Mark D. Harris

MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv

PhD Student – World Religions, SBTS

ThM Student – Christianity and the Arts, SBTS

https://mdharrismd.com/2015/12/10/christianity-and-the-arts/

THE LOCAL CHURCH, THE ARTS, AND

SHAPING THE WORLD FOR CHRIST

OBJECTIVES – ATTENDEES WILL:

• Describe the arts and discuss shaping the world

• Discuss how members of other religions use the Arts to shape the

world to their liking.

• Summarize the history of the Arts in Christian work.

• Describe how the arts help:

• Teach ethics and morality

• Meet human physical and psychological needs

• Build communities

• Reveal the person of God

• Discuss how churches and parachurch organizations today are using

the arts to effectively shape their world for Christ.

THE ARTS DESCRIBED

• Types

• Music

• Visual arts – painting, photography, sculpture

• Architecture

• Literary arts – poetry, prose

• Performing arts – dance, theater

• Description (instead of definition)

• Western aesthetics - “the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to

aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary

significance.”

• Most of the world – “used to worship God, praise great people, express emotion,

communicate information, make money, and accompany other actions from building

furniture to flying airplanes

• Christian Arts - Art by professed Christians, Art with Biblical or Christian themes, and Art

created for a Christian audience

SHAPING THE WORLD

• Everyone tries to modify their world for their own benefit –food/shelter, work, relationships, religion

• Groups do the same thing - Businesses, governments, other organizations

• Even animals modify their environment to their own benefit

• Shaping the World for Christ means:

• Bringing others to a saving faith in Christ

• Building godliness in current believers and communities

• Shaping the greater society with a Christian understanding of the world

USES OF THE ARTS

• Thought of Western aesthetic – the arts are for contemplation and

reflection.

• Thought of most of the world throughout history – THE ARTS ACT –

they shape the world to the interest of the artist and the community.

SHAPING THE WORLD - THE ARTS USED IN HEALING

AND WORSHIP

• Sri Lankan Sanni Masks

• Mask corresponds to symptom

(headache, fever, etc.)

• Mask used in dance and song ritual

to cure disease

• Christian Catacomb Art

• Christ the Good Shepherd

• Peter and Marcellinus

• Used for worship

HOW MUSLIMS HAVE USED ART TO SHAPE THE

WORLD

Selimiye Mosque, Edirne,

Turkey, 1575 – Architect

Mimar Sinan,

Tapestry made in the Muslim

world by Muslim artist

How can these works of art shape the world for Islam?

HOW HINDUS HAVE USED ART TO SHAPE THE

WORLD

Durga Temple, Fairfax Station, VA

Angor Wat, Cambodia

HOW BUDDHISTS HAVE USED THE ARTS TO

SHAPE THE WORLD

Buddhist temple at

Borobudur, IndonesiaPainting of the

Buddha, Thailand

HOW CHRISTIANS HAVE USED THE ARTS TO SHAPE

THE WORLD

• Early Rome – house churches used simple art such as fish, bread, etc.

• Themes shared with Jewish religion

• Later Rome – Christians taking over pagan temples and adapting pagan art to

Christian themes

• Middle Ages – Christendom culturally dominant in Europe

• Art to reveal God, support Church, exalt kings and control people

• Renaissance and Reformation – Protestant reaction against Catholic

excesses in art.

• Modern Period – Christendom retreating and secularism/liberalism advancing

in the West.

• Except music, Church largely out of the arts

• Postmodern Period – Church rediscovering the power of all of the Arts in

shaping the world for Christ.

USING THE ARTS TO…

• Teach ethics and morality

• Meet human physical and psychological

needs

• Build communities

• Reveal the person of God

THE ARTS TEACHING ETHICS AND MORALITY – PROCESSION TO CALVARY

DISCUSSION

• The painting

• Where is Jesus?

• Who are the red clad men?

• Why is Jesus in 1st century garb and everyone else in 16 th century

clothing?

• Why is the windmill atop the strange mountain?

• What are the bystanders in the picture doing?

• The painter

• Pieter Brueghel (1525-1569), Netherlands

• The times

• Reformation and Dutch Revolt against Hapsburg Spain

• How could this painting shape the world for Christ?

THE PRODIGAL

SON

What do you see?

What do you feel?

DISCUSSION• The Painting

• The bystanders – not seeming to understand

• The prodigal – ragged clothes, shaved head and face, one shoe, the image of pain, poverty, and shame

• The older brother – disdainful, stiff, proud, holding himself apart from the joyful reunion

• The father – embracing, forgiving, left hand larger than right, humbling himself

• The Painter – Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669)

• How could this painting shape the world for Christ?

• As Christians, who do we identify with? Whom should we become?

SUSANNA AND THE

ELDERS -

DANIEL CHAPTER 13

• Two voyeurs observe

Susanna bathing.

• They request sexual favors

and she refuses.

• They accuse her at the

council of meeting a lover in

the garden, a capital offense.

• Daniel appears, cross-

examines the elders,

discovers their lies.

• The men are convicted and

executed.

• Justice is served

SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS

GIUSEPPE BARTOLOMEO CHIARI (1654-1727)

What do

you see?

What do

you feel?

SUSANNA AND

THE ELDERS

(UTRECHT

SCHOOL)

What do you see?

What do you feel?

DISCUSSION ABOUT SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS

• What do the various paintings portray?

• How do you suppose the perspectives of men and women would

differ?

• Who are you in the picture?

• What moral lesson does this teach?

• How else could this impact your ministry?

THE ARTS MEETING HUMAN PHYSICAL AND

PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS

• Biophilia

• Natural light and outside

greenery (accessible

through large windows)

decrease anxiety,

depression, and negative

thoughts

EVIDENCE BASED DESIGN AND BIOPHILIA

• Fort Belvoir Community Hospital

• Gardens speed healing

• Large nature photographs decrease blood pressure, stress

• National Intrepid Center of Excellence,

WRNMMC

• Traumatic Brain Injury

• Psychological Health

• Healing arts therapy (music, painting,

drawing

• Similar design as FBCH to achieve

similar effects

OTHER MEDICAL FACILITIES

• Cleveland Clinic

• Art displays benefit mood in visitors

• Water features and gardens

improve overall health

THE ARTS BUILDING

COMMUNITIES

• Communities of artists

and communities of art

lovers

• Where do Christians

artists in your area form

communities?

• Sainte Chapelle, Paris - Consider how a

peasant farmer living in squalor could

feel the presence of God in this church

• The Light

• The towering walls

• The echo of the Gregorian Chants

THE ARTS REVEALING THE PERSON OF GOD

• Kreuzberg Monastery,

Germany

• Consider how an illiterate

Christian could learn about the

Passion from the stations of

the Cross

AGNES DEI (1635-1640)

What do you see? What do you feel?

DISCUSSION

• The painting

• The lamb is bound for slaughter

• The whiteness and detail of the lamb contrasts with the indistinct

blackness of the background

• The halo suggests that this is more than just an ordinary lamb

• The lamb is not resisting but passively awaits what is to come

• The painter - Francisco De Zurbaran (1598-1664)

• Spanish, painting for monasteries near Seville

• The times

• Spain was the first modern global empires, “Golden Age to 1659”

• The ongoing Spanish Inquisition

• How could this painting impact your ministry?

USING THE ARTS

TO SHAPE THE

WORLD FOR

CHRIST IN 2017

PITFALLS

• The local church remains a church, not an art studio.

• The arts supplement, they do not replace, the Word in the church.

• Arts can lead to idolatry.

• Pastors and congregants may feel inadequate to use art well.

• Music has been a battlefield in the church for millennia. Visual and

other arts can become the same.

CONCLUSION

• The arts have been used extensively in history for Christian

work.

• The arts help:

• Teach ethics and morality

• Meet human physical and psychological needs

• Build communities

• Reveal the person of God

• Churches and parachurch organizations today are using the arts

to effectively shape their world for Christ.