Truthscript Tuesday: Appreciating Art

Welcome once again to truth script Tuesday. It is that time of the week where we go over the articles on the truth script website. And we have two really good ones today. I should mention that a time is coming soon.

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Now.

We have two articles as I said To go over this week. We have one from Chris Ames Called the title is why and I should say this before I get in the article I forgot about this if you notice true script has also it looks really nice On the mobile and the desktop it has a style makeover.

So check that out go to the true script website. We're constantly improving it. Joel our web guy is amazing he just he does this because he believes in it not because he's being paid or because He there's any prestige connected with it.

He just really wants to make sure that True script is as good as it can be and he does an amazing job beyond any expectation I ever had. So Thank You Joel. So first article why should Christians care about art.

My pastor Chris Ames now. Chris Ames is a pastor in the great state of Wisconsin and Boyceville is the actual town he's in but he loves doing outdoor sports like riding his bike hiking in the woods and I actually the privilege of hiking with him a little bit at the men's retreat that truth script sponsored this past October or no, it was actually September and he came all the way out from Wisconsin to enjoy the Adirondack Mountains of New York and He he's sharp.

He knows his stuff, especially when it comes to art and he knows more than me when it comes to art. I gave a lecture at a church in Wisconsin last year and.

He.

He came and he and I was talking about Sublimity and beauty and What Edmund Burke had to say about those things and Thomas Cole and him and he knew all of it. So anyway, I'm looking forward to getting into this with you.

Theological Communication Through Art

The article starts off this way. It says. As Christians, we believe that God communicates truth about himself through the things that he has made. There are examples in Scripture where he invites man to communicate truth in similar ways to cite an occasion.

We wouldn't argue over. He commanded Moses to construct an ark a tent and a courtyard and to cover them with pictures of angels. So that his people could understand what it was like to be near him. Also, he further appointed Moses to make an altar and a washbasin to teach people what it meant to come into his presence.

These few examples demonstrate to us that God expects us to pick up on these things. Which in turn requires that mankind have the equipment to do so. God makes us perceptive to his language in nature so that the unbeliever is without Excuse and the believer may perceive his glory in the heavens.

He made us sensible in such a way that we could look at something like the tabernacle and see something of God's dwelling place in The heavens. God made us to understand a kind of language that speaks not merely to our rational faculties, but to our souls.

But we use this faculty for understanding more than just decoding God's nonverbal communication. We are not only able to receive such communication from the Creator. But also we are able to communicate with other people using nonverbal language.

This is what happens when we make the experience and experience art.

Learning to Recognize Good Art

I.

Believe that good art is one of the best ways to communicate with other people in terms of goodness truth and beauty. The question is whether we or other people really understand the message well enough for art to have its full effect now.

This is. This is great. I mean this is. Reminding me a little bit of there's a great documentary. You can still probably get it online called why beauty matters. Roger Scruton put it out. He hosts this particular documentary.

It's short. Maybe an hour if that it's but it's it's so good. And one of the things that.

He.

With that impressed upon me when I watched it years ago was how? Art has changed so much at least what we call art because what often passes as art today isn't really art. It's anti art. It's the deconstruction of art.

It's trying to Take legitimate art from the past and things that reflect the reality of life in the real world that as God created it as We experience it and then turn it on its head and show that it's a sham.

It's a lie. It's not as Glorious or it's it's not as beautiful as we really think there's there's hidden Under the the surface there's either evil or trash or Just nihilism. It's just meaningless, you know, you you can apply any meaning to it.

And really that means there's no meaning so. It was interesting though because he talks about these faculties being in the past being somewhat Encouraged and strengthened through Discipline really I mean how many people just to pick one example in the arts knew how to play an instrument because they were required in school to know something about music and Today, you can't really even give someone a hymnal and expect them to know what their part is.

They don't even know what a soprano a bass an alto Tenor baritone. They don't know what those things are. And so it's It's we've lost a lot in this regard and I think it appears in our musical taste today and in our art and in our media and and so Really cultivating a good taste for what is true beautiful, which of course streams from the Lord himself is Helpful to producing quality art.

So he says.

He talks about his pilgrimage. He says when I was first encouraged to be interested in any kind of art higher than my beloved Shoe-gaze music a type of alternative rock. See I don't even know what that is.

I found a world so abstracted from reality by an impenetrable hedge of incomprehensible Symbolism. I was like a fool. It was like a foreign language made of signs that had no significance for me. They pointed to exactly nowhere.

I Found classical music unlistenable. Anyone relate to that by the way, you just can't. You'll never turn on that station. If you happen to come across the classical music station, if you still listen to the radio.

You just unless it was in a movie or something. You just have no interest, right? I thought of painting at its best as people doing their best when photography was unavailable to them. See, I actually relate to this.

I felt similar poetry to me was a secret language between pretentious people in summary. I believe that high art was a waste of time a Luxury pursuit for people who in the words of a friend needed it something to do.

To be fair to myself and others some music that we call classical is indeed Unlistenable because modernists intended it to be so some paintings were indeed bare representations without having anything worthwhile to say to the observer some poetry was and is a way of For pretentious people to signal their in-group status to other pretentious people in summary.

Some art really is bad at being art. But does that imply that there is not such a thing as good art and why should I care if there is I I know I'm adding my little personal asides, which hopefully people don't mind and glean from but I remember the North Carolina Museum of Art a few years ago when I was living in Raleigh area my wife and I went and of course, they have a number of modern art pieces there and Exhibits really is what they are because they're not even pieces in some Way ways they're just there are experiences you're supposed to have to reflect on.

I don't know something profound but we don't know sometimes exactly what it is and but then they had a I believe is a Renaissance art section and Just the contrast was incredible how. At least the attempt was to be true to life with the Renaissance art way more so, of course in the modern and of course, there's many different genres of art and and art critics can get into all the nuances of all of that and an impressionism and the neomanticism that impressionism came from and what that how that was a reaction against kind of some of the Renaissance art and how they're both.

Maybe but but I think no matter what kind of art you're looking at you have to admit some of the modern stuff. That's out. There is such a departure from any of it. I mean, it's so outside the scope of things that it is.

It's.

It's actually laughable. It's actually it's funny. It's like a parody of itself. You can't parody it because it in it and of itself is a ridiculous thing often and. And I think it's okay to say that's bad.

I mean, that's what I said I think. My wife might have even thought I was a little judgmental in that that day because I was really bothered by some of these pieces. I'm just like I paid a lot of money to get in here.

And this is what am I looking at? And and so I Think there is bad art objectively bad art. There's good art and it's not the same as morality. It's not in the sense that we don't have like a thou shalt and then there's particular measurements or Curves that you're supposed to have our colors that you're supposed to have or it's not it's not rigid like that.

That's I think part of. The reason some people think it's so subjective because it's not it's it's not like morality in that way. Where you have some very rigid rules thou shalt not murder thou shalt not commit adultery thou shalt not.

Y 'all should honor your father and mother. I mean, these are things that we have in the Ten Commandments. You don't have the same kind of guidelines for art, but I would like to suggest that there are guidelines and and we're gonna get to some of that I think in this piece so He says to get to the point where I could Even begin to think in terms of good art and bad art.

I needed to undergo some deep changes in my own thinking. Believe it or not. The changes began when a preacher told me that rock music was an awful evil thing that would kill things like house plants pets and brains.

Actually, they'd done experiments and yes, you play classical music you play rock music plants die and they live but it's classical. It's interesting how that works. I did not and do not believe him though.

I will defend his right to say what he said. However, he did make a tangential point about the moral formation that happens with what he called good Christian music. Examples of which he conveniently had for sale on the back table this tangential point Struck with me because it was reasonable.

Why wouldn't good Christian music be more suitable to moral formation than my then current died offender jazz masters through fuzz pedals? Here arose a problem the music he was selling simply wasn't good nor did it strike me as particularly Christian.

I knew enough to tell that much. I did not know what music good music was, but I did know that this was simpering. Worbly sentimental stuff and it just wasn't good. So the stuff in church he says wasn't particularly good.

He recalls thinking that holy holy holy seemed to be written by a different type of person altogether from the person who wrote Jesus is all the world to me. There was something there beyond my tastes beyond the bare words.

That was real, but I could not explain the difference and often failed in trying. It's so true. By the way, I have some of these exact same thoughts at times. And I mean, I sound like an old man. I guess that's what my wife will tell me at times but oh.

So many I would say the majority the vast majority of new Christian music when I hear it and I don't listen to CCM if you want to. I don't even know if they call it that still it's a contemporary Christian.

But you know when people send me something I'll listen and so much of it. It's just so poor musically. It's just so bad. Not not because it's you know, well, sometimes the words are also bad, but I'm saying the music itself.

And it strikes me as odd because you know, the sacred music is. You think of like the hallelujah chorus in handles Messiah? I mean It just stirs your heart. How can we don't produce music like that anymore?

Not as much. I mean, it's a it's a fair question. Providentially I had a professor in college and in another in seminary who could steer my confusion about art toward understanding. They encouraged me to keep interacting with art insisting that behind that impenetrable hedge was something worth pursuing.

Slowly, but surely I began to see glimpses of sunlight through the thorns. They told me what I would tell you keep interacting with art until the sunlight shines through. The simpering worldly sentimental stuff really is deficient and there is something out there that is real and worth pursuing.

To this day. I am no scholar of aesthetics nor really a scholar of any stripe. I am a second generation bicycle mechanic who responded affirmatively to a call to ministry my high school and undergraduate Education with a few bright exceptions could justly be compared to the larval stage of a beetle.

My seminary degree was mostly designed to help me understand and teach the Bible. Aesthetics were not part of that along the way, though he he says I read a handful of books and articles that were truly helpful and.

And.

Helped him understand this. So he says the this point in the essay. We should be in a convenient time to transition to a nice tidy method for understanding why the tacky shallow sentimental stuff is Objectively inferior to the good stuff.

Okay, so have you wondered why? A song that's sappy and sentimental. Should I pick one? I'm trying to think now. Man I know so many of them and now like not one is floating to the surface. Oh How man.

Oceans oceans if people know that song, okay, I think you think of that song. Compare that to a mighty fortress.

All right.

Very different, you know hundreds of years apart from each other what's what is it about a mighty fortress that stands the test of time and That that oceans just eat. In fact, some of you who are younger might not even know what I'm talking about.

Why is that why is that something that will fade away now? Here's here's a modern song that I think will stand the test of time more so than say oceans in Christ alone. Why is in Christ alone? Better music than oceans, right?

He says There really isn't one. However, because we encounter art and I should probably back up instead of I'm almost starting mid-sentence. It seems okay, so It would be a convenient time to transition to the method right?

Let's give us the rule. How do you know what good stuff is versus bad? So there is there isn't one. There's not a rule because we encounter art in a way not not not a strict rigid rule. I should say we encounter art in a way that involves the soul and not just the intellect.

Even reading helpful art critics is like Looking at a cookbook. You don't really know what the food tastes like until you experience it for yourself. It is our souls that need to improve and not merely our intellects.

It was worth fighting my short attention span to listen to handles Messiah because it replays my attention with glimpses of glory. It was worth teaching myself to stop and look at paintings. So so in other words, you're forcing yourself to eat the broccoli.

When you're used to chocolate, that's what he's saying. Look, I like chalk. Well, I like chocolate when it's got nuts in it or something else. I do I I'm weird. I don't like a lot of like straight dark chocolate.

My family does. I'm not into that but. The thing is like like rock music or you know, I listen to a lot of Not really modern country that's on the radio as much but I but I listen to the country genre.

I used to listen to the stuff on the radio now. It's more like curated stuff from iTunes that is more traditional sounding but but that you know, that's not the same quality. It's not it's not in the same as it's good.

Some of it's really good in my opinion and there's really good rock music out there, but there is a difference. I think we can sense it when you listen to something like candles Messiah. So it's good to have the candy.

It's good to have to eat some bread and meat too, but it's also good to have the vegetables, right? So so Sometimes you have to force yourself to acquire a taste for something. She says it was worth my time to slog through some poetry and it was a slog as I recall because the good poets could Get past the barricades of my secularized mind and tell me something true about the world.

Good art is good and true and beautiful and it's worth your attention. As stated above God himself communicates with us in ways that are not merely statements of fact. We should not be surprised to find.

But the same faculty that allows us to interpret art has a primary place in the intellectual life of the Christian disciple. Roughly a third of the Bible is poetic in form teaching us. Not only what we need to know.

But also how we ought to feel about it. Symbolism of a highly visual sort abounds in the apocalyptic writings where the point that God is making is often not Here are the bare facts. But rather something more like you are too puny to understand me.

We are to minister to one another not simply with propositions, but with psalms hymns and spiritual songs. Why should you care about art. Because when you listen and you learn to interact with art. You have new tools at your disposal to understand and appreciate God as word in his works and Perhaps you will have new tools for expressing your appreciation for his goodness truth and beauty as well.

So great article from Chris Ames. I hope he'll write more on this. There's so much to explore with art and You know, I was driving the other day with my wife past a hospital in our area. That's a new build and it's right along the Hudson River and It's a it's modern looking which I tend to like traditional looking houses or buildings with Some 3d structure to them and but but but I have to say for a modern building.

It's actually pretty good. It's kind of in an s-shape. It's it's creative. It's not just a box which yes for so long that's what it seemed like government buildings and just bit like hospitals were boxes and It also goes along I think with It flows with the scenery around it to some extent with the river.

With the kind of the hills the curvy hills that are right near there. It just kind of It blends in better than if it were a box. It would stick out like a sore thumb like there's something to that an architecture used to be more like that where It was the point wasn't necessarily to make a big statement about the architecture.

But instead to complement the scenery To to fit in to to blend with what God had already made there. And so even something like that when you look at it and you get a certain feeling it produces within you a certain you might not even have words for what that feeling is, but it's there and So that there is something that you can identify.

Which means there's something you can sink your teeth into there is an object objective nature to this even though Certain pieces of art could potentially hit us in different ways depending on a number of factors.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't meaning or that there isn't you know that God did not design us necessarily to interpret certain sounds and And and things we see In in certain ways, even if we can't put those things to words, so how's that for clarity?

But it's it's the closest I can come in this particular article, and I think he did a great job. Just Encouraging us to take that step. Listen, maybe turn on the classical music station for a little bit.

Just listen to it for a bit and see what you think. I never thought I'll say this in closing I never thought that I would be interested in listening to The Anglican choirs chant psalms, and I love it I mean, it's just it's it took time for me to get there.

And.

Doesn't mean I'm holier or anything like that. It just means I appreciate something before. I did not appreciate because.

I.

Experienced enough good art that I could recognize what good art is. All right. Well, let's talk about this next article by Justin Puckett when life politics and theology collide. This is a sad story and man, I was hoping to cover this on conversations that matter and I'm glad I'm covering it here.

And I'm glad Justin Puckett wrote this article. It has been a long-standing trope on both sides that there is to be a separation of church and state. Some say it's not constitutional. Even though it was found nowhere in our founding documents.

There's a topic that many of us should be familiar with right now given all the talk about Christian nationalism. Which regardless of what it is you believe that term means is a relevant topic. I'm not here to discuss that topic as there are far more qualified intelligent and learned men doing so already.

However, I would like to look at a clear example of why we need to be discussing these issues and why it matters. So here's a good example of this the AP just published a piece about a baby named Indy Gregory in the UK and The Guardian put out a more detailed article, but but Indy was born with a rare disease leaving her mentally incapacitated.

She was deemed incurable and died after being removed from life support per her government's orders. Now you heard that right not her parents even the government. Both articles claim the child died as though the disease had just run its course and her death was a natural result.

The truth is the government and their team of highly educated medical experts murdered a child. Against her parents will because it was in the best interests of the child and according to the Guardian.

It is the parents fault because they failed to convince the judge otherwise. Now this story should concern us for many reasons. This is a continuation of our culture's fascination with death and utter.

Destruction of the image of God this also took place in England a country where a king was recently established through a very Christian Ceremony, it's archaic, but it's still there. England has not been a Christian nation for some time mostly due to the Anglican Church's capitulation.

But it is a stark picture of the future of our country. So, you know England he's saying England's ahead of us and I think that's true or you could say Behind. I mean it's into going into the abyss. England is ahead of us at this point.

There is no such thing as separation of church and state despite what some recent evangelicals say about it. I'm not gonna get into all of this. Let's see. The the tragic situation is entirely consistent so what's happening right now is saying with abortion and all of this is People are living out their new faith their new pagan faith.

And they have their their own sources of Authority according to their scriptures. It's a waste of space time and resources to try to keep a sick baby alive because they don't contribute to society in any way.

Right, so they have their philosophies that tell them. This makes sense to let this baby die. And I mean, it's treating us like we're animals. I mean, there's an evolutionary component to this. Since 2020 there has been incredible clarity of our world around us.

And.

I mean how many of us have changed what we think about the world and about our government and health care and so many things. Because of 2020 even our churches how many of us have a mistrust that was not there before.

We have technological advancement and education that have deceived us into thinking we are morally superior to our tribal pagan ancestors. We scoff at ancient paintings of Aztecs and Canaanites sacrificing children to their gods while we do it by the millions.

Such a good point to think we've made moral progress is insane. This is actually I'm just gonna go on a little tangent here. I I'm planning at some point. I don't know if it'll be this week because so many things keep coming up That need my attention, but I'll just say a little aside here.

There's an article and It's from someone who's an evangelical who's in a conservative news organization on the topic of slavery and.

I.

Think I'm probably gonna be talking about this a whole lot more. As not because I want to but because it doesn't die. It doesn't go away. Like this is a constant discussion and And I think I may even do like a four-part series just trying to.

I mean, I've read enough about it that What we're being told or what's even just commonly assumed is not true. We are we are so duped into thinking Into it doesn't mean that it's all good. It's not at all.

But it it's also and I want to get into the details of it right now. But but it's also something that when you compare to the depravity that is around us right now. It's insulting. It really is if you compare, okay.

There was a time in world history and it's not just the United States. Okay, this United States you know five percent of the slaves that came from the transatlantic slave trade wound up in the US the rest wound up in the Caribbean and South America.

And of course, you know a greater numbers went to the Arab world. From the sub-saharan Africa and that's just one, you know one slave trade you have what happened in Europe with the Turks and with the Muslims in southern France and what and I mean You know, even the word slave comes from slob, right?

I mean, this is every people group has Experienced this on some level going back you know to the beginning almost and. And so this is just a labor relationship that Existed in different forms in different times and Today when we've supposedly don't have it.

Although I think there's a number of things that you could say might qualify, but we don't have chattel slavery. So We think we're so better. This is the thing that bugs me. We're so much better than the people of the past than our forefathers.

We've advanced so far beyond them haven't we and then you look at what we're doing, this is just one example, but It doesn't even stack up to the millions of children that have been murdered the most innocent among I mean, it's Unbelievable, and then you have a state like, Ohio.

And.

You look at the demographics. I mean Women I mean put that through I mean, it's it's amazing and demographics matter to I was looking at The they broke it down I guess it was an exit poll but Like I think it was Latinos.

It was over 70 voted in favor of Legalizing abortion in Ohio. And so so the border crisis, you know that all plays into this point being though that.

It's.

Incredible to me that. This is acceptable to a large portion a majority in some places of the population and especially among mothers. Among among the people or I should say women who? Potentially could or have been mothers.

They're the ones that are voting in this stuff. How do you make sense of that that that's a level of depravity that we're so used to we don't see it necessarily as depravity. But it's egregious. I'm off my soapbox now.

I think I've spent more time on my soapbox than I probably have reading the article. But I felt like I needed to say it and you know, the Lord is gonna judge those kinds of things. All right. We can no longer continue down this this road as the people of God and be ignorant of his word.

Which is our only foundation and weapon. Our worldview must be biblical informed and spoken. This means we must be as familiar with that dusty first third. Three-fourths I should say of our Bible as the last quarter.

So in other words our Old Testament. No more softening nor new euphemisms. No more compromise. Let's be clear bold truth proclaimed. Against the prophets of Baal neutrality with the world has never been a luxury of God's people.

James 4 for you adulterers. Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility? Toward God therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world sets himself as an enemy of God. Luke 11 23 he who is not with me is against me.

He does not gather with me scatters. So anyway. Quotes. Elijah Says we cannot merely destroy what the enemy is built with nothing to take its place. We must be building at the same time. There's a point I make a lot on my other podcast we need to build churches communities families.

Institutions all of these things and and there's room for everyone with every skill that you can possibly have. Okay. So as I read those articles all I could wonder was where is the church? Where are the men where Moses Elijah John the Baptist men who will stand for truth speak the truth and give their lives for truth?

In England, they're all but extinct or under house arrest which allowed for this to happen.

Ah.

Ultimately, the only way to win this fight is with the sword of the gospel repentance and forgiveness of sins through the shed blood and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the only way and we must not kid ourselves into devising any other means.

The actors of evil and their victims need a miraculous change of heart and mind which can only be done by their Creator and. So this is a great article and. And encouraging at the end. I mean, it's it can be pretty dismal as you're leading.

You're just thinking about this little baby who it's not. Even I mean. You look at the picture here. It's just it absolutely breaks my heart. That this precious life was allowed to die the way that it's.

Because the government determined it was more efficient. Yeah, well that is it for truth script Tuesday. Again if you want to support the kind of content We're putting out Go to the donate tab if you want to submit an article go to the publish tab at the bottom.

And I do look forward to seeing you Lord willing next Tuesday for our true script Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Maybe we'll have some articles on Thanksgiving. Maybe some people will submit something. That would be great.

And in fact, let me give a suggestion as I close here. It would be awesome if there's a historian out there who can write something on The first Thanksgiving in America, and I'm not talking about the pilgrims.

So I'll just leave that hanging there to see if someone writes if so, if not, maybe I'll just explain it next week on the podcast.

But.

Hope you all if you don't if for some reason it doesn't happen next week. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. God bless.