So I was in the category of thinking that the Presbyterian view of the law is, “A little strict, I mean come on. Wheres the grace? Just chill, don you know your turning people off to the gospel by being so legalistic?” I thought they were too stiff, taking things way to seriously, until yesterday. Yesterday the stone fell upon me and broke me to pieces.
I was in my local tattoo shop hanging out with my friend who works there, and I was scanning the walls taking in all the art. Then I realized a couple of things, First, there was a lot of vulgar racy art. Second, there was a lot of pictures of Christ mostly from catholic origin. Third, they all misrepresented Christ, his perfect sinless life, his perfect sacrifice and the anchor of our souls, his resurrection. Fourth, this misrepresentation was a mockery to God.
The picture that set this snowball in motion was picturing a catholic Christ with the sacred heart and peace sign fingers, then next to it was praying hands to a glorified virgin Mary, asking for the forgiveness of sin. It was art that was a graven image, because it belittled the work of Christ, making him only a cartoon, a fairy tale, a myth of the old world. The images were worshipped by those in the tattoo shop because that is what they spend the most time looking to, to be better at art, for their own sake, for their own glory, not Gods. They were making graven images. The images suppress God and his eternal attributes because they misrepresent him, they box him in. Its like talking crap on someone, when it aint true. Those images were talking crap on Christ and belittling his work. Graven images mock him because they suppress him. The image did not listen to the law of God but to the culture of man. Gods law is his culture it is his boast, it is his glory, especially and explicitly when Christ fulfills it (Matt 5:17, Rom 8:3,4).
God needs nothing to show his power, on the entire universe, he is not served by human hands, only his perfect triune being in which he is perfectly content.
Im not against art or culture, im not against tattoos, but I am against idolatry.
3 comments:
you know, for some reason - maybe its my presbyterian background, but, i've always thought pictures and tattoo's of Jesus were creepy. i never thought of them as bad per say, but i just thought they were creepy. most of the time its because they make Jesus to be a blonde hair, blue eyed anglican looking man, serene and such. they always creeped me out.
my pappy had a picture of Jesus that was sculpted and painted and the eyes were sculpted and painted in a way that no matter which way you walked, it looked as if Jesus' eyes were watching you. maybe thats what scared me! ANYWAY - there is a point to my madness!
thinking of it in this light, i don't think that i can think of pictures of Jesus as merely creepy - but also a form of idolatry. so i will stick to my "no Jesus picture" rule when we move and when bud and i have kids. (i doubt bud would want Jesus pictures anyway) thanks for putting it in a way to clarify what i've felt but didn't know why. i think you hit the nail on the head. good show!
love ya, nic lazz. you're too cool for school.
agape,
christin joy.
I agree, and "bad art" is as old as Eden.... Good art depicts truth. Bad art deceives or tells half-truths. God created "good art," literally calling His artwork "very good," on the day He made, in His image, a naked man and woman. Satan tricked them into trying to cover up their beautiful bodies, but God's question to the fig-leaf covered sinners exposed their deceiver: "Who told you that you were naked?" I believe Satan's plan was to get human bodies hidden so that they could be strategically uncovered in various ways that could stimulate lust. The fashion industry has become expert in this demonic strategy.
Artists down through the ages have gravitated to the metaphor of "the nude." When their work has communicated a message of truth and purity, it has been good art. Yet artistic depiction of the body, either clothed or naked, becomes bad art, as soon as it joins Satan in dressing up our incarnate humanity with a lie. This can be done "art"-tificially with man-made fig leaves, but more often with innuendoes of suggestive body postures or indecencies in facial expression. The reality of this in art is well described in the following quote by the Christian poet Sidney Lanier:
"Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing combination of tender curves and spheric softness that ever stood for woman; yet if the lip have the least fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow be insincere, if in the minutest particular the physical beauty suggests a moral ugliness, that sculptor -- unless he be portraying a moral ugliness for a moral purpose -- may as well give over his marble for paving stones. Time, whose judgments are inexorably moral, will not accept his work. For, indeed, we may say that he who has not yet perceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are convergent lines which run back into a common ideal origin, and who therefore is not afire with moral beauty just as with artistic beauty -- that he in short, who has not come to that stage of quiet and eternal frenzy in which the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty mean one thing, burn as one fire, shine as one light within him; he is not yet the great artist."
It is sad that the Evangelical church bows in such blind devotion to the falsehood of "body shame" that she cannot hear the healing message in Lanier's words. Otherwise, we might enjoy the divine handiwork of God's unadorned image, the naked temple of His Spirit, again portrayed on the walls of our churches as the Renaissance saw them displayed on the ceilings of its chapels. Instead, for fear of transgressing the will of the tyrannical "body taboo," we not only neglect excellence and skill in figurative artistry, but we avoid any artwork that praises God for designing the "fearfully and wonderfully made" male and female anatomy in which we live. Does such idolatrous prudery please the Almighty Artist of the universe? I think not, because He saved for last His most beautiful works of art in creation, our physical bodies. They win the beauty contest of Heaven, for the Son of God Himself chose to inhabit one of these physical bodies for eternity. So, I say let's do good art, as believers, by communicating creatively the beautiful truth found in our Incarnate Lord Jesus and in the full creational humanity that He came to bring to complete restoration. -- DLH (www.pastordavidrn.com)
really thought provoking post, nic. i read it a couple days ago and have been chewing it over for a while.
1. I have a Jesus tattoo. (i was hitch hiking back in 99 and found this piece of paper on the side of the road that had a picture of Jesus on it that looked kind of cool, so i decided i'd get a tattoo of it when i turned 18, so the day of my 18th birthday [dec 29th 2000] i got it.) i have over the years vacillated between pride and shame over having an image of Jesus permanently etched onto my skin.
2. i live and minister in a post-Catholic city where you can't walk two blocks without passing a statue or icon of "Our Lady" or "Our Lord".
3. i've surrounded myself with artistic people my whole adult life and have watched them provoke thought and inspire awe through their art.
and i think in spite of number two, and perhaps because of number three, i don't feel the shame over number one that i have felt in the past.
much could be said about the fact that God Himself (who is spirit) took on an image Himself in the incarnation. but i don't know if i have the time to get into it right now. it's quite late and i have a difficult text to preach on tomorrow morning. but i'd love to talk about this with you more some other time.
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