“Judging” Art?

We know intuitively that art, in some way, can be used for “good” or “bad”. And it seems to us that there is “good art” and “bad art”. But of course many today would tell us that you simply cannot judge art, because it’s art! After all, artists should have absolute liberty to be creative.

So today in our Biblical Anthropology series, we ask the question – can you judge or evaluate art? Or is it only a question of culture, or opinion?

Let’s go to a very important text in the book of Colossians. The Apostle Paul has been talking about Jesus Christ as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. In Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (verse 3).

Now, he’s going after the false teachers, who want to bring back the feasts and dietary laws from Moses.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

Colossians 2:8-10

“[Christ] is the head of all rule and authority”. Jesus said it this way in John 5:22 – “the Father … has given all judgement to the Son”.

Everything in all of creation is under the authority of Jesus Christ. Science, art, math, governments, churches, your workplace, your video games, your playlist. Everything.

We recognize that people have different preferences, and that’s fine. But everything is still under Christ’s authority.

We’re constantly creating art, our community is constantly creating art. And every movie, every band, every painting, every meme, must be placed under the authority of Christ.

This isn’t to say that every song should be a Christian hymn, and that every painting should represent a Bible story. But it does mean that all art must be for God’s glory. And even secular (non-religious) art can glorify the Lord. Even art created by unbelievers can glorify God, thanks to God’s grace in all the world, and the imago dei.

But let’s get real – very often the world is using art to actively fight against God. So we need to think about how that is done.

Let’s go back to where we started in our first study – Genesis 1 & 2. We looked at three keywords in that study – Truth, Dependence, and Purpose.

Yes, art does have a purpose. Even when it is supposedly simply “art for the sake of art”. Or when it’s deliberately “purposeless” art. But of course, that is its purpose. You simply can’t avoid purpose.

Dependence? We depend on something that is outside of ourselves, and all things depend on God. Or, we could say, they depend on Christ – “in him all things hold together” Colossians 1:17.

So let’s look again at what happened with “Nehushtan”, the bronze snake.

First, the people had to pretend that they didn’t depend on God. The image was controlled by unbelievers who used it as a false god. I mean, imagine if the image had been placed in a museum with a notice underneath: “Praise Yahweh for saving us from judgement – read the fourth Book of Moses for details”. Maybe the idolatry never would have happened!

The purpose of the bronze snake was changed. Instead of a reminder of God’s judgement, and a symbol of faith, it became a false god in itself.

And truth itself had to be ignored. “This isn’t just a metal image on a pole – it’s the mighty Nehushtan!” And perhaps the story of Numbers 21 was told, conveniently leaving out some important details, such as the sin of the people against God. Truth mixed with error. We’ve talked about that before – remember the house in ruins?

Finally, they separated the image and the Word of God completely. They tried to reinterpret the world, ignoring God’s revelation, God’s truth. “…men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” Romans 1:18.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Romans 1:22-23

The world used its God-given creativity and ability to communicate to attempt to change the truth. Of course, you can’t change truth. But they hid it, suppressed it. How?

Have you ever noticed that when you see “popular sins” depicted on the big screen, there are rarely serious consequences? Immorality, for example, rarely results in disease and broken families.

And when you see a pastor or other Christian religious figure, usually they’re ignorant – or even evil? But if there’s an immoral person, that is, immoral in a culturally acceptable way, that person is often depicted as being very wise, or at least they’re the comic relief.

In Hollywood, especially in the 1930s-1950s, movies were regularly evaluated to determine if they were “decent”, and they were censored if they didn’t comply with certain criteria. For example, the 1946 movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”. One of my favourites, I’ll admit it.

If you don’t know the movie, it’s a fantasy about a man wanting to commit suicide, who is visited by an angel.

The movie almost had to be changed. Why? Well, in the story there’s a rich and evil man named Mr. Potter. Now, Potter is a wicked man, who is depicted as a wicked man in the movie. So far so good. Already we’re doing better than most of today’s movies.

But in this movie, he never experiences any significant consequences for his sin. There’s no punishment at the end. Of course, that’s the way things sometimes are in the real world – evil people seem to get away with their evil. But for some people, that made the movie “indecent”. My, how things have changed!

Today, it seems, movies must make evil look good.

Next time we’ll look at some current examples of how creativity and communication are being used by the world.