So this is my first time up here since the ‘Rock Band Project’ and I think the timing worked out pretty well since I am going to be talking about how ‘Beauty and Creativity’ are part of the ‘New Task’ the church is called to tonight.
So I’d like to start with a brief anecdote from that evening. The first two bands each played a U2 song, but half way through the first set Erica and Liz busted out ‘The Streets Have No Name’ copyright 1987. I was sitting in the back near Drew Temple. Drew listened for a few seconds with kind of a confused look on his face and then turned to me and said ‘Stanford, you are old, is this U2?
But he was correct. I was old enough to know the answer to this question (though, to be fair, of the bands covered that night, I listen to way more Paramore, Flyleaf and Anberlin than U2). So let me leverage that wisdom and offer you all a
career retrospective of this nearly mythical band:
The creative task of the Church is something I feel strongly about hand have thought a lot about in the last 2 years or so
[3]…but in the end, I am still, fundamentally, an engineer. Therefore I will need to lean on others for my content…so expect copious quotes.
In the next 25 minutes I am going to try to do 3 things. First I am going to try to build a brief Biblical theology of Creativity. Then I am going to talk about two implications for Christians (Note: these got mostly cut from the actual talk...as usual, I wrote 2 talks and had to decide which to give), first, implications for a theology of the arts, then implications for the aesthetics of Christian worship. So, first, lets build a theology of creativity.
One of the tools I have often run into when trying to formulate a Christian world view about anything is to try to understand it in the categories of: Creation Fall and Redemption. And I have found that the model works pretty well here, so let’s look at the Biblical data under these three headings.
i. Creation
(Broken Splendor - Makoto Fujimura -
http://www.makotofujimura.com/)
The bulk of the Biblical data from which we can build a theology of creativity is, unsurprisingly, in the Creation narrative. The first thing we learn about God, page 1, is that he creates. But it isn’t just some impassive mechanical act. He likes it. The creating God we see in Genesis one is so unlike alternative gods of the ancient near east. For many others the world was the intentional or unintentional by product of a divine conflict. But for the Hebrews and for us, it was a pleasurful, creative act.
[4]And God’s creation isn’t simply a pragmatic, functional making. He isn’t just putting together something ‘useful.’ Look with me at Genesis 2:9 he
“made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” God’s vision for the ideal environment for human worship and flourishing was a place that was useful and beautiful…that is fulfilled pragmatic and aesthetic criteria. God created a world that was sublimely good in both its functionality and its beauty.
This verse reminds me of ‘the projects’ in Buffalo. In the 70’s central planners made very modern, clean, new, functional, high rise tenement buildings that were made available to low income families. But they failed. In part they failed because they concentrated and exiled poverty. But I also think they failed because, like the great communist projects in the Eastern block, at the same time, they were butt ugly. They were masterfully designed to be as functional as possible. But no thought was given to their aesthetic value and their drab confines seemed to diminish the humanness of their residents until, they were eventually abandoned, a failure. But God didn’t create a simply useful inhabitation for us. He didn’t just make us ‘the projects.’ He made a world that was beautiful and useful.
And then the passage says that we are made in God’s Image (Genesis 1:29)…The Imago Dei…but what does that mean. Well, it is pretty clear what it doesn’t mean. I don’t know a single theologian that believes that we look like God…that we share a similar biological apparatus. But after that there is very little agreement. There are many ideas about what the ‘image of God’ in humanity really is …a moral sense, a capacity for love, reason, volition…and many, many more. But each of these is pretty speculative. What about the text? What clues does the text give us? Dorothy Sayers has some ideas…
“It is observable that in the passage leading up to the statement about man, he has given no 
detailed information about God. Looking at man, he sees in him something essentially divine, but when we turn back to se what he says about the original upon which the “image” of God was modeled, we find only the single assertion, “God created.” The characteristic common to God and man is apparently that: the desire and ability to make things.” –Dorothy Sayers
In the first 26 verses of the Bible, up until God declares that humans share his ‘image’ in a special, what attribute of God does the text overwhelmingly document? He is a Creator. I think that the only conclusion rooted in the text, about what it means that we bear the image of God, the Imago Dei, is that we were created not simply as biological replicators but with the ability to create and generate things that are beautiful and useful. Like God we have the ability not only to create but to delight in the things we and others create.
And we find quick evidence that God has passed the creative task on to us as part of the fundamental apparatus of humanness in the first assignment he gives to this brand new human. He asks him to come up with names for the animals. Now, I said a couple weeks ago, that this was fundamentally a scientific act, a project of Biological taxonomy…and it was, but it was also fundamentally creative. Andy Crouch said about the story of
“God is perfectly capable of naming every animal and giving Adam a dictionary-but he does not. HE makes room for Adam’s creativity.”[5] Adam is the only bit of God’s vast creation that he invites into his process of creation.
I had heard that the difference between creation and ‘making’ was that the ‘making’ that humans do starts with raw material while God created ex nehilo – out of nothing – but, it really seems to me that what Adam is doing here is closer to the later than the former. Adam couldn’t create matter out of nothing, but God gave him creative responsibility within his ability…because this was what made humans fundamentally distinct from the rest of the animals.
Here something I want to address early. When I start talking about beauty and creativity, I am afraid that all of you ME’s and EE’s and XE’s
[6] start to tune out…as if by choosing a vocation of engineering you have sentenced yourself to a dull, beauty free, creativeless existence. But that is simply mistaken. Mechanical engineering is the same thing. You are accessing the divine image by exerting creativity to bring order out of chaos. You are participating in the Imago Dai. You are creating that which is useful and also beautiful…your emphasis may be on the useful where the artist is a little more focused on the beautiful…but you are both fundamentally participating in the image of God.
Another thing I think is interesting about this story is, what language does Adam name them in? Is there any language in which this is still their name? I don’t think so. So the act is creative but ephemeral, like a piece of music that is only there for a short time. The creative act does not need to persist to have value.
And before we move on, I’d just like to say, that I think this is the point of Genesis 1. I wouldn’t want to try to squeeze much more out of it. It isn’t a science text. It wasn’t meant to be. I hope that if you are here tonight and wonder if you can accept this idea that God is creator and that he has made us creative even if you find the data of evolution totally compelling, I want to tell you that the answer is yes.
ii. Fall
But, the story does not end in Genesis 2. It is just getting started. Something goes horribly wrong in Genesis 3. God’s created co-creator abandons the role. He trades beauty for knowledge and it diminishes him and leaves a cosmic scar on everything that follows. We call this the fall. While God created everything good…something went horribly wrong. All is not as it’s supposed to be.
The serpent offers a different vision of humanness. Where God invites Adam to create, the serpent’s invitation is to consume.
[7] It leaves them exposed and ashamed. But I find it really interesting to notice their initial response to their new, desperate situation. They create. They make cloths out of the surrounding leaves.
[8] They are still God’s image bearers, but their creative abilities and impulses are now skewed…they are active but damaged. This leaves our theology of creativity in tension. Steve Turner describes it like this:
“The world is neither so full of evil that we can’t enjoy it nor so full of fondness that we can 
abandon ourselves to it.[9] When we see something beautiful there is always the qualifying thought that it is tarnished. When we see something ugly, there is always the qualifying thought that there is something of the Creator hidden in there.”[10] He goes on to say
“The modern temptation is to make art with the intention that it becomes idolized.”
And this is kind of where the fall leaves us. Our impulse and ability to create is potentially our most fundamental connection to God. But it is a damaged connection, often leaving us vested in the created things. Much of the Bible is a warning against worshiping created things. Again and again God’s people are warned against the propensity to allow our worship to be drawn from our creator to the things he has enabled us to make. Our capacity for beauty, the very thing that makes us capable of worship, gets misapplied, and leaves us diminished:
“The books and the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself, they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” -CS Lewis The Weight of GloryChad Walsh says that the Christian creative (a category under which he includes the artist and the carpenter…the author and the mechanical engineer…the painter and the hair dresser)
“can honestly see himself as a kind of earthly assistant to God, carry on the delegated work of creation, making the fullness of creation fuller. At the same time, he is saved from the romantic tendency toward idolatry.” The fall turns our longing for beauty into appetites we frantically try to fulfill. Like all of the things created good, our creative impulse, our basic desires to make things useful and beautiful, are damaged and can be turned inward. The quest for beauty is replaced by the hunger for porn, the longing for truth is replaced by the transmission of propaganda
[11], an active appreciation of beauty is exchanged for passive entertainment.
But the Christian response to this is not just abstaining from the distortion…but must also include a pursuit of the original intent. And so we seek to restore and redeem the God’s image in us by reclaiming creativity and beauty and celebrating it wherever we see it regardless of wether it comes from a place of belief or not.
iii. Redemption
But, while the story does not end with Genesis 2, it also does not end with Genesis 3. God invades our messy predicament by living a human life in Jesus. But it is really curious how he does this. For about 30 years, the first 90% of his life, he works as a craftsman. This does not get enough attention
[12]. For 30 years...about as long as I have lived…the God of the Universe…the original creator of all things…got out of bed, went into a small shop, and gave his attentions to the carefull and artfull construction of wooden items of utility and beauty. The one that Colossians says made everything, turns his attention to tables, lamp stands and bread boxes for more than two decades. Before Jesus shatters the cosmic powers of sin and death, he redeems created humanness. He worked and created and called it good.
But then he did win the cosmic victory by raising from the dead and demonstrating that all things would eventually be restored. And the eventual restoration would be physical and beautiful. But here is an interesting detail about the beauty of the age to come…the ‘new earth’ and the ‘new Jerusalem’ that will be rebuilt when this age finally expires. It’s beauty will be, in part, constructed of the creative makings of this age.
For information on this new age we often go to the book of Revelation. But there are also interesting passages in the prophets.
[13] Isaiah 60:6-13, for example, is probably painting an eschatological picture
[14] of the new earth God will make at the end of the age.
3 Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
4 "Lift up your eyes and look about you:
All assemble and come to you;
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters are carried on the arm.
5 Then you will look and be radiant,
your heart will throb and swell with joy;
the wealth on the seas will be brought to you,
to you the riches of the nations will come.
6 Herds of camels will cover your land,
young camels of Midian and Ephah.
And all from Sheba will come,
bearing gold and incense
and proclaiming the praise of the LORD.
9 Surely the islands look to me;
in the lead are the ships of Tarshish,
bringing your sons from afar,
with their silver and gold,
to the honor of the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendor.
13 "The glory of Lebanon will come to you,
the pine, the fir and the cypress together, [14.5]
to adorn the place of my sanctuary;
and I will glorify the place of my feet.
The thing that is interesting about this passage is that it seems that in, some mysterious non-trivial way, God's restored creation will be furnished, at least in part, with the creative 'makings' of this age. Andy Crouch says about this passage:
“So when John echoes Isaiah’s vision of the new Jerusalem being filled with the ‘glory of the nations,’ he is not picturing simply “Christian” cultural artifacts…we will find the new creation 
furnished with culture…The new Jerusalem will be truly a city: a place suffused with culture, a place where culture has reached its flourishing…’Christian’ cultural artifacts will surely go through the same cultural winnowing as ‘non-Christian’ artifacts. Knowing that the new Jerusalem will be furnished with the best of every culture frees us from having to give a ‘religious’ or evangelistic explanation for everything we do…If the ships of Tarshish and the camels of Midian fan find a place in the new Jerusalem, our work, no matter how ‘secular’ can too.”[15]We started out with the idea that the new task is composed of 1) proclaiming that Jesus is Lord 2) acts of justice and 3) creative makings of utility and beauty. The idea that the creative makings of this world, along side the acts of justice and the proclamation of the Lordship of Christ, will in some strange way persist into the next age (from Christian and non-Christian sources) gives them a new dignity on this side.
But another thing that is interesting about creativity. Like work and sex, it is a pre-fall ordinance. Which means, as I have stated before, that in God’s best plan for human flourishing, we are creative beings. So I really think that some version of the arts will persist in God’s redeemed world. At the retreat Dan and I drove to the beach together. Responsibilities cut our time short and we were back in the car almost as soon as we had left. I remember Dan suggested that even the longing that a too-short visit to the beach leaves us with points to the fullness of God’s eventual restoration. And then he said, “I bet you’ll have time to finish the novel you are trying to write.” And he was right. I lack the capacity and creativity to write the novel I want to write. But (and this is totally speculative now) that seems like the sort of thing that God would ask me to do in the Urban paradise that he will make…the parallel command to Adam naming the animals.
2 Questions
So from this theological treatment I’d like to look briefly at two applications: 1) the question of whether Art is the sort of thing Christians should do and enjoy and 2) the role of aesthetic beauty in Christian worship
I. How Should Christians Interact With the Arts?
Well, fist off, probobly not
like this:
Christians and Art There are a number of applications I could try to make from this brief theological survey. But I have decided to talk about art and corporate worship. What is the purpose of art? Does art have a place in the Christian life? Should our posture towards art be combative or consumerist or something else? Do we experience art, or do we use it? What is the role of the Christian artist? These questions deserve their own talk…and probably a different speaker. But I’d just briefly like to take a shot at the relationship between Christians and the arts. If we believe that the ability to create and to derive joy from what we and others create is one of the fundamental keys to our humanness, it seems to me like Christians, more than any other sub-culture should support and celebrate the arts. Historically that has not been the case. I remember walking the halls of the Vatican museum several years ago and thinking to myself, the Church used to be the primary benefactor of the arts. But, oddly, that is not what I see anymore. In our rush to be culture warriors we have often surrendered the arts as something ‘godless’ and secular…only having utility if it can be leveraged as a platform for evangelism or worship. Andy Crouch says
“I did not grow up in or near fundamentalist Christianity, but friends who did remember plenty of sermons about the danger of the world, but none about the delights of the world.”[16] I did not either, but I can since verify the observation he relates.
Francis Schaeffer says
“Art is not something we merely analyze or value for its intellectual 
content. It is something to be enjoyed…Part of the lostness of modern man is that they no longer see value in the work of art as a work of art…too often (Christians) think that a work of art has value only if we reduce it to a tract…Christian schools, Christian parents and Christian pastors often…(do) not make a distinction between technical excellence and content, the whole of much great art has been rejected with scorn and ridicule.” Schaeffer and others would say that art has intrinsic value in unveiling our humanness. Rather than simplifying the world to a simple familiar message art can to revel in the complexity of God’s world. To find humanity in each person God loves. To delight in words and images.”This is one of the reasons the ‘Rock Band Project’ was such an exciting event. We, as a Christian community, were showing interest in the arts and the creative process…we were owning the oft-ignored portion of our ‘new task.’
You might be hard pressed to find someone as passionate about evangelism and justice as me…but these are overlapping, non-exclusive mandates for the church. We proclaim that Jesus is Lord, work hard for justice and joyfully create sometimes at the same time, sometimes independent of each other.
“What is most needed in our time are Christians who are deeply serious about cultivating and creating but who wear that seriousness lightly – who are not desperately trying to change the world but who also wake up every morning eager to create.” -Crouch
“So What About Christian Art?”
So what about ‘Christian art?’ If Christians are not only permitted but encouraged to create or at least support those who do, shouldn’t there be strict limitations on what they can create? And what standards should Christians use to evaluate art: content or aesthetic value? ”Christian art,” in this sense, is usually either an aid to worship or a means of evangelism.
I have a lot to say about Christians in the arts, but I think a good summary would be Rob Bell’s quip that “the word ‘Christian’ makes a great noun and a very bad adjective.” One of the things that has really diminished the quality of much of Christian art of the last few decades is that in order to get that title, it has to be primarily ‘religious’ in content. But we do not require that of any other profession…of any other form of creative making.
“Art, it must be remembered, has intrinsic value. A Christian doctor doesn’t normally feel the need to justify the medical profession even though it often provides little opportunity for presentations of the gospel.” -turner
Christians who pursue the arts (and – contrary to our Engineering image - there are more than a few of you in here, I know of at least 4 college lifers who are writing novels, just as one example) need to have the freedom to explore a wide range of human experiences. They often need the freedom to suspend certainty and dwell in the realm of uncertainty, ambiguity and self critique. On the whole, the Church needs to be a place of grace and freedom for those who want to explore and create.
II. What is the Role of Aesthetics in Corporate Worship? 
Modern people tended to think that there was very little connection between humanness and the built environment. That is why we have so many strip mall waste lands (the capitalist version of ‘the projects’) and churches that look like vast warehouses. In the last 30 years in our movement there has been a move away from aesthetics in corporate worship. It has been a pragmatic move to large, sparse, warehouse type buildings with minimum art or adornment. The message is clear. Content is important, form is not. (But that is a commitment to a form.) I call it the Wallmartification of the American Church.
But post-modern people are revaluating this. We are beginning to believe that human psychological health and productivity is connected to the beauty
[17] of their built environments. The Old Testament is full of extremely boring chapters describing the in pedantic detail the aesthetic environment for Hebrew worship. And then there is this strange passage in Ex 31:
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 "See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts- 4 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 5 to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. 6 Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you…They are to make (all these things) just as I commanded you."But the issue of reclaiming an aesthetic component of corperate worship is growing in importance. The emerging generations are increasingly multisensory in their persuit of truth and transcendence:
“Modern thinkers want things very orderly and systematic because they learn in a logical and 
progressive manner. They prefer, generally, to sit and listen. Emerging post-Christian generations, on the other hand (Xers and milenials, you and me) long to experience a transcendent God during a worship gathering rather than simply learn about him. They want fluidity and freedom rather than a neatly flowing set program. They want to see the arts and a sense of mystery brought into the worship service, rather than focusing on professionalism and excellence.” –Dan Kimball Emerging Worship
“True, we can worship anywhere, anytime – in an igloo, a palace or in a cardboard shack. I have had powerful worship experiences in a shabby cold basement with ugly cinderblock walls. So aesthetics is not an end in itself. But in our culture, which is becoming more multisensory and less respectful of God, we have a responsibility to pay attention to the design of the space where we assemble regularly…Many of our modern churches have woefully neglected thoughtful architectural beauty in their design of their buildings. Most of our buildings no longer have 
stained glass, or if they do, quite often it is of the tacky 1970’s variety (GMF story). This is unfortunate because our emerging culture highly values art…Your building may not be a cathedral, but you can convey that sense of timeless beauty, order, and sacred space by finding ways to use…images on your screens.” Dan Kimbal Emerging Worship
I would like to make two applications to college life before we wrap up:
1) We, as a movement, have hidden too long behind the ‘joyful noise’ excuse. When Amanda and I moved to California we visited over two dozen churches and found that many of them were doing music so poorly that a common phrase we begin to hear on Sunday mornings was ‘Praise God Anyways.’ For decades the American church has believed that content matters and form does not. But this does not seem to be a Biblical view of worship. So quality matters. And I have to say, I have never been involved with a ministry that has so much musical ability and such gifted musical leaders.
2) We meet in a cold, stark lecture hall. I think we have mainly bought into the idea that the aesthetic environment does not affect worship. But we are trying to reach a post-modern, post-Christian generation that tends to evaluate truth through the a multisensory apparatus. Does our form match our content. As you are thinking about what kind of contributions you can make to this ministry next year, I hope a couple of you would start thinking about what we could do aesthetically with these meetings to make the environment, as well as the content, . And this will require artists with aesthetic sense and engineers with the technical savvy to pull it off. And both are reflecting the image of God as they create.
_____________
[1] http://www.scottkolbo.com/ His work reflects his belief "that despite our best efforts to look important, rational, and dignified, we all make fools of ourselves in the end. Human nature is corrupted by folly, and even our best intentions are subverted by our mixed motivations."
[3] Biographical note: ‘No beauty for you!’
[4] Andy Crouch Culture Makers p21
[5] Andy Crouch Culture Making p109
[6] Where X is a variable that stands for some adjective that modifies the word ‘Engineer’
[7] Andy Crouch Culture Makers p114
[8] Andy Crouch Culture Makers p115 “They sewed fig leafs together –the first act after the consumption of the fruit is cultural…From the fig leaves onward, culture becomes intertwined with sin-indeed it is the place where humanity acts out their rebellion from God and their alienation from each other.”
[9] “Making sense of the wonder and terror of the world is the original human preoccupation.” –Crouch
[10] Steve Turner Imagine: A Vision for Christians and the Arts
[11] “Poetry, for example, is a useful antidote for the poison of sloganeering, spin and double talk. It helps words retain their meaning because it acknowledges that corrupt language results in corrupt thinking. If the best words can no longer be said, the best ideas can no longer be thought. “If a nation’s literature declines,” said Ezra Pound, “the nation atrophies and decays.” -turner
[12] From anyone but Jim Gaffigan.
[13] Though, all of these passages have to be handled with care since the genre tends to be so metaphorical.
[14] In the confusing, ‘double fulfillment’ way that the prophet’s speak about the ‘day of the Lord’.
[14.5] Note the interesting ecological component in addition to the artistic, functional and cultural components.
[15] AC CM 169
[16] p85
[17] In addition to the functionality.
(Photos by Dave Tan) 
(I've never seen guys 'do hair' on a men's retreat. Leave it to Noah to look into the face of cultural expectations and shrug. Color me impressed.) 
