Week Three: The Rennaissance
This past week we looked at the Renaissance. Especially in light of the recently renewed interest in the Renaissance as a result of The DaVinci Code, it was interesting to see that this period wasn’t just a quantum leap in the “evolution of Man.” Yes, there were amazing advances in art, music and literature. The names of Dante, Michelangelo and DaVinci rightly evoke a sense of an “age of genius,” but a culture which could’ve given the glory to God for these achievements moved more and more towards a hybrid of Christianity and humanism or bought into humanism entirely. DaVinci himself, searched the sciences and the arts for truth, but in the end did not find the answer in humanism and may well have embraced the Truth of God.Several have mentioned that this group is stretching them and causing them to consider things they hadn’t. Me too. As I mentioned in the group, I’m continuing to grapple with art and how it does or doesn’t honor God. Schaeffer has some ideas I’m still trying to get my mind around, both to understand them and to hold them up to the Light of Scripture.
This week and next we'll be looking at the Reformation. I'm excited about this period and look forward to digging in with all of you.
posted by Nate at 9:06 AM
1 Comments:
As a believer in Christ, I cannot confine myself to canned methods of creativity. God designed me to be an artist. How do I know? I was born with an innane ability to pick up almost any medium and turn it into art. What is art? It's a lot of things to everyone, but personally, it's a way of expressing myself through creativity. One thing that bothers me about a lot of fellow artists that are followers of Christ limit themselves to blatant imagery or lyricism when it comes to art or music (mostly the latter). While the message of salvation is relatively simple, we have the ability to relate it to others in a language they understand that's fresh and inventive. Unfortunately, many contemporary christian music artists come off as unoriginal and are copycats of popular secular artists in an attempt to "win" over the secular crowd, perhaps to give a cleaner version of that secular band, thus creating a lucrative market for it (totally my opinion). There are some chrisitan artists that break that mold, the 77's, P.O.D and Switchfoot to name a few, while maintaining their values in faith and have become successful doing it. Ahmad Jones, of the groundbreaking Hip Hop outfit 4th Avenue Jones, said once in an interview, relating to the above: "If I was an artist doing paintings, why would I just paint crosses?" There's more to our faith than blatant symbolism, a certain richness that leads to God's love for us and definitely a vein for creativity. We all have a story to tell, so let's tell it the best we can on the gifting that we are endowed with. Rock on!
Post a Comment
<< Home