At the end of this brief series of texts on Christian faith and art, the question we ask ourselves is: how can we contribute to the production of Christian art?kind of art?
In the book Art Needs No Justification, Rookmaaker mentions four fundamental attitudes that Christian artists must adopt today: the first is to deplore the state of aesthetic mediocrity in which we live today; the second is to pray, for the recognition that this state cannot. Thirdly, Rookmaaker says that Christian artists must understand how we come to this state of mediocrity, as well as what it means to be a Christian these days, so that they can work, in a movement that requires three things:
- 1.
- Courage.
- Being a Christian does not mean being a genius.
- For this reason.
- The Christian artist needs the courage to experiment.
- To try.
- To make mistakes.
- To recognize his mistakes.
- To go back; courage to face the creative process.
2. Perseverance. After all, cultural changes do not happen overnight. It’s likely that many artists won’t even see the changes they’ve wanted and worked to make. promotion of a culture, that there will be great transformations.
3. Humility. The Christian artist must be humble in the sense that he should not ignore the whole tradition of thought and aesthetic production that preceded him. Recognizing yourself as part of a tradition is essential so that the Christian artist does not get lost in Messiah syndrome. In addition, humility is a necessary virtue for the Christian artist to face the contemporary environment in which personal recognition is often the main objective of artists. The challenge for a Christian artist is to make his work known without his name; in fact, the beauty that expresses your work?The beauty of God occupies the central place. The words of John the Baptist adapt well to the Christian artist: Christ must grow and I will diminish.
The church has an important place in this process, as we said, the path of change in the arts is a change of culture and no one changes culture alone, do artists need writers for books, thinkers with new thoughts, politicians to offer other solutions, and preachers and pastors who help them see the way and follow it (ROOKMAAKER, Art needs no justification , p. 36). In the case of the Church, this cultural change can begin in a very simple but difficult way: the liberation of Christianity from utilitarian captivity and the promotion of an integral Christianity, which recognizes the lordship of Christ throughout life.
There is an urgent and necessary need to support the arts, churches should encourage creative people in the community and not try to force them to spiritually justify what they are doing, nor should they focus on the appearance of pamphlets, recognizing creativity only when they can. to be used in a program, on the contrary, it must be appreciated for what it is, a gift from God (SCHAEFFER, F. Addicted to Mediocrity, p. 59).