What a correspondence. On the Protestant-versus-artistic-expression sense, there is a lot to unpack. A nondenominational Protestant myself, I feel the question of whether I’m indulging my vanity to write. But it varies with the church - our worship band wrote an album from the verses of 1 John, in tandem with a sermon series we received on that book.
That said, there is an iconoclastic streak and history with our churches dating back to the Reformation. Plenty of objectionable if not wholly wrong destruction of Catholic Churches and books, sometimes deriving directly from John Calvin’s teaching. However, I also found the work of Lucas Cranach the Elder, who painted biblical scenes and portraits at the height of the Reformation and was lauded by the new Protestants. Is his an exception? An example? A rule? It’s hard to say.
Isn't it odd how the arts are the one thing we think of as vanity regarding how we spend our time? According to Ecclesiastes, everything we do is vanity which time will be forgotten, covered by time. The preacher says we should at least find pleasure in what we find to do!
As a musician raised in evangelical protestant circles, I've found that music is the one realm where pockets of artistic expression can still be found (when it isn't simply trying to provide a sanitized version of some non-Christian's version anyway). But even granting that, the lyrical criticism is strong. One of my former bands had a song that was essentially a dialogue with a homeless man. There was a line (from the homeless man's perspective) where he admits "I've been drunk as hell for fifteen years." An honest reflection about the realities of his life. And there were still people quibbling that we could have said "drunk as heck" instead of using the word "hell" 🙄
I think that's at least part of what discourages a lot of evangelicals from expressing themselves through language.
As you said though, there's a lot to unpack there. I am hoping to have more conversations on the subject in the future.
I like your term “sanitized” - unsanitized spiritual rawness is the Christian expression in art that’s usually discouraged in church circles, in my experience. Though, again, it varies church to church. Our hymns and sermons can get despondent as means of highlighting great hope.
What a correspondence. On the Protestant-versus-artistic-expression sense, there is a lot to unpack. A nondenominational Protestant myself, I feel the question of whether I’m indulging my vanity to write. But it varies with the church - our worship band wrote an album from the verses of 1 John, in tandem with a sermon series we received on that book.
That said, there is an iconoclastic streak and history with our churches dating back to the Reformation. Plenty of objectionable if not wholly wrong destruction of Catholic Churches and books, sometimes deriving directly from John Calvin’s teaching. However, I also found the work of Lucas Cranach the Elder, who painted biblical scenes and portraits at the height of the Reformation and was lauded by the new Protestants. Is his an exception? An example? A rule? It’s hard to say.
Isn't it odd how the arts are the one thing we think of as vanity regarding how we spend our time? According to Ecclesiastes, everything we do is vanity which time will be forgotten, covered by time. The preacher says we should at least find pleasure in what we find to do!
As a musician raised in evangelical protestant circles, I've found that music is the one realm where pockets of artistic expression can still be found (when it isn't simply trying to provide a sanitized version of some non-Christian's version anyway). But even granting that, the lyrical criticism is strong. One of my former bands had a song that was essentially a dialogue with a homeless man. There was a line (from the homeless man's perspective) where he admits "I've been drunk as hell for fifteen years." An honest reflection about the realities of his life. And there were still people quibbling that we could have said "drunk as heck" instead of using the word "hell" 🙄
I think that's at least part of what discourages a lot of evangelicals from expressing themselves through language.
As you said though, there's a lot to unpack there. I am hoping to have more conversations on the subject in the future.
I like your term “sanitized” - unsanitized spiritual rawness is the Christian expression in art that’s usually discouraged in church circles, in my experience. Though, again, it varies church to church. Our hymns and sermons can get despondent as means of highlighting great hope.