot of pushback from our, our Christian 614 00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:41,000 community, from leadership within our school saying that 615 00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:43,760 the Christian message is not Christian enough. 616 00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:47,920 That to the, the art that we are trying to portray does not have 617 00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,040 a, an inherent Christian message. 618 00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:54,400 And in spite of argument, there is a, there's, there's just a 619 00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:57,480 bit of a disconnect there. So just what your thoughts are 620 00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:01,000 on that as far as being in Christian community and what 621 00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:10,760 does portrayal of art look like? I sigh because it's very common 622 00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:18,320 as you know, and unfortunately, I just think when when truth is 623 00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:23,320 the leading filter for the kind of art we produce often 624 00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:27,960 sacrifices beauty and excellence and the slantness that makes art 625 00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:33,920 art, you know, So try to cast a vision for, you know, there's of 626 00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:36,080 course, art always has a message. 627 00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:39,200 Sometimes it's more discernible than other times. 628 00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:41,880 And sometimes that indiscernibility that in the 629 00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:44,480 uncontainability of the truth of the artwork is actually it's 630 00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:47,200 gift because it keeps us exploring. 631 00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:52,760 It ushers us into a reality which is more of a mystery 632 00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,560 rather than something that we can explain in bullet points to 633 00:43:55,560 --> 00:44:00,800 someone, you know. So now I get needing to make 634 00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:04,320 choices about what's being staged or screened or read, 635 00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:06,880 given the fittiness of of the community. 636 00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:11,520 And, you know, so often it's just very contextual. 637 00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:16,760 And depending on the context, I think it's important to gently 638 00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:21,960 push toward a a more robust, like truth, goodness, and beauty 639 00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:24,720 approach to the kind of artwork we're engaging with. 640 00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:29,880 I'd like to know what you think about satire and its role in 641 00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:32,520 creativity. I I when you talked about Thomas 642 00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:36,200 Kincaid, I think of this, this image I saw one time of like a 643 00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:41,360 like a very picturesque Thomas Kincaid landscape and then like 644 00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:43,200 a stormtrooper sky. Yeah, Yeah. 645 00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:44,600 Star Wars. I've seen that too. 646 00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:48,560 Coming in and like, you know, battling down and there's a real 647 00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:51,400 truth to that. But also like the Babylon Bee 648 00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:54,720 and other other satirists and interested in what you think of 649 00:44:54,720 --> 00:44:56,920 that. Yeah, it's, it's wonderful 650 00:44:56,920 --> 00:44:59,640 because it makes strange the familiar. 651 00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:03,400 It's what satire does so well. And, and I think a lot of the 652 00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:08,080 best art, whether it's satire or not, is presenting to us with a 653 00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:13,480 sort of unfamiliar familiarity. Like, Oh yeah, I have that 654 00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:15,320 conversation in the grocery store all the time. 655 00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:18,640 And I've never noticed how absurd that is or how wonderful 656 00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:22,720 it is, you know, and, and also, I think the other gift of satire 657 00:45:22,720 --> 00:45:25,840 is just complexifying reality a bit. 658 00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:31,400 So someone may say something and it means like 1010 different 659 00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:34,000 things. And some of those things are 660 00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,320 difficult. Some of them are funny, some of 661 00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,840 them are ridiculous, you know. So I think it's one of the 662 00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:42,800 wonderful ways of telling truth slants and not taking ourselves 663 00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,680 too seriously as well, which is important importance of not 664 00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:54,160 being to earnest. Hi, thank you so much for 665 00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:59,000 spending your evening with us. I was glancing at your book, 666 00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:03,200 Beauty is Oxygen and the unique aspect that you bring of having 667 00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:06,360 a little O where we're supposed to stop and breathe. 668 00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:09,320 And your talk tonight made me wonder. 669 00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:12,520 And maybe you didn't mean this metaphor to go this far, so I 670 00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:16,000 apologize. But if beauty is oxygen, then 671 00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:21,360 what would you say would be kind of carbon dioxide to our world? 672 00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:28,200 Like, would you say it's sort of that sentimentality and despair 673 00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:31,320 or something to that effect? And also my daughter has a 674 00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:32,800 question. Oh, wonderful. 675 00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:35,800 Go ahead. What's the most beautiful pie 676 00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:38,160 I've ever seen and what made it beautiful? 677 00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:45,240 Beautiful pie or play pie. I love that. 678 00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:49,680 I'm going to start with the easy question, which is growing up, 679 00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:53,520 my mom made these apple pies in the brown paper bag in the oven 680 00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:57,840 and stutch apple pie that I grew up having and most beautiful pie 681 00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:00,160 I've ever tasted. It didn't always look so good, 682 00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:04,200 but it tasted really good. You know, I've never really 683 00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:08,440 thought too much about the carbon dioxide part of it. 684 00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:12,560 I've I've thought about how beauty is oxygen, not perfume. 685 00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:15,960 Thought a lot about that because it's not merely nice and 686 00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:19,720 subjective and something for the privileged, you know, but carbon 687 00:47:19,720 --> 00:47:26,040 dioxide, I think it would be in anything that we are taking in 688 00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,680 in the world. There's going to be the oxygen 689 00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:31,720 part of it and there's a part of it that we don't need. 690 00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:35,480 I mean, because nothing is purely beautiful except God. 691 00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:39,040 So I think, and maybe this is part of. 692 00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:41,320 Sorry, what was your name again? Theater student. 693 00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:43,640 Yeah. So maybe part of the 694 00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:47,360 encouragement too, in engaging with plays and films and such 695 00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:50,040 that aren't Christian, that have difficult content. 696 00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,480 Is there some things in that we need to exhale and not keep 697 00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:57,480 meditating on, not keep as a part of our formation and 698 00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:01,200 discipleship journey, But it is coming to us with things that 699 00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:03,080 are truly beautiful that we need to take in. 700 00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:05,920 So I think, I think probably I would go in the direction of 701 00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:09,600 discernment with that. OK, I'm going to think about it 702 00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:14,960 more. So we have time for one more 703 00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:17,160 question. I see your hand. 704 00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:22,520 But as Piper has reminded us, there is π to be had and 705 00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:25,480 conversation to be had. So we'll do one more question, 706 00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:38,320 you know, and then π. You have this triangle around 707 00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:40,360 art of truth, goodness and beauty. 708 00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:45,360 Would you mind defining what you mean by goodness and beauty? 709 00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:48,920 For I understand them to be kind of the same thing. 710 00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:52,560 Good things are beautiful and and beautiful things are good. 711 00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:54,720 So what exactly do you mean? Sure. 712 00:48:56,480 --> 00:48:59,080 Well, something that frustrates some people when they read 713 00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:03,400 beauty as oxygen is I don't really define beauty because, 714 00:49:03,720 --> 00:49:05,680 you know, beauty is the overflow of who God is. 715 00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:07,000 How are you going to define that? 716 00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:11,360 And, but I think it, it is a good way of what you're 717 00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:14,120 beginning to say of truth, goodness and beauty, that they 718 00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:17,480 are one in a, in the sense that Father, son and spirit are one. 719 00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:23,840 And that you, you might say that beauty is the splendor of God. 720 00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:28,520 And, you know, truth is the integrity of God and goodness is 721 00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:33,600 the, you know, it's the orientation of, of God toward 722 00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:35,600 love. You know, so, so there's a 723 00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:37,480 relationship between all of them. 724 00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:41,480 But I, I'm so passionate that I think a lot of times we have 725 00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:44,720 taken a truth first or a goodness first approach toward 726 00:49:44,720 --> 00:49:48,720 various things in life. And a beauty first approach is 727 00:49:48,720 --> 00:49:50,320 just normally kind of how we live. 728 00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:52,600 Like we're encountered by something first, the shape of 729 00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:55,960 it, you know, the form of it, the splendor of it. 730 00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:00,680 And through beauty, we are drawn to goodness and truth. 731 00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:04,920 Could we thank Doctor Vanderluck one more time? 732 00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:14,000 Thanks, Ed. So if you're like me, you have 733 00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:17,440 an instinct, an instinct that that tells you exactly where the 734 00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:20,760 pie is and it won't be a problem to find. 735 00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:26,040 If you're not like me, it's through the doors and then down 736 00:50:26,040 --> 00:50:28,800 the stairs. You could also just wait and 737 00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:32,520 find the instinctive pie people and just kind of follow them. 738 00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:36,800 But it will be out that way. But on behalf of the Ansem 739 00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:39,360 Society and then I see a study center, we want to thank you for 740 00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:42,760 coming out. Enjoy some pie, some beautiful 741 00:50:42,880 --> 00:50:43,240 pie.