by Makoto Fujimura
Before I address how Art+Faith: A Theology of Making book can directly help worship leaders and pastors, let me backtrack a bit to give a context of how the thesis came about.
I first wrote Culture Care in the mid 2000’s1 as a way to address a lack of the Fruit of the Spirit in broader culture, including our church cultures. As I note in Art+Faith: A Theology of Making, expressions of the Fruit of the Spirit, the qualities of Love - Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control (Galatians 5:22), are not the first words that come to mind in describing neither the church today nor the larger culture. Christianity has become known as the main instigator and origin of culture war. Through her failures to abide in Christ, expressed in terms of immoralities, dissensions, factions, and abuse, we the Church, have exhibited the opposite - “the Fruit of the Flesh” of Galatians 5:19. As the Church goes, the culture goes: Yes, as opposed to the Church going where the culture goes, God has given the Church a stewardship responsibility over culture. Thus, since the Church has abandoned her responsibility to create culture and steward her gifts well, and instead, has instigated and fought culture wars, culture at large has become “culture war culture.” Meanwhile, we have created so many church and parachurch programs, in order to support individual growth and help our members possess these qualities of the Fruit of the Spirit. But when we ask honestly how our culture inside the Church has fared, we have largely failed. I note in my book:
Christians are seen in culture as promoting hatred instead of love, vindictiveness instead of joy, vilification instead of peace, alarmism instead of patience, discord instead of kindness, racism instead of goodness, prosperity instead of faithfulness and the imposition of power instead of gentleness and self-control. We need to only look at ourselves in the mirror to see that our witness has not produced the fruit of the Spirit in the culture at large; instead, we have withdrawn into our fear-filled shells.
Outsiders looking in would be the first to notice these qualities. Of course, there are notable exceptions, mostly underground and minority groups. But they are, unfortunately, a handful and mostly invisible (sometimes as they are exiled from the larger “Christian culture”), drowned out by culture wars rhetoric. Or worse yet, exiled from the Church. We must ask, “what has the church created or birthed in larger culture? Have we been the agency of Love?” Because we all long for a safe, nurturing community that effectively works as light and salt in the world, people would flock to such a community if there was one. The fact that the “none” generation does not want to have anything to do with Church culture states much: Not only have we alienated the skeptics, we have alienated our own children.
The culture of the Church body is meant to be a sanctifying agency to the broader culture, as yeast to the world. These qualities of Love should manifest as true evidence of the Fruit in larger culture from the Church, and therefore be imbedded in her songs and her arts. If these qualities of the Spirit’s Fruit are manifested in the greater culture at all today, they were birthed despite the anti-culture stance of the Church driven by fear, and not because of it.
I began to write about the gap that I’ve experienced as an artist of faith between the world of the arts and the world of the Church in the early 90’s, living and working in downtown New York City. Artists are “doubly exiled,” from the Church as the Church suspects artists to be transgressive to the Church’s norms, and from the art world as Christians. But I felt that I was, nevertheless, called to “stand in the gap” and create. I have, and had to, develop a thriving career as an artist pushing against the forces of darkness in culture, but on the other hand defending for and advocating for other artists from the anti-culture biases in the Church.
Theology of Making is the theology that undergirds culture care. It is my life-work of connecting the Biblical God as the True Maker and the Artist, and to understand scripture from the perspective of Making, and seeing our work (of any kind, not just the arts) as part of that artistry that God has imbedded in our lives. As some have gratefully observed, Theology of Making is not just about the arts - it has a huge ramification in what is now known as the “work and faith” movement.2
Culture Care and the Church
Culture care is also an antidote to culture wars: Culture care is the non-violent resistance to culture wars. I posit in Culture Care that the debasement of language and demonizing of the other will cause ideological grounds to shrink, and that we will be more and more extreme to defend the virtues we hold dear. I have also stated that culture war rhetoric will lead to real wars. On January 6th, 2021, we saw the direct result of culture wars rhetoric leading to mob violence and death, and the unthinkable siege of the Capital. This demise is the direct result of culture wars rhetoric. Culture is not a battleground to be fought over, but instead is an ecosystem to steward, the garden to tend. Culture wars rhetoric will only lead to more fear, anxiety, destruction, and shrinking of ideological grounds (of any type, “liberal” or “conservative”) instead of creating Love in the world.
Consider also sociologically what is happening in the Church. Our churches have become program- driven (and consumer driven to promote these programs), and spectacle-driven, in order to attract customers, reflecting the post-industrial model. Our Elders/Vestry/Counsel meetings are driven by the bottom line of efficiency and survival. Meanwhile our seminaries and academia have splintered into highly specialized disciplines, and the integration of knowledge, including somatic knowledge, is not seen as a central means of knowing. Sermons are dominated by a “plumbing theology” of “fixing” or a “return to Eden” as a form of escape from the trauma of the world; or worse yet, a promise of prosperity as we ask God to shield us. It is not wrong to desire to be reconciled to God and work to help the world - but that view is a truncated version of the whole message of the gospel, and we can end up short-selling the gospel as a form of escapism. N.T. Wright has extensively written on the understanding of the gospel as the whole of scripture, and the gospel cannot be communicated fully in a PowerPoint presentation. The Gospel of Jesus is all about the ushering in of New Creation (Kainos) in the midst of a Fallen world. My thesis is very orthodox, but radical to such a truncated view of the gospel - I offer to replace “Creation - Fall - Redemption - Consummation” model to “Creation - Fall - Redemption - New Creation” model. In his exquisite foreword to Art+Faith: A Theology of Making, to which I am grateful, N.T. Wright notes:
The point, all through, is that the new creation, which began when Jesus was himself raised from the dead, is the true life of God’s coming new age, already visible precisely in the golden light that shines through - in art, in the Eucharist, in the entire mission of the church.
Imagine a river. While there are tributaries and pockets of dead water, caused by hard working beavers perhaps, the river as a whole, flows through into the wider ocean. There are particularly diverse areas such as an estuary, critical for the health of the river and the greater oceans, but we cannot segment one area from the whole. So it is with culture at large. What is deemed “church culture” is often a response to the wider culture; and if we are not creating anything new, then we are always on the defensive, or merely being consumers, or worse yet use our imagination to create fantasy by way of conspiracy theories. There are new influences constantly emerging and entering our section of our river of culture. By attempting to block those influences, we stop the flow of the river itself, and cut off oxygen we need to survive. We may be, like the busy beavers, thinking to protect our family and our tribal concerns, but we need to have a vision, and the commitment to steward the whole. This is why Culture War is so toxic, even to the values that we are trying to protect. By fighting Culture Wars, we need to demonize the “other,” and by doing so, we pour poison into their land, blocking the flow of gifts that can rejuvenate and nourish the wider waters. If we deem to poison the “weeds” by using pesticides, that poison seeps into, eventually, ours and our children’s systems.
Creation As Gift
Creation is a gift as Art is a gift. Only when we see the universe as an extravagant gift of God, and not a utilitarian need for us to exist, can we be liberated from our bondage of our Darwinian decay, and see art as a path to freely reflect our identity as glorious children of God. Our imagination is also a gift, and counters idolatrous fantasy that flows out of anxiety and fear. I quote Dr. Ellen Davis of Duke as she has written extensively on how the biblical writers use the word for “heart” or Greek “kapoia” as the organ of the imagination. Worship can and should open the “eyes of our hearts” (Eph 1:18) to see beyond the scarcity ridden world all around us.
Biblical God is the Creator, and not just the “First Cause” but the creator of creativity, the “cause” behind our understanding of the “First Cause.” God created us out of exuberant love, and invited us even before the Fall to be co-creators and stewards of Eden. The question the Biblical writers keep asking us is “what are you making? And how are we taking part in God’s creativity despite our brokenness? From Adam’s naming of the animals in Eden, Tabernacle of Moses, Solomon’s Temple, the Chosen People’s identity to Christ’s Bride, and the Church, we are part of God’s artistry that will steward creation and creativity into the New.
A New Lazarus Culture
What I deem as the harbinger of the New Lazarus culture (based on John 11-12) begins with seeing Christ’s tears in front of us, and recognizing that Jesus’s tears are still with us in our dark times. Lazarus was a recipient of the powerful movement of grace, to be called back from the stenches of death into life again. We can have relaxed confidence, reclining at the table with Jesus, if we have been through trauma and experienced God’s tearful presence there. Those who have experienced Jesus’s tears in our trauma can be like Mary, bringing her most expensive wedding nard to anoint Jesus in her most extravagant and “wasteful” act of worship. Jesus commends her: “She has done a beautiful thing to me, and whenever the gospel will be preached, what she has done will also be told.” (Mark 14) The question I ask the church to consider is … are we doing that? Whenever the gospel is preached, do we detect the aroma of Mary, her extravagant act of beauty and sacrifice in some way?
As I note in my book, John 11 and 12 present a family in Bethany of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus representing three aspects of culture: 1) Mary representing the intuitive, creative response to Christ, 2) Martha representing the activist, rational/analytical response to Christ, and 3) Lazarus representing the recipient of Christ’s power and grace in his repose and relaxed confidence. This triad can contribute to what I call Lazarus Culture, the merging of the intuitive, rational, and relational. Integrated education must take in the somatic knowledge (as in Mary’s nard) as well as informational, analytical knowledge (as in Martha’s activism and analysis), and the relational aspects of learning in community. Liberal Arts education prepares the students not just toward practical worldly gains but toward a generative life that pours gold, like Kintsugi (see Chapter 4 regarding Kintsugi in Art+Faith: A Theology of Making), into the fissures of the world. The arts prepare a student for collaborative, improvisational, empathetic creativity, and prepare all of us for the Cosmic Wedding to come.
Biography of Author
Makoto Fujimura is a leading contemporary artist, an arts advocate, writer, and speaker who is recognized worldwide as a cultural influencer. He authors several books, including "Art+Faith: A Theology of Making" (Yale Press), “Refractions” (NavPress) and “Culture Care” (IVPress) which reflects many of his thesis on arts advocacy.
