Art and Poverty, Pt. 2

This entry is a response to a question given to me about whether we should enjoy art (I suppose the economics involved) with the poor in mind. I hesitate to give my response here, because I'm afraid Ted will think it too pious.

I really like the question, and I've actually been thinking about it a good bit. There are a few things to say about art before making a claim about the relationship between art and the poor. The first is that art is not neutral. It is not amoral. Every bit of art is, for better or worse, making a claim on reality and culture. No art is void of direction, not even Thomas Kincaid.
The questions then are, to what end is art done? What is art in general? What is good art? If art should be directed towards God, then is all non-Christian art in some way immoral? Can art be good and immoral? And finally, should the expense, and aristocratic feel or most European art forbide us from enjoying it?

I don't have good answers to these questions, but I do think they are important to deal with before making claims about the relationship between art and poverty.

That being said, I can say confidentely that you should enjoy art. What I am unsure about is what art you should enjoy. In fact, the word enjoy is not exactly the word we should be dealing with. Better ways of thinking about it is, what art should we "affirm" or deem "good." I enjoy all sorts of things I shouldn't.

But why do I think you should enjoy art? Well I'm confident of three things about art. The first is that art is unavoidable. It has and will be a part of every culture. Creation itself is a piece of art, and God declares it "good." Second, art is has a necessary place in poor and oppressed communities. It is not just for the rich. There is more art then the art of museums, and some of the greatest art comes from impoverished and oppressed communities. Art can, and is often, a means to physical and mental liberation. I think this is why there are so many tremendous homosexual artists- art is a means to their liberation in cultures where they feel oppression. Third, art may be the only place in modern society that has bridged the modernistic dualism of the material and the spiritual, and for that reason I find art to be one of the most credible sources of epistemology.

A world driven entire by utilitarian economics is a not a world worth living in. This is not complete thinking, and I'm curious what others would have to say.

Jesus vs. Paul

Thanks to Rene Girard, in the past year my thoughts on the Bible have changed quite a bit. It was a badly needed change, and one that has produced a good amount of holy freedom. At some point, probably when I was young, someone read the Bible to me like a book of law, or a history book of how this world came to be.

There seems to be a number of problems with this thinking. I don't want to write about all of what I think the Bible is, mostly because I don't know what I'm talking about. I do think the Bible is much richer if read as a drama.

However, I think whatever the Bible actually is, flawed or perfect, its not a linear book. I think its a book that starts and ends in the middle. Jesus was not a theologian, he was God. Somehow we decided if we wanted to understand Jesus we would have to first go through Paul. Paul is a theologian, and he is useful as such, but an ethic derived from Paul should not trump an ethic derived from Jesus. Our conversations should not go "Jesus said this...but Paul said this..." It makes me more comfortable to think of "Paul said this...but Jesus said this..." I guess what I'm saying, in the battle of Jesus vs. Paul, Jesus (being God and all) should probably win. For everyone who will ask the question, "Are Jesus and Paul not in agreement?" read the comments page.