My footsteps fall with a crunch, as I tramp through the nearly silent, predawn forest. The only sounds that float on the air are those of my gingerly obnoxious footfalls and the call of a single songbird as it preemptively declares the dawning of a new day. My pant legs already hang wet from the morning’s dew as I quicken my footsteps through the undergrowth on my way to witness one ...
Beginnings: Art, along with the artists producing art, should be at home within the community of the Church. More than that, the community that the faith of Christians calls them to should provide valuable collaborative community so strong, sure, and beneficial that the Arts Community will turn to it for salvation from the harmful production principles of our culture and society. It is more than possible for this to be true of churches, The Church, and ...
Increasingly more often in the news, reports pop up about music programs slashed, or art classes cut. With the current financial climate, budgets are tight, and when push comes to shove, funding for the arts is the first to be “reallocated”. It is not that the research proves that art programs are detrimental to a child’s development, in reality it is soundly proven otherwise. Rather, it is more often that the drive to have students ...
This is a compilation of pieces Scott Erickson created for his church in Texas for an Easter celebration. They are designed as tattoos for the intent of having people in the congregation that are interested having them done. It is an interesting piece of work that seems very fitting for the church context. Check out his inspiration.
Christians are the priesthood of believers, yes (1 Peter 2:9). But professors Robert H. Woods Jr. and Paul D. Patton, in their book Prophetically Incorrect, argue that we must also be small-p prophets in the way we interact with media. As prophets, not all of us will be called to roam naked for three years (as Isaiah did) or cook food over fecal matter (as Ezekiel did). But, as prophets, we will be called to ...
Written in nineteen eighty-five, Neil Postman’s book Amusing, Ourselves to Death. delves into the concepts of public discourse in a time when Postman believed television was taking precedence over the print Media. Postman based his arguments on Aldous Huxley’s idea that, “what we love will ruin us” leading him to state that, “Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely with out protest or even ...
Evangelicals envision Christian worship as an escape from reality, where life is hard, filled with sickness, death, and lament. Yet good art, especially the Bible, knows better:
This image is my CREATE portion on a recent article I published here at OJCCC. To visually represent the emphasis music has on religious experience, I used Derek Webb’s “Spirit Vs. the Kick Drum” song to create a new icon for the American Church. Icons are prevelant in Eastern Orthodox culture and the circle around Jesus’ head is a reference to His diety. I used an image of a kick drum to visually convey the confusion ...
Previously, I brought up a video for discussion. If you haven’t seen it, click here. In this video, Mark Driscoll gives his reasoning for why Mars Hill uses video feeds for services at their campus extensions. While he does a great job providing historical and theological support for his argument, he seems to lack an understanding of the nature of the medium itself. Well, I just came across another voice in this whole debate. And while ...
The arts have always played a very wishy-washy role in the church. Wait, let me rephrase that: the church has always been wishy-washy with the arts in the church. Since New Testament times art has been in and out of the church. There have been times in history in which the church led their culture in the arts, specifically drama. However, there have also been times when drama was banned from the church. Frank Burch ...
History: The Importance of the Azusa Street Revival The terminology Charismatic is used to distinguish a group of people who affirm the importance of the sign gifts, miraculous gifts and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Surprisingly, the Charismatic movement is the second largest family of Christians following the Roman Catholic Church and is found in practically every nation and ethnic group in the world. Some define it as the most important religious movement in the twentieth ...
The Church is a living organism. This means that, like every living thing, she is subject to change as time passes. One of the easiest areas of change to track is the Church’s adaptation to technological advances. Over the past two thousand years each technological shift has presented new opportunities that the Body of Christ has tried to capitalize on. The printing press, for example, was immediately used to make copies of the Bible widely ...
The Spirit Vs. The Kick Drum For the week of December 10, 2011 the Top 10 Christian music billboards features a song whose chorus consists solely of the lyrics “I’m Gonna Move” and another whose chorus vaguely states “You life me up with your love.”[1] To anyone familiar with this style, this sort of ambiguity is typical and even celebrated with arms raised high on Sunday mornings in Churches throughout America. One might conclude that the ...
