Earlier this Fall, I wrote a blog entry for the Art House America blog on the relationship between Worship and Justice.  The piece was part of a longer bit I wrote about the triad of Art, Worship and Justice. If you’ve not yet read the initial posting at Art House America, you can do so here. Below is the continuation of that thought.

——

In his book “The Dangerous Act of Worship” Mark Labberton writes

“The perception that issues of justice and issues of worship are separate or sequential or easily distinguishable shows the inadequacy of our theology: both of worship and of justice”
-The Dangerous Act of Worship, Intervarsity Press

I believe that artists are uniquely and particularly positioned to invite and challenge their people to this work of Worship and Justice.  This is so because of the nature of the artistic gift and the authority that gift grants an artist culturally.

The Nature of the Artist’s Gift

Creation was (and is) of value to God because He made it; not because of it’s usefulness.  According the the Genesis account of creation, God created light and immediately called the light “good.”  This despite the fact that, in the creation sequence, much the physical had yet to be created.  Light, the function of which is to make things see-able, was “good”  not because of it’s usefulness but simply because God made it.

It seems to me that the Genesis account of creation establishes a basis for the worth of all things that runs much deeper than utility.  Creation was (and is) of value to God because He made it; it is His,… The innate value of all things rests in their relationship to the Creator.

Similarly, the nature of art proclaims this same value relationship between Creator and creation.  To a songwriter, for instance, a song’s worth is not established by it’s success in the marketplace. Nor does failure in the marketplace detract from that same song’s worth.  Intrinsically, that song’s worth is established in it’s relationship to its artist.  Because of this truth regarding the nature of art, I believe every time an artist makes a piece or writes a story etc… the Creator-creation value relationship is proclaimed.  It is this value-relationship that provides the most consistent foundation for advocacy: The elderly, the poor, the developmentally disabled and the unborn have their worth equally established and maintained in their relationship to the God who made them.  Their inability to contribute to the Market’s bottom line does nothing to detract from their value.

The Authority of Art

Furthermore, art opens doors in the hearts of those who engage it.  The artists behind this work (or in it as the case may be) are granted a peculiar authority to walk through those doors and make suggestions as to how listeners or viewers perceive and interact with reality.  Perhaps because of its much wider cultural accessibility, this is most clearly exemplified in the case of music wherein the fashion of young women can often be directly traced to a particular artist or (on a brighter note) concern for a region of the world can become somewhat fashionable due to the poetic call of another artist or band.   This authority begs the question “how will you use it?”  The other way to ask the same question is to ask “What are you calling your people to?”  I would hope (in fact I would suggest) that

Conclusion

Having an intentional knowledge of both the Nature and Authority of their gift, artists can enter the conversation about art’s role (particularly music’s role) in worship more completely; knowing that music, as form of art, tells a key part of the Story by its very nature; that the authority art gives an artist must be handled with wisdom and that embracing his role as an artist among people means knowingly leading that people in worship that truly transforms their lives and the world in which those lives are led. A worship indistinguishable from the practice of Justice.

I was honored that Charlie Peacock asked me to contribute some thoughts about the intersection of art, worship and justice to the Art House America blog. The blog is a landing place for thoughtful reflection on music, justice, the visual arts, sabbath and many other vital topics.  If you’re a consistent blog reader, add Art House America to your RSS feed… maybe even start with this entry of mine.

(You can read Part 1 here.)

“In the beginning,..”  there was no stuff.  There was darkness and void… it totally sucked.

God knew it sucked and so He went about making it not suck.  He did this in a very interesting way.

So, while there was no stuff, God made light by which to see the stuff God would eventually make.

And when God had made the light, “God saw that the light was good.”

The light was “good”…

um…

…good for what?  There’s no stuff. Stuff had not been made yet.  The purpose of light is to make stuff see-able.. So that we would know what we were buying… and eventually returning or replacing (which is another story).  That’s the point of light, is it not?

But before light was good FOR something,.. God called it “good”?

God then went about saying the same thing about just about all the stuff He was making… Even before we were there to use it…

The seas were “good.”  The vegetation was “good.” and on and on.

All the stuff was good simply because He saw it that way… simply because He had made it.  Creation was (and is) of value to God because it is His,.. not because of it’s usefulness.  So that the innate value of all things would rest in its relationship to the Creator. Not it’s usefulness to other parts of Creation nor it’s nearly arbitrary value in the Marketplace…

All Creation has value,
All Creation is good, because He is… and it is His.

I think we have this understanding of value almost entirely upside down, backwards and inside out (much like I do when trying to fold a fitted sheet… it’s a travesty.)  The dominant value system is so driven by and distorted by utility and profit that we struggle to find value in the the poor, the developmentally disabled, the unborn, the elderly, the Raiders… the least of these.

This is where I believe art is central and necessary for the human heart: In art, the value-relationship between Creator and Creation is expressed more clearly than just about anywhere else.  A piece is not worth what it sells for.  Be it 99c to $1.29 for a digital track or $30 to $5M for a painting, the monetary scale hardly tells us anything about a work’s ultimate/inate value.  What makes a song or a sculpture worth something or “good” generally has little if anything to do with the money it generates.

I believe we must come to this understanding in relationship to one another.  I also believe that embracing this value system as it is expressed in and through art is a key to that understanding.

This is part of why, in a time when the ‘value’ of art is seemingly in constant flux and negotiation…

-“Tweet about it and get it for free!”

-“Tell your friends about it and get it for a deal plus a second copy!”

-“Get your parents to think about tweeting about it to their friends and they’ll get a free copy of it, plus a shirt that reads ‘My parents thought about tweeting about Justin McRoberts’ new album and all I got was this lousy shirt’.”

.. I really wanted to do an album that was simply worth doing. It is not the most marketable thing I could have done at this point and though I hope folks enjoy it and support me when I release it, I honestly would have done the project were there no prospect at all for sales.

Now, don’t get me wrong; i’m not ‘against’ free music downloads and new forms of consumer media exchange.  In fact, I (heart) Noisetrade.. I
really do.. But Noistrade is not an end in and of itself.  Those behind the experiment are people who value art and are counting on medium of Noisetrade to help create a culture in which art is a good worthy of our social and financial support.

Art communicates value in a way that very little, if anything, in all this world communicates value.  My songs are not worth what listeners buy them for.  Their value simply cannot be measured in that way.  This album will not have been “worth it” if it sells well; it is worth it because the songs are good; and the songs are good because there is something of God in/about/through them…

…just as there is in all art… just as there is in you and me.

Here’s an excerpt from the blog I just posted at Soul-Audio.com:

“At times it can be difficult for me, as an artist, to articulate what I want to see happen with my work. In one way, the ‘result’ or desired effect of my work once it’s left my hands is not really even my responsibility. But if I desired any particular kind of response or reaction it would be something like what a recent visitor to my blog articulated when he wrote…”

Read the whole entry at Soul-Audio.com