Arts and History: the creative social challenge of Christian counterculture

There was a time where the Arts were an integral part of a church's life, serving as an evangelical window to the Scriptures for those who could not read. For centuries, paintings and sculptures depicting biblical historical scenes have served to convey biblical truth in a way that could grab and inspire the soul more than words could.

The Arts also served to immortalize power and legacy for kings and nobles, recording, or more often than not, interpreting history in their favor. For a period of time in Church history, incredible fortunes were spent commissioning works that would bring glory and honor to God, and the Church. But the vanity reached church leaders as well, and it was not uncommon to see kings and nobles placed within the frame of biblical paintings, frescoes or sculpture, as a testimony to their own piety and dedication to the Church. Truth didn't matter so much as message anymore, and the artists became commodities used to create tools of propaganda for reputations.

True, many of them were well paid. But is this the bottom-line for an artist? Is not freedom to explore and render truth much more precious? And since when do revenues and originality have to be mutually exclusive?

An amazing flood turned the tide of the Arts around the time of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th Century. Not only were the scenarios of themes much more developed, but style also mattered greatly, and a rediscovery and introduction of the Ancient Greece and Rome's styles brought amazing richness, beauty and attention to details.

Not only have various artistic prodigies of that era given the world unique masterpieces, combining innovative techniques and divinely inspired themes, this fire of creative genius ignited beyond the Arts. "The Renaissance was a social, cultural and economic revolution, which began a period of scientific revolution, religious reform, artistic and architectural development, and philosophical openness, and marks the beginning of modern European history. It occurred at the end of the Middle Ages and the start of the Modern Age." (Source: http://www.wikipedia.com).

The Arts marked the end of an era, and the beginning of a new order of things. It brought with it the miracle of the printing press, the construction of architectural behemoths borrowing from the Greeks and the Romans, revolutionary declarations concerning astronomy and the placement of the planet earth in the universe, daring explorations toward new continent that had remained isolated from the European world. The world had become smaller, bigger and transformed all at once.

In the movement that followed the Italian Renaissance, many smaller renaissances occurred over the next few centuries, deconstructing the accepted worldviews and reconstructing new ones, developing societies where those new ways of seeing and being would fuse to create a most vibrant thrust forward into modernity.

I find fascinating how creativity seems to have been a birthing catalyst in so many other fields of life to start chipping away at their limitations. Walking with faith on the waters of the unknown, multitudes of students and teachers were sustained on their quest by the kno wledge that there existed unfathomable properties in Creation that could contribute to our lives as individuals and communities. Our social life and our worldviews would be forever altered. Not only altered, but the very process that leads us to embrace those worldviews would now be an empirical process helping us to make defining choices based on personal experience, restoring to us the power of free-will.

The implications of this reached the very core of God's relationship with each human being, as individuals would bear responsibility to choose their own destinies, and could not simply rely on monarchs or clergy for interpretation of eternal truths. With knowledge came freedom. With freedom came a new era of discovery. And the invention of the printing press during that time contributed to unleash a tsunami of reforms the likes of which the world had never known. Truth was accessible to anyone who could read.

This is now the 21st century. The world has shru nk again, grown larger and been transformed. Once again there is an old order that is pressing against our world's future, and in our exponentially fast-paced era, the future is now. The saying goes: "Success can take you where character cannot sustain you." Meaning: people can elevate you to a place of authority you have not earned by character or rightful promotion. And so when the true pressures and obligations of that position finally overcrowd the privileges that came with it, stealing your time and the energy it takes to continue to play the part, one has to rely solely on the true backbone of his or her genuine character. The real acid test of character is public power.

And so it is with our now post-modern world. For decades we have been groomed to think of the planet as a village, to care about others, to share in the protection, the development, the profits. And so it has been. Great minds migrated from the four corners of the world, and cross-pollinated the boo ming industrial landscape of the richest and most aggressively progressive countries. The opportunities and resources devoted to research and development would be rivaled only by the insatiable hunger for financial success and historical breakthroughs.

Miraculous advances have occurred, often challenging established social beliefs because of the need to redefine parameters allowing this new growth of human over nature and societies. Our Judeo-Christian beliefs in God and the value of human life has also been taken by storm as we strove to establish acceptability of the consequences our genius and successes have brought to us. The sharing of work and profits has not been righteously divided. The sanctity of life has remained a modern issue constantly redefined in light of discrimination and racial profiling, being constantly expanded to include genders and social groups.

The women's liberation movement, in the public arena, has been bringing things to the light as far as the treatment of women is concerned, both socially and privately. Yes, sexual exploitation of women has exploded to include children and teenagers, as well as the use of women's body to promote commercial products. Pornography is a multi-billion industry, crossing the line between humans and animals, and all sorts of perversions. International celebrity Ricky Martin in an interview about his involvement to help Tsunami victims of 2004, that an American man had been arrested for paying $25,000 to have sex with a 6 months old baby.

The more able we are to modify nature, and display ingenuity and creativity, the less we seem to be able to retain any moral compass to anchor our societies so that things don't get out of hand.

I am appalled and shocked at how many times a woman's behind or breast, alluring look or lewd pose are shown on TV, the newspapers an the internet. It is as if women were sending the message that they gave up the fight for decency. Is it all about running the chance of becoming rich by acting that way? Or is it because basic self-respect has been replaced by a message drilled for decades in the psyche of our societies, so much so that we have forgotten how to be free?

Throw-away generation. Children are groomed to become part of a world of consumption, where even our own bodies and sexuality is only but a product on the market. What does that make them? Usable and disposable. Who decided? We all contribute to the disease, as long as we keep silent, afraid to comment or have our own ideas, as long as we conveniently drift on the streams of western culture, leaving moral decision to politics.

Make no mistake: the power to socially enlist us into this kind of morass comes from artists. People in power simply hire them to create those tools they need to maintain and further a global sense of individualistic entitlement, which drains from us any vibrant sense of working today for our children 's legacy, beyond helping them become functional in this world, being conformed to any set model that would ensure their ability to pay the rent.

And so we find ourselves at the door of a new Renaissance. All the sociological elements are presents to unite us in clamoring for change, for integrity and clean environments, be they natural, social, familial, cultural, moral, sexual, or spiritual. The known world has been explored and vandalized. Art brings little novelty beside more visual effects-based commercials and movies, more sensual lines in vehicles and armaments, more deceiving beauty vying for our dollars, forcing us to accept violence and depravity as normal social landscape.

Sexual exploitation, blanket abortion, racism, religious degradation, poverty, cloning, euthanasia, political power, all these need artists to work for their cause. But there is another side, which also brings the power of the Arts in play to "do good." The Live 8 concert held sim ultaneously around the nations of the G8, during July 2005 is a good example of this. It could have worked to bring sensitivity to the political world. Bands played for free, people gathered, sang, danced and chanted so that our collective voices would be heard loud and clear, that extreme poverty is the crime of the century, that we don't need the money from the poor countries who have been stripped from colossal fortunes because of an exploitative industrialization on the part of the west, not caring for their population, using natural resources to build fortunes anywhere BUT in those countries and for those people. We never left the colonial era. Today's extreme poverty is a screaming proof of this.

During that Live 8 concert, promises were made, cameras flashed, headlines poured… Result?

Quote from the Make Poverty History website:

"The World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong (13-18 December) could have been a turning point in making poverty history. Rich countries had the capability to correct some of the gross imbalances in world trade at a strategically important moment in the so-called Doha 'development round' of trade talks. But the potential for justice for the world's poorest people was squandered.

The WTO meeting failed to deliver the trade justice deal needed in 2005 to make poverty history. The intransigence of rich countries means the agreement reached is far from just for the poor of the world.

The positions taken by the major developed countries in Hong Kong favoured the rich over the interests of the world's poor.

Outrageously, the developed countries, particularly the European Union (EU) and the United States (US), tried to use the WTO meeting to aggressively push forward their agenda to open the markets in developing countries for the interests of their corporations. This shameful abuse of power showed no respect for poor countries' right to decid e their own trade policies to help lift millions of people out of poverty and stop environmental damage."

I believe that by enlisting artists to devote their gift to serving "corporate agendas", the powers of the world and the powers of the Church have endangered the "artistic species" which could bring power for change in our world. Alas, it seems we are satisfied with letting occult societies rule our lives and enslave us, as if humans were cattle sacrificed to the dark gods of annihilation.

I believe the only door left is the one that leads us to our knees, where we call on God to have mercy and bring freedom to our children, freedom from the existential egocentric selfishness that causes us to sleepwalk our way to being dominated, handing over our souls in exchange of a lie.

Pressing against our most optimistic hopes, a gloomy future is being revealed to us through the media: pandemics, terrorism, political corruption at every level of our s ociety, including our Justice departments and law enforcement, sexual grooming of our children turning them into sexual partners at an early age, compliant or not, spiritual abuse that also turns our children into literal bombs, etc.

I am not saying that our only hope lies with artists. But what I am saying is that artists have the power to inspire change in this world, from the inside out.

Our world is in the throws of birth pains. Governments are revealed to be as much dedicated to the quality of human life as corporations are dedicated to the well-being of the people they employ. Without Unions in many cases, low wages and poor working conditions wouldn't bother most of them. It is a world that is ruling the planet. It will not change simply because another political power, run like a corporation, takes over.

But artists, and even more so Christian artists, need to awake from the oppression of conformity that has stifled many a powerful voice. W e need to find our own voices alone with God, let His Spirit carry us alternatively into deserts and public places, to see and hear the human essence of being, with its raw emotions and conflicts, confusions and desires, baseness and grandeur. Record it, and present it, so that we can collectively start hearing again the true voice of God, recognize it, and walk in life according to His promptings.

We have climbed our own pedestals and lived as gods in our own images. But soon discovered that people wouldn't bring the sacrifices we required. While we throned, the world around us collapsed, and now we have to climb down or be thrown down, walk again or be dragged, awaken or be shaken, release our prisoners or be stripped down. In that place of involuntary humility, our hearts and minds will reconnect with the human family, and we will desire to be welcomed again at their table, speak on equal terms, telling the story of our own redemption, articulating the tragedy of unrep entant pride, of that unforgettable moment where our lives are slammed on the anvil of destiny.

Christian artists hold a key, a very precious one, a sacred one. As the Levites of old had bells around the hem of their robe to alert people that they were still alive in the Holy of Holies, so we need our lives to ring out the message that we are still alive as we minister before the Lord in the calling of our giftings, that we are not simply ministering for the sake of traffic at the books and CDs tables. But that as priests and intercessors in the holy place of His eternal love, the human family be represented by us faithfully, and that we will go back and share His holiness and presence with all.

Only by grace are we saved. Only by grace do we stand. Only by grace are we gifted. Only by grace can we be freed to turn from ourselves toward the Source of our talents and become, in an act of loving abandonment, a lump of living clay He can shape to His liking, in s incere communion and obedience, our free will brilliantly redeemed through this act of surrendering embrace. After all, He is God, the Creator, the Divine Artist, Redeemer, and to Him is Authority, Power and Dominion.

A true Renaissance will transform this generation, and Christian artists will once again be at the center of it, not as hirelings for mere human agendas, but as piercing prophetic voices resounding in the desert of this hour, cutting through the chaotic cacophony of this world's agony as it is being slaughtered on the altars of the devil's slaves.

Let there be light!

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Soli Deo Gloria...

Andre Lefebvre

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www.soulcanvas.com
www.soaking.net
www.propheticunderground.com
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