The entire room was captivated by the early-morning performance of a Buddhist offering made by way of Tibetan water bowls. I picked at my oatmeal and raisins, listening to the published author explain the offering’s ability to express gratitude and minimize selfishness. I was immersed in a weekend of writing workshops for young adults, where I’d later hear various seminars on art’s place as a vehicle for human rights advocacy—namely abortion, the acceptance of all gender identities, and the inclusivity of all religions.
As I sat in that room, surrounded by varying ideologies, I was saddened by the desperate search for meaning represented by the attempt to produce art for identity’s sake. It led me to ponder how the gospel offers a better vision for artists and creatives: a correct view of humanity, a love of the transcendentals, and the call to be chaos organizers rather than chaos makers.
Anthropological Anomaly
The question of identity colors every aspect of Western culture today. From birth, we’re set on a great quest to pave our own expressive path of purpose and value. What a burden this is. Thankfully, the gospel frees us from the crushing weight of discovering, expressing, and justifying our unique identities.
The gospel frees us from the crushing weight of discovering, expressing, and justifying our own unique identities.
Christ’s imputed righteousness saves us from finding ultimate purpose, value, and acceptance within ourselves or anything outside of our Creator. The fact that “God created man in his own image” (Gen. 1:27) also frees us from having to prove our worth. We’re valuable simply because we bear the imago Dei—reflecting God and glorifying him.
From the moment Adam and Eve sinned, the human race began its quest to become God rather than being a vessel of worship that reflects glory back to God. Instead of obeying God’s command to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28), we’ve sinfully embraced chaos and the lie that destruction is beautiful. The story of redemption, by which God foreordained the coming of a second Adam who would perfectly fulfill every duty in which the first Adam had failed, is the restoration of humanity. By God’s grace alone, we’re restored as image-bearers, worshipers, and lovers of the one true God.
Truth That Transcends
One distinction between humanity and other life-forms is our longing for what’s true, good, and beautiful. As creators, the gospel radically transforms the way we view these triadic virtues. God’s redemptive plan for humanity—Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension—gives profound definition to the true, the good, and the beautiful our hearts desire. This can all be reflected in our artistic pursuits. It’s no longer our truth, our goodness, and our idea of beauty we seek to express, but God’s.
This doesn’t mean our art as Christians should be sanitized and “safe,” avoiding anything unsettling or difficult. One way the gospel shapes our creativity is by giving us a willingness to not hide our places of brokenness or ignore our original state of total depravity. The cracks in our lives make the light of Christ shine all the more brightly.
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is beautiful, in part because its characters are utterly lost in their patterns of sin, so clearly in need of redemption. Some of Vincent van Gogh’s self-portraits feature his missing earlobe, a physical mark of his own brokenness, which makes the images more beautiful for their honesty. Mozart composed the Requiem in D Minor for a funeral, while facing the reality of death himself. Without the recognition of our utter wickedness, our lost and confused state, and the reality of death, we’d have no need for a Savior.
Formation in a Fallen World
Realism about sin isn’t the only way the gospel motivates Christian creativity. The resurrection should give our creative efforts a sense of confident hope. Scripture begins with creation in Genesis 1 and ends with re-creation in Revelation 21 (“Behold, I am making all things new,” v. 5). In a world of tears, pain, and suffering, the gospel leads us always in the direction of resurrection hope. As Christ died with the weight of our sins on his shoulders, he was raised to life on the third day.
The resurrection should give our creative efforts a sense of confident hope.
If we’ve been made new in Christ, our former reality of chaos and confusion has passed away (2 Cor. 5:17), giving way to more and more order and clarity. With confidence we can move forward, leaving honest glimpses of our journey in our words, paintings, songs, and actions. Even if we’re still in process and our creative expressions explore the struggle of sanctification, the gospel means our posture is always one of eschatological hope: we’re new creations, being made new by the power of the Spirit within us.
Command for Creators
I left that weekend of writing workshops with a few books signed by their authors, a better understanding of the culture around me, and a passion to use art as a way to share the gospel. The world is broken and in need of a Savior who will give life to the lost, hope to the powerless, and comfort to the sufferer.
Gospel-shaped art should honestly express the realities of a broken world, even as it offers meaning and hope after suffering and death. And gospel-shaped art has a purpose beyond self-expression. For Christians, the canvas is more than a mirror; it’s a magnifying lens—one that makes the glory of Christ abundantly clear to a watching world.