My Death in Life

This post I want to direct my message to a specific grouping of people, actually two groups of people, both of which I am connected. Artists and Christians please pay attention to what I have to say and examine the weight of my words and the directness of their meaning because this post strikes at the heart of bad art and bad theology (which will directly affect your relationship with God [knowledge-> belief-> value-> behavior]). I especially hope that Moody Bible Institute students and prospective students are finding this blog (as it is connected to Moody's website) so they may see this post and take it into consideration as they go about their careers representing Christ, Moody, and the churches in which they serve.

When we enter a church, whether that's through our established Christian family or being born again and entering the church later on, we tend to develop a specialized language. I like to refer to this language as "christianese". I would hope that most of this is based on scripture but, being recycled through years of teaching, they become trite maxims and sayings that we take for granted and we don't quite fully understand. First of all I want to say that it makes it really exciting when you study scripture and you discover the deeper, truer meaning of things you've been saying and it renders you to tears because of the weight of it's entirety. But the thing that becomes dangerous is that if this is all that we are displaying to each other then we are in danger of not saying anything at all and the words in which we use to try to communicate to each other become more symbols for sentiments rather than characters of literal meaning. In other words, we lose the power behind what we try to say.

I know this first hand because I was that kid. I've grown up in churches. I went to a Christian school seventh grade through senior year of high school. I go to Moody Bible Institute. I'm a youth ministry major! I know what people try to say when they say some misplaced Christian phrase because I understand the sentiment they're trying to communicate, even if their words betray their own beliefs. But that's the problem, I know what you're trying to say because of my past and my knowledge of the context in which you are speaking out of. But what happens when someone not acquainted with Christianity, or just doesn't have the same Christian education as you do, hears you speak or sees something you post on your blog (facebook, twitter, etc)? We end up communicating with sentiments than words, and I would argue that this is not only limiting your audience but ultimately making the weight of words in which you speak weaker, and also marking the Church with the same weakness (and thus causing you to be less effective in your message).

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Before I go further, let me bring in artists, because I fully realize (and hope) that there may be some artists reading this blog that have (and want) nothing to do with a god. As artists, we can do the same thing, specifically when we attempt to use language and symbols. Paintings, photographs and the like are unique because they attempt to use pictures/symbols to display a message or a sentiment. The danger is when the artist claims that their art has a meaning that has no historically cultural or contextual significance- they end up just blurring the communication. I have approached this topic before in a previous post entitled "The Tragedy of Subjectivism and Art".

In literature or music- anywhere actual words are used- we can run the same danger of using "christianese" but in a more general sense. The term used with this (and the thing that causes the struggle in me) is what Mark Hoppus claimed was "artistic license" when speaking about a line in a +44 song referring to then ex-band mate Tom Delongue that mentioned, "this isn't just goodbye/ this is I can't stand you" (http://youtu.be/3RFUcncOFR4). And in literature there is hyperbole, understatement and Irony that can be used to enhance the message trying to be portrayed. But I believe there is a fine balance in abusing this "artistic license" and using it to help creatively express oneself. Poor art runs the danger of saying nothing at all when it resorts to just stringing together clever phrases and poor analogies that do not give justice to the actual message.

In my mind it comes back to the platonic theory of ideas. There is behind everything an ultimate form of what we experience. So if we see the beauty in a sunset that is an expression of the abstract idea of what we believe beauty is. Plato would say that we see examples of beauty and the more we collect and experience gives us a better picture of the ultimate form of beauty. Where I see the connection is that art is mostly an indirect means of communication and good art is to be able to creatively communicate a message. But if the medium is muddled you lose the message. If the example of the form is weak, you have a harder time grasping the form itself, or are misled entirely.

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Now the questions that both groups have to ask; what is the purpose of your communication? Who are you trying to communicate too? What are you trying to communicate? Is this being effectively achieved in the language that you use?

I become very passionate about this topic because I see something a little more sinister happening. Rather than the reason behind this problem being naivety or immaturity, I feel like it becomes more of a dishonesty.

In regards to people in any religion, some people use religious language because that's what they've grown up in and that's all they know in regards to verbally relating to God, other spiritual beings- even people as spiritual persons (this is the naivety and immaturity I was referring to previously). But I don't believe that's the case, especially when people mature and can reflect. I think we need to realize what we're saying and actually have something to back up our words. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. Sometimes when I ask a Christian friend how he/she is doing I get a similar response; "I'm doing so good. The Lord has blessed me so much and He is so good to me". Wow, what a response! But this would lead me to ask what is happening in their life to get such an enthusiastic response and they would return, "God has really just been humbling me lately and really showing me His glory". Now this example is extreme, but that's because I wanted you to have a clear understanding of the use of religious language I'm talking about. In that conversation, what was really said? Do I really know what's going on in that persons life? Or do I just have the general idea?

This is when it becomes dangerous. That type of religious language lacks an amount of reality that makes anyone able to connect. I don't know what's really going on in that persons life. I don't know if there is a struggle producing that humility or if it's simply meditation on scripture. I don't know if there is anything I should be concerned about, but from that conversation I would be led to believe that the person is doing really well. Dishonesty can be bred from this ambiguity of language, and unfortunately that is what I have experienced as of late.

In all my experiences, both of myself and of others, this type of language is a front- the root of which could be multiple things from trying to project what we think we should be or projecting what we think others expect from us. It is not based on reality, is not honest, and, in the end, not edifying, sanctifying or helpful- we end up creating a vacuum for all the things we wished to achieve.

In art, it is almost the same reason people use over-dramatic language- they are posing to be something. They want to be artists to be artists rather than being artists to produce art. Vanity is such a simple thing but the consequences are immense.

The reason why I tend to be so critical and cynical on this topic is; one, I've found this struggle in myself in my darkest times and, two, I find it hard to believe that people can't realize the dichotomy between the life of their words and of their actions. There can come a point where we find ourselves saying one thing and we don't even feel the sentiment in which we've been trained to convey, let alone believe the meaning of the words we're saying.

This is the tragedy of when words lose their meaning. We find ourselves alone, struggling to communicate even with our own souls.

(For a more researched look into religious language, pick up the first ever Soma, Moody's first peer-reviewed, academic editorial. I'll be having a two part article in the first two issues of this quarterly publication!)