In the majority world, the marketplace is an actual location where traditional religious festivals, daily communal activities, and the selling of local goods and crafts take place. Every participant in the market is a maker of costumes and artifacts, dance and song, music and story. In the west, we find a fluid marketplace of ideas, commerce and politics, with its incomprehensible number of locations, specializations, information and entertainment technologies. The trained artist seeks to penetrate this marketplace, to find opportunity, livelihood, and perhaps notoriety. In both marketplaces, Christians are often denied participation in the festival of the market.
The festival of the market
The arts can address and bring attention to the social and political issues
of the marketplace and move people to change their thinking and their attitudes.
It is of utmost importance that artists who seek to follow Jesus enter the
marketplace and do so with the full support of their local church body. The
church, however, has traditionally been suspicious or fearful of releasing
its artists into the “secular” realm, believing that they have
sold out and are compromising their faith. Faulty theology often immobilizes
those artists who are called to celebrate their creative gifts in the centre
of the culture.
•A stream of Christians involved in the performing and fine arts are surfacing in the tapestry of European cultures. This new breed of artists—many who are working in the marketplace—are finding the inspiration for their art and life through their ongoing relationship with the God of the bible. They prefer to be known simply as artists, rather than “Christian” artists. Their art, work ethic, dignity, passion and compassion reveal their identity as Christians. Although their works do not often contain biblical references, they convey perspectives, values and truths that are consistent with scripture. Recognizing that the arts are the rhetoric of European society, they traverse the highways and byways of culture. They understand that art ultimately reveals something of the worldview of the art-maker and that art bends and influences society. However, they are neither utilitarian nor pragmatic in the exercise of their craft, nor do they often use their art in the direct service of evangelism. Yet, their aim is to love and serve their audience and to obey Christ’s mandate to be salt and light. They are piercing the darkness with light and depositing salt for healing into the wounds of a broken society.
Artists in the cultural marketplace need support, encouragement and accountability. We must put aside our suspicions and recover the biblical teaching that Christ is Lord of all creation, including culture. The marketplace is in need of a Christian presence, not abandonment. The church should be intentional about sending artists as agents of reconciliation into the world, into all aspects of the entertainment industry, or as a presence at local, national and international arts events. Because the arts shape culture, we need a new generation of artists who will enter the marketplaces of our various cultures to be the yeast that will leaven the bread with the energizing presence of the Spirit.
• Janeric was the first Swedish artist to be officially invited
to mount an exhibition in Riga, Latvia. Realizing his lack of knowledge about
that country, he visited it in order to understand the people, pray and sense
God’s heart for this Soviet-occupied nation. Following several months
of intense artistic creation, the exhibition of his work began.
One of the exhibited pieces, entitled 70x7, was based on Jesus’ reply
to Peter in response to the question of how many times we are to forgive.
Jesus had replied not seven (the perfect number) but seventy times seven (without
limit). One year after the exhibition, Latvia gained its freedom. Several
articles appeared asking what should be done to those who had been responsible
for the injustices they had all suffered. Several solutions were discussed.
In one newspaper article, Janeric’s painting 70X7 was shown with the
caption, “Is there a limit to forgiveness?” The painting subsequently
appeared at an exhibition in former East Germany, where it became part of
the lengthy process of reexamining the role of the hated secret police, the
Stasi.
The Christian working in the marketplace as an artist needs to have a lifeline to the church. As with all its missionaries, the church needs to care for its artists on the frontline of secular culture by providing adequate spiritual foundations and accountability to enable their calling and ongoing discipleship. Artists need space—space to create, space to experiment, space to take risks and even make mistakes. As much as their art, artists are works in progress, and much patience is required to allow the Master Artist to work in and through them. We encourage church leaders to initiate dialogue with its artists in order to foster the mutual respect that will facilitate a healthy relationship and promote that much-needed accountability.
Principles for the marketplace
What principles should guide artists in the “grey areas” of the
market place? First, it is important to ask why something is considered to
be a “grey” area and find out who says so. Are they culturally
grey, uncertain, socially taboo, or is it something to be avoided because
scripture makes clear the practice is unacceptable for a follower of Jesus?
What might be considered grey? In the arts there is plenty to challenge the biblical standards. Performance art, theatre, and dance may have a questionable moral and ethical base. In fine arts, creative writing, painting, sculpture, and photography we could ask how an artist might edit their work—what they leave in and what they leave out of the frame. We should be guided by the scriptural charge that whatever we do, to do it all to the glory of God. We are further exhorted to be guided by "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things" (Phil. 4:8). The teaching of scripture in context is our signpost. Do the cultural signposts point us towards or away from God? All choices have consequential results. What voices are we listening to?
OBSTACLES
Artists are prevented from effectively following Christ’s example
to enter the cultural marketplace when they or the church culture exhibit
any of the following;
• Fear of sellout and compromise
• A view of culture as outside of God’s concern
• An escapist attitude toward culture
• Use of language, symbols and metaphors that do not resonate with the
culture
• Lack of spiritual accountability on the part of artists
• Few non-Christian relationships
• A view of work in the marketplace as unspiritual
• Absence of a kingdom perspective
STRATEGIES
The church and its artists will more effectively engage and influence
the marketplace through the following strategies:
1. Commission and pray for marketplace artists called as cultural “missionaries”
2. Encourage artists to enter the marketplace to be salt and light
3. Create works of spiritual and artistic excellence that permeate the culture
4. Network believing artists working in the marketplace, for support and encouragement
5. Establish bible study and prayer groups in the different entertainment
industry groups
6. Establish art galleries, participate in art exhibitions, and fund touring
gallery shows
7. Partner with community architects to transform community aesthetics
8. Negotiate public space for innovative art installations
9. Validate the arts as a career option for Christians called to engage the
culture
BIBLICAL CASE STUDY (4)
The redemptive lessons of a bronze serpent
The Israelites had fallen back into the predictable pattern of grumbling against Moses and described the food God provided for them as “loathsome.”
Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." (Numbers 21: 6-7)
So Moses prayed for the people and a long-suffering God responded;
The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone
who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake
and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked
at the bronze snake, he lived (Numbers 21: 8-9).
God’s original intention
God told Moses to make a symbol, a likeness of the deadly serpents, and put
it on a pole. Everyone who looked at this symbol was healed, forgiven, and
restored. This was God’s original intention when He commissioned Moses
to make the bronze serpent. However, the symbol became the focus of attention,
instead of the one that it pointed to. To find out what happened, we must
fast-forward 700 years to the time of King Hezekiah.
He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the
Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up
to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (II Kings 18:4)
God’s original intention distorted
This bronze serpent had become an idol. God’s original intention for
it had become distorted. In repentance, Hezekiah smashes it to pieces. This
symbol of God's healing, forgiveness, and restoration, now lay shattered on
the ground. Hezekiah’s action was the fruit of repentance. He dealt
with the distortion. When distortions are dealt with, restoration is a divine-human
possibility. It would be another 700 years before the bronze serpent appeared
again in the narrative of the Jewish people.
God’s original intention restored
A Jewish ruling council member readied himself and set out under cover of
darkness, to find answers to troubling issues (John 3:14, 15). In His conversation
with Nicodemus, Jesus likened His upcoming death on the cross to the lifting
up of the serpent in the wilderness. Those who looked to Him would also be
healed, forgiven, and restored. The journey of the bronze serpent had come
full circle. It had found its deepest fulfillment in the crucified Christ,
who had come to restore God’s original intention for His creation.
TO: Epilogue