Here is an essay I have written for my Advanced English Composition class.
On our walk to ninth grade history class, my friend Kathryn and I were talking about Switchfoot’s most recent album, Learning to Breathe.
“So, what’s your favorite song?” I asked.
“Hmm. . . probably ‘Poparazzi.’”
“I see,” I said. My thoughts were different, though. That’s her favorite song? She must not be a strong Christian.
Kathryn could have chosen from many songs. “Dare You to Move” was certainly Christian—it had the words “redemption,” “forgiveness,” and “salvation.” And “Learning to Breathe” was obviously directed to God with lyrics like “This is the way that I say I need you / This is the way that I say I love you / This is the way that I say I’m yours.” What about “Innocence Again”? Its nylon-stringed Flamenco feel hooked me on my first listen, and it ranked high on the spiritual charts with an allusion to 2 Corinthians 12:9: “Grace is sufficiency.”
But not “Poparazzi.” Admittedly, it was tempting, with a catchy melody and lyrics like
I thought my eyes were gonna get off clean
‘Til I read your lips on the TV screen
You were busy saying what you didn’t mean
Now everyone’s singing along with your ridiculous song
You’ve got it stuck, you’ve got it stuck in my head.
It was fun to hear Jon Foreman tease the idols of pop, “the late Nirvana” and “the graven images of Marilyn Monroe.” But even as a ninth grader, I knew “Poparazzi” was not a Christian song. When listening to the album, I would skip that track because I felt guilty for enjoying a song that did not appear to glorify God.
Now that I’m a junior in college, my views on what is and what is not Christian art have developed—but it hasn’t been easy. My year’s worth of American literature was challenging, not only because of the long hours of reading, but because while reading I would wrestle with myself, with God, with the assignment. Was Sherwood Anderson a Christian? Is it okay for me to enjoy his stories? Shouldn’t I be doing something else, like evangelizing?
One day after class, I asked my professor the questions I had about art and Christianity.
“Josh, that’s something the church needs to grapple with today,” Dr. Martin said. “Look at the songs we sing in chapel. Almost all of them are happy, and there are few songs of grief.”
I thought of “Holy Moment” by Matt Redman:
Come, come, come, let us worship God
with our hands held high and our hearts bowed down
We will run, run, run through Your gates, O God
with a shout of love, with a shout of love
Let this be a holy moment now.
In the chorus of “From the Inside Out” by Joel Houston of Hillsong United, we sing
Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out, Lord, my soul cries out.
These songs are upbeat and full of praise. “But if we look at the Psalms,” Dr. Martin continued, “we see a much wider range of emotions being expressed to God, from thanksgiving to mourning.”
I thought of Psalm 137, in which the writer addresses Israel’s enemies in anger: “O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us— / he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” This psalm is unlike any song I’ve sung in chapel. And I’m not suggesting that the songs we sing in chapel are wrong. Joy and thanksgiving are foundational responses to God in worship. But as the psalms show, God invites us to express all of our emotions to him, even the ones we try to hide. A few months ago at church, we read Psalm 137 together. “Sometimes we hide our anger from God," Pastor Steve Rodeheaver said afterwards. "But this psalm teaches us that God is the first person we should go to with our anger.”
Still, questions kept coming. Another work of art that troubled me was “The Long Day Closes,” a part song by Henry F. Chorley and Arthur Sullivan. I sang it with the Point Loma Singers, a chamber choir. The harmonies were rich and the lyrics were so strong that singing it made me mourn:
The lighted windows dim are fading slowly
The fire that was so trim now quivers lowly, quivers lowly
Go to the dreamless bed where grief reposes
Thy book of toil is read, the long day closes.
Were Henry F. Chorley and Arthur Sullivan Christians? I would ask myself. Is it okay to sing a song that is so full of hopelessness?
Our choir director, Dr. Pedersen, answered some of my questions one day when he shared with the choir what this song meant to him.
“Sometimes we Christians wonder if we can sing a song that conveys so much grief. But grief is a part of being human, and I think God wants us to feel our grief.” I learned then that although this song was not written by Christians, it is like a psalm because it expresses emotion. Maybe the writers did not have God in mind when they wrote it, but God heard their feelings, and singing “The Long Day Closes” to God is an act of worship. Experiencing the fullness of human emotion, whether joy or grief, is theological: God became a human, in Jesus, and experienced emotions with us. In the Gospel of John, after Lazarus died, Jesus wept.
While “The Long Day Closes” helps us to grieve, it is limited. The second verse says, “Sit by the silent hearth in calm endeavor / to count the sounds of mirth, now dumb forever.” But Christians proclaim that the sounds of mirth are not dumb forever, that after death comes life. “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus said. “He who believes in me will live” (John 11:25). Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave. Unlike the view of life presented in “The Long Day Closes,” Christian art truthfully counters despair with good news.
Madeleine L’engle illustrates the uniqueness of Christian art in Walking on Water, her book about art and Christianity: “All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. No matter what. That, I think, is the affirmation behind all art which can be called Christian. That is what brings cosmos out of chaos.”
I still ask some of the questions about art and Christianity I asked in high school. But I feel more complete knowing that God accepts all of us, from our wholesome emotions to our shameful ones. And while there is a distinction between the presentation of life in Christian and secular art, we can still celebrate and grieve to God through the creations of people who are not Christians. For Christians, art is worship, and God wants it all—even Jon Foreman’s commentaries on a commercialized generation. Maybe Kathryn was a stronger Christian than I thought.
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