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APPENDIX A “A Blank Stare or Active Engagement? Toward a Christian Approach to the Arts” By C. Scott Shidemantle, Ph.D. 1 Introduction I remember one of the first times that I visited the Carnegie Art Museum in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. As I browsed the various rooms, observing people looking pensively at the various works of art hanging on the walls, this question went through my mind: “What am I supposed to do while I’m here? Should I just sit and contemplate each piece with a blank stare like many of the other people in the room seemed to be doing? And, if so, what should I contemplate? Should I contemplate the brush strokes? Should I try to get into the head of the original artist who produced the piece? Should I focus on how the artwork ‘makes me feel’?” I felt like I needed some guidance! These questions bec ame even more profound when I began to add to them the issue of whether or not my Christian faith should or should not interact in some way with my experience with the arts. Perhaps you have had similar experiences. The purpose of this brief essay is t o give some reflections on what art “is” and what art “does ,” and to propose some ideas on how you as a Christian might engage art meaningfully — beyond simpl y the “blank stare” approach. Situating Art in the Cultural Mandate After creating Adam and Eve, God instructed them to, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air…” (Genesis 1:28 NIV). This “filling” of the earth with humans, and cultivating the creation by drawing out i ts potential through developing it, is called by theologians “the Cultural Mandate.” What is the “Cultural Mandate”? Simply put, it is the call on all human beings to link together with shared values to communally cultivate God’s creation in God -honori ng ways. Generally speaking, how does the Cultural Mandate relate to “art” and the call to some to be artists? We might say that art, and the call to be an artist, is “creational.” That is, God built into particular humans the ability to create “art” as one of the means by which we create and sustain human culture. In fact, we find that in the subsequent chapters of Genesis, where the playing out of the Cultural Mandate is portrayed, there are references to individuals who initiated various types of artistic expression. For example, there are Jubal (the father of music; Genesis 4:21) and Tubal -Cain (the father of metal working; Genesis 4:22). Behind the first of these two individuals we can perhaps picture in our minds groups of humans gathered toge ther to hear music played on lyre and flute for the first time and being drawn together by that shared experience. This shared experience served to forge a “link,” or a shared “culture,” between those humans. 1 C. Scott Shidemantle (Ph.D. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Th.M. Princeton Theological Seminary, M.Div. Gordon -Conwell Theological Seminary) is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Geneva College. He enjoys Mozart, Maynard Ferguson and the O.C. Supertones —in addition to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off . We know that the Cultural Mandate did not g o away after the Fall. To illustrate this point, the words of the Cultural Mandate are repeated after God judged the world by means of the Flood.

God instructed Noah, when he and his sons went forth from the Ark after the Flood receded, to once again link themselves together with shared values to communally draw potential from creation in words very similar to the language of Genesis 1:28: “As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it” (Genesis 9:7 NIV). Wh ile the Cultural Mandate is not withdrawn after the Fall, it is true that after the Fall we humans have the tendency to “do” culture in all kinds of distorted ways. If one were to focus on the main verbs of the Cultural Mandate (being fruitful, increasing in number, filling the earth, and subduing the earth), we could easily identify many different ways from our own experience how each of these commands are distorted in our own culture. The arts, which portray and convey culture, are not exempt from this reality. The Fourfold Cultural Function of the Arts If God created the arts and has gifted and called some to be artists, then how specifically do the arts connect with the Cultural Mandate? The Christian writer William D. Romanowski argues that there are at least four culture -building and culture -sustaining functions of the arts (Romanowski, 2007, pp. 94 -99), which we will examine below. Communicating the Values of a Culture . Art has the power to communicate the various values and assumptions of a culture. If you look at art, including popular art like movies and television, values are communicated from the artist to the audience. A “value” is a strongly held approach to life . For example, many American films portray the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” approach to life. Examples of this might be found in movies like Flashdance , Rocky , and even the more recent 2006 movie The Pursuit of Happyness . In each of these examp les, the main character faces all kinds of odds in life, and through their own sheer fortitude and hard work, they overcome the odds and triumph. This pattern is repeated over and over again in American films — only the characters’ names change. Perhaps yo u can think of other examples of this pull -yourself -up -by -your -bootstraps value in film. Since the Fall, the shared values that hold together cultures tend to be distorted forms of the values portrayed in Scripture — values like justice, chastity, and res pect for other humans because they are created in the image of God. In art, many of these values are portrayed vividly, but they often are a pale reflection, in some way, of their full -orbed articulation in Scripture. Social and Cultural Criticism . Art has the power to critique societal ills that need to be addressed. The popular movie Mean Girls , starring Lindsay Lohan, is a social critique of the value that junior high and senior high girls place on a form of popularity based on social class, appea rance, and dress rather than on character. The powerful movie Remember the Titans , starring Denzel Washington, is a commentary on the explicit racism of the early 1970’s and the struggles of one southern town to deal with this racism in the context of an integrated football team. The power of human friendship, even across racial divides, is communicated through the film — most poignant in the closing scene as the team is gathered around a coffin in the cemetery. Even after the Fall, humans still retain a s ense that things are not quite right in this world. Because of the Fall, however, our answers to why things are not quite right are not always accurate. Our answers are normally only partial and not all -encompassing, and more often than not simply distor ted. But, sometimes just the recognition of what’s wrong with the world, and a work of popular art’s recognition of this, can be a powerful and true observation — one that can challenge us as Christians. Providing for Social Unity . Art has the power to create a sense of unity around the subject matter. If you were to walk into a room and say “Live long and prosper” most people would know exactly what you mean! These are the words of Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame. Even if you walked in the room and inst ead of saying those words, you held up your hand, palm outward, and spread your ring finger and middle finger, most would know that yo u are making the characteristic Vulcan welcome gesture. The phenomenon of trekkies is an example of a form of social unit y that the television series, and the subsequent movie series, created. Perhaps you can think of some other examples of this: “Quack, Quack, Quack” refers to the Mighty Ducks movie series. As a college professor, sometimes I find myself in the classroom asking a question, not receiving any responses from the students, and then repeating the words “Anyone, Anyone, Anyone, Bueller” and having the students react in laughter knowing full well that I have just made an allusion to the movie Ferris Bueller’s Da y Off . This is not just a phenomenon of the popular arts, but is it also a phenomenon of the arts more broadly defined. Perhaps you can think of some examples. Since the Fall, even this powerful use of the arts tends to be distorted. False and tempor ary senses of social unity can be created — and social unity can be created around values that are not biblical or that cause that social unity to go in directions of destruction and distortedness. Pornography is a form of “radically distorted art” that can cause this kind of destructive social unity — as sub -cultures are forged around distorted forms of pleasure and the obj ecti fying of other humans in ways that demean them as precious humans created in the image of God. Because of this effect, we should inde ed question whether pornography should even be classified as “art ,” even as some pornographers have wanted to label it as such. Contributing to the Collective Memory . Art has the power to cause the audience to recall a shared experience and bring mean ing to that shared experience. As someone born in the mid -sixties, I have never been able to relate to those older than me when they say, “I remember where I was when JFK was assassinated.” I was not born yet! But, I could perceive that when the conversation came up, people could draw on their shared memories of where they were , and that shared experience became quite powerful. Since 911, however, I can relate to the phenomenon that earlier generations experienced when they talked about where the y were with JFK was assassinated, or where they were when Pearl Harbor was bombed, etc. The recent series of movies related to 911, including Twin Towers , have contributed to causing us as Americans remember the events of that very difficult day in 2001. Since the Fall, we can tend to distort history and perhaps even give it a “message” that is contrary to reality. For example, the movie The Patriot , starring Mel Gibson, who plays the role of a southern plantation owner transformed into leader on the s ide of the colonies in the Revolutionary War, has a scene in which a southern African American slave, fighting for the colonies, comes to realize along with one of his white fellow soldiers that he has fought the required one year in order to win his freed om. In a poignant scene, one southern white solder expresses that he is honored to serve along side his fellow African American patriot on the field of battle. The problem, historically, with this scene is that in reality most southern African Americans fought on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War because slavery was still practiced in the American south and in Great Britain at the time slavery had been abolished! The scene is historically distorted, whether intentionally or unintention ally, to portray an abhorrence of slavery in a context in which, unfortunately, slavery was tolerated and even embraced! Art as a Map of Reality — a “Worldview” Romanowski has argued that art is a crucial aspect of sustaining culture. In addition, to pus h the culture sustaining aspect of art further, he goes on to argue that art, including the popular arts, are a “map of reality” (Romanowski, 2007, p. 89). That is, he argues that in any work of art, the artist intends to reflect a world that exists behin d the work of art. In other words, the artist is driven to portray “the way she thinks things are” or “the way she thinks things should be” in the world that she has created in the artwork itself. Art is, therefore, more than simply colors on a canvas, o r actors on the screen, or the materials that make up a sculpture. Art speaks to the artist’s view of the world — a perspective on reality — that the artist has built into the very fabric of her artwork. We call this “perspective on reality” one’s “worldview .” Any “worldview,” including a Christian worldview, answers four specific questions about reality. These four worldview questions are behind the world created by the artist, and normally can be discerned by analyzing the work of art. What is the nature of the world ? The artist who creates a work of art presumes a view on the nature of the world. In part, the artist expresses what she sees to be the ordering principle depicted in and through her work of art? On the one hand, the artist can pres ent a world that is created and sustained by God and therefore has purpose. This can be done without even mentioning God explicitly, but by appealing to order — that there is a way that things should be. There should be justice in the world, faithfulness, love; a way things should be. Or, on the other hand, the artist can present a world that is chaotic — there is no purpose to this order -less word. Do you see elements of order in the work of art or is there disorder? What is wrong with the world ? The artist who creates a work of art presumes that there is something wrong with the world. In the words of the Danny Glover character in the movie Grand Canyon , “This ain’t the way that things are supposed to be.” Works of art may explore both the identific ation of what is wrong with the world and the source of what is wrong with the world. Very often, works of art either by -pass this issue or trivialize what is wrong with the world. What is the remedy for the world ? In addition, works of art may also explore what the remedy is for what is wrong with the world. Perhaps the answer is “education” or “more taxes” or something else. In the movie Titanic , the main character Jack, himself, becomes “the remedy” for everything that is wrong in Rose’s. In fact, at a crucial point in the film, Rose says about Jack: “You have saved me in every possible way.” In Titanic , human love replaces the need for reconciliation for God, thus resulting in a humanistic understanding of the remedy for what is wrong with the world. Where are things heading in the future ? Lastly, often, behind a work of art there exists some vision for where the world is heading. What will the future look like? Is there a telos or end -goal to world history? Often, this worldview issue is also not addressed or is even trivialized — living for the “now” alone is the subject of many works of popular art. The Dynamic Relationship between Common Grace & Antithesis Life in this fallen world is a mishmash of good and bad, wholeness and brokenness, clarity and distortedness. What do I mean by this paradoxical statement? Well, on the one hand, I can imagine myself being much more evil than I am — more evil in terms of b ehavior, more broken in terms of the different areas of my life, and more distorted in the way I think about this world. But, on the other hand, I can imagine living my life with more goodness in the way I behave, with more wholeness in the way that I liv e my life in light of Christ’s Kingship, and with more clarity in my thinking in terms of a worldview informed by Christian assumptions. The Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper argued that a particular form of God’s grace is at work in the world to sustai n it — even amongst non -Christians. This form of grace is called “common grace.” Common grace is different from what we might call “Saving Grace,” which is directed only toward those who come to faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Common grace is directed toward Christian and non -Christian alike. Common Grace . There is a negative and positive aspect to common grace. On the positive side, God gives gifts and talents to Christian and non -Christian alike. This reality is reflected in passa ges of Scripture like Matthew 5:45 where we are told that the Lord permits the sun to shine and the rain to pour on the righteous and the unrighteous alike, without distinction. The implication here is that both the righteous and the unrighteous enjoy God ’s gracious gifts, of all sorts, in this world. The same sun and the same rain cause both the Christian farmer’s and the non -Christian farmer’s crops to grow. The reality of common grace allows me to go to the pharmacist and purchase a prescription wit hout being concerned to know that the scientists who developed my medication was or was not a Christian. Why? Because you don’t have to be a Christian to be a scientist who specializes in the production of medication that works. God has given the gifts and talents necessary for Christian and non -Christians alike to serve in the medical arts field, which results in the development of helpful medication that preserve life. How does this idea of common grace relate to the arts? A non -Christian artist, who has received his or her gifts and talents from God, is able to create art that fulfills one or more of the cultural functions of art that we discussed earlier in this essay . I do not know, for example, if those involved with the production of Remember the Titans were Christians, but they certainly understood how to portray something true as they produced a film that powerfully challenges us all, Christian and non -Christian alike, to ask where in the recesses of our hears and minds we might retain a remnant (or even more than a remnant!) of racist and prejudiced attitudes toward others. Antithesis of First Principles . While it is true that non -Christians can indeed dis cover truth in this world through the use of their gifts and talents, it is also true that Christians and non -Christians have radically opposing starting points or assumptions or “first principles” that undergird the use of their gifts and talents. We c an appeal to Remember the Titans again to illustrate the concept of antithesis of first principles. While it is true that Remember the Titans , through common grace, functions extremely powerfully as social and cultural criticism as it identifies a problem in our culture that is absolutely real, the answers that it gives to how to solve the problem is incomplete and anemic at best. Remember the Titans seems to make the point that the way to solve racism may simply be to raise Rodney King’s question “Why ca n’t we all just get along?” or perhaps the solution is just to hang out more. Now, we must acknowledge that both of these “solutions” have some degree of validity and are perhaps part of the solution. But, in the end, as solutions they are quite anemic a nd powerless to address a much deeper problem that comes from our Christian assumptions about the nature of humanity. Neither of these two solutions addresses the reality of my cold, dead, broken mind and heart that harbors distrust of others unlike mysel f and the tendency to think of people in terms of us and them. The solution, at the personal level at least, involves the radical need for a changed heart. So, at the heart of it, is at least the question of the difference between a biblical view of sinf ul humans contrasted with a Western secular view of humans who are neutral if not innately good. The Interaction of Common Grace and Antithesis . As we turn our attention to a Christian engagement of the arts, we can explain what we do as making obser vations on a work of art based on the dynamic interplay between common grace and the antithesis of first principles. In other words, we simply ask two questions: 1) what truths are expressed in this work of art, and 2) what assumptions that stand behind the work of art might be different from a biblically informed set of assumptions? We can illustrate these two questions by once again appealing to Remember the Titans . On the one hand (common grace), Remember the Titans grasps the reality of racism an d prejudice in American culture and it is a call to explore the extent to which it might be present in our lives today. On the other hand (antithesis), Remember the Titans , perhaps trivializes the extent to which humans have fallen and fails to explore th e need for a radical heart and mind transformation in order for an individual to overcome what is a distorted pattern of thinking and behavior toward others of a different race. The Arts and Aesthetics What are aesthetics? Aesthetics has to do with the sensory -emotional appeal that a work of art elicits from its audience. In other words, as one’s senses (hearing, sight, touch, etc.) experience a work of art, what emot ional response does it evoke? Aesthetics and the question of beauty is highly controversial, even among Christian art critics. Some, like H. R. Rookmaaker (1994) have argued that most forms of modern art are not really “art” because they fail to utilize the structures of art properly. Rookmaaker’s book title illustrates his sharp criticism of modern art: Modern Art and the Death of a Culture . Others argue that modern art is indeed art, because even in the seemingly unstructured work of Jackson Pollack, who hung paint cans from ropes hovering over a large canvas and swung the paint cans back and forth to produce a design, there was “structure” to it. Structure was found in the fact that gravity and pendulum forces were at work in the production of his artwork and therefore structure was indeed an ingredient of Pollack’s creativity. For the purpose of this essay, we must leave some of this argument aside and move on to more practical concerns. How do we “judge” a work of art’s aesthetic appeal? One w ay to do so is by employing an age - old system that is listed in the Figure One. 2 Whenever we engage a work of art, whether it is a love song, or a painting, or a novel, or a poem, or a building, or a symphony, we exa mine it with the topics of these aesthe tic elements in mind. Posing these topics as questions (What is the subject? What are the elements?) allows us to discover and to analyze the work on our own. These elements help us to discover interesting features of all kinds of art and gives us somet hing to say about even the most unappealing works. Let us look at each of these categories. Subject Sometimes it seems very obvious to ask, “What is the subject of this art work?” or “What is it?” On the one hand the subject may be clearly named as in a portrait; on the other hand there may be no apparent subject as in some orchestral music. Nevertheless, establishing what the art work is or what it is about is the first step in appreciating its qualities. How many times have you tried 2 Figure One is adapted from an already existing anonymous essay found in a Summer 2007 Geneva College HMT 411 Syllabus. Figure One “Aesthetic Elements” Subject Content Source Function Medium Elements Organization Style Evaluation a new TV show or gone to a particular movie just because someone told you, “It’s about a disastrous avalanche,” or “It’s the story of a man who thinks he’s invisible.” Content Having identified the subject, content is the second topic to ask: “What does this art work s ay about its subject?” What kind of man does that portrait of John Calvin depict? What kind of God can be worshiped in that space? The subject of the poem Cherrylog Road by James Dickey is sex in wrecks; the content is the message that sex wrecks. If an Impressionist painting, like one of Monet’s, has, as its subject, the play of light on water, what does the painting say about how we perceive that moment? Source The artist in his/her time and place always interests me more than other components of th e model. Who made this? Has the artist “signed” it, or is it a work from the “period of…” or “school of….?” What has the artist drawn on for inspiration? Personal experience? History? The Bible or faith? Contemporary culture? Imagination? Other wo rks of art? What in the artist’s own time period has influenced the work? The Civil Rights movement? Religious warfare? New scientific discoveries? Freudian psychology? Function Function, utility, use. What is the function? I can hear some of you m uttering, “Stupid question, none of this artsy stuff is of any use”; and, of course, you’re sometimes right. Where a building may have a utilitarian function – like the medieval cathedrals for worship and community education, music and painting and poetry are not useful in that sense of function. But function can also be understood as the effect the work has on the viewer or reader or listener and his/her community. This makes a much more interesting question: “What is the effect that this has on me? W hat associations and connections does this stir up in me?” Generations of viewers have been moved by Michelangelo’s Pieta ; the political opinions of a nation have been influenced by Picasso’s Guernica . I weep every time I read John Donne’s poem “Batter my heart three - personed God.” Medium Is not medium a funny word, with lots of related meanings! In the arts, the medium comes in between – between the artist’s idea and the audience or viewer or listener. In another sense, medium generally means the ma terial a work is made from. Words are the medium of literature; sounds are the medium of music; paint is a medium, and clay is a medium; the stage is a medium. Medium is both material and the means of expression. But it is hard to separate the medium fr om the meaning in some works. It is also difficult to separate the medium from our experience of the art work. Some artists would say that the medium itself is the meaning of their work; the medium is certainly part of the inspiration. Elements An emotional response to an art work may be sufficient, but sometimes we want to share our enthusiasm or dislike for a piece with others. In that case, it is helpful to be able to describe the details, qualities, or properties of the composition to substa ntiate what we have felt. Elements are different for different mediums, but they help to answer the question, “How has the artist achieved the result?” Elements include, for example, plot and characterization in literature, rhythm and pitch in music, col or and line in painting. Organization Another word for organization is structure. How have the elements been arranged? Even apparent disorder is usually the result of a deliberate choice on the artist’s part – a plan. Maybe there’s a center of gravit y in a sculpture, around which the other masses are shaped. Perhaps there’s an eight measure theme in the fugue. Sometimes poets choose a set structure, like a sonnet, as a challenging constraint. Style Do you have a favorite musical group? When you catch a snatch of a new song by one of your favorites, don’t you recognize it instantly as a new work by that group? Why do you recognize its source, even if you’ve never heard it before? They have a certain “style” or personality that is identifiable, d on’t they! In artistic terms, style has three interconnected levels; each gives plenty of scope for talking about style. The first level is the signature of the individual artist: his/her characteristic turn of phrase or melodic cadence or favorite co lors. Because people develop over time, this style can change and develop, too. Picasso, for instance, has a period when he uses primarily a blue pallet. Personality is only one level of the style of a work, though, because contemporary attitudes and ideas affect an artist’s style as well. This is why we can talk about the second level of style - historical style - like “rococo” interior design or impressionist painting. Picasso, although he could paint in a realist or an impressionist style, experime nted with cubism – a new style which most of us now associate with Picasso. Finally, there are centuries -old continua of artistic styles that transcend individual and cultural styles but are important for us to notice — the classical, romantic continuum, fo r instance. The clean and mathematical proportions of classical Greek architecture and other artistic works with idealized human figure s or clear, logical structures have long been associated with the ancient Greeks and called “classical.” When artists e xperiment with more free -form, with outside the lines forms and with emotions, they produce works at the other end of that style continuum – the romantic style. Evaluation What makes any work of art aesthetically “good” or “beautiful”? Sometimes we loo k disparagingly at a painting and say, “My three year old could have painted that,” even though the abstract in question is hanging in the Carnegie Museum of Art. This is a vexing question without an easy answer. Part of our answer must be the way that w e respond to the worldview expressed behind the art as well as the conclusions that we can draw from the antithesis that we see between our Christian assumptions and the assumptions of the artist. Pulling Things Together: How do I engage the arts as a C hristian? So, how do I engage the arts Christianly? After all, this was the purpose of this essay! We can boil it down to the following three steps or categories. 1. By asking the Four Worldview Questions . You can begin by asking how the world behind t he work of art. Does it clearly or even subtlety answer the four worldview questions: 1) what is the nature of the world, 2) what’s wrong with the world, 3) what is the remedy to what’s wrong with the world, and 4) where are things heading in the future? 2. By analyzing the Interplay between Common Grace and Antithesis . Next, you can ask the following two questions of the work of art that you are exploring: 1) what truth is conveyed in the work of art, and 2) are there assumptions behind the work of art that might be different from our Christian assumptions? 3. By exploring the Aesthetic Features . Last, you can employ the aesthetic elements to your analysis of the work of art. Now you’re done! Please recognize that while we have presented these as thr ee self -contained categories of questions, there may indeed be overl ap between the three categories. Don’t be frustrated by that. Please see that as part of the amazing reality of exploring art as a cultural function of God’s marvelous Creation Mandate. An Aside: When Does Art Cease to Be Art? In our day and age, with the kinds of freedom that we experience in our culture, we have seen the proliferation of pornography, in part due to its increasing availability. One exclamation uttered by a student w ho encountered nudes in classical art, such as Michelangelo ’s David , was “This is pornography!” So, when does art move from being truly “art” to being “pornogr aphy ”? This is an important question, especially considering that for many in our culture, mostly men who are more visually driven than women, struggle with this area of life. An important way to frame this question is to do so with sensitivity , by acknowledging that as a covenanta l- and community -driven faith, and not as an individualistic lone -wolf faith, we need to have a concern for those in our midst that may more easily stumble when they encounter nude visual art like Michaelangelo’s David . While retaining a commitment to s ensitivity, we must ask this question: is there a difference between the work of Hugh Heffner ’s Playboy and Michalangelo ’s David ? Can we conclude that one is a rt and the other clearly is not? If this conclusion is correct, then what is the difference bet ween Heffner and Michelangelo? Colin Gunton (1993) is informative at this point. In his book The One, The Three and The Many , which is a description of God as Trinity, Gunton argues for a definition of art that draws its meaning from a focus on God as Tr inity. God is Trinitarian — when God created humanity, the text says, “Let us make God in our own image.” The Father, Son and Holy Spirit mysteriously took counsel with Himself and created man. There are parallels between God’s Trinitarian creation of hum ans (and the rest of the universe for that matter) and a human beings “creation” of a work of art. In Gunton’s analysis, art is never meant to be solely an individualistic endeavor. Art functions as a cultural phenomenon that relationally draws people to gether to form culture — to reflect real ethical living in relationship with other humans . Art has a cultural purpose — meaning that it should be experienced in community with others, not by an individual in a solitary place. He argues that to engage the arts in a way that is faithful to God’s intention for them is to engage in the arts together with others — as God engaged in creation in Trinitarian relationship . This means that a personal encounter with a novel must never re main simply you and the novel for it to be a full -orbed artistic encounter. You need an interpretive community of at least one other person with whom to talk about that novel . It is at this point that Gunton makes this astute observation in a footnote of his book: "Somewhere in this area is the answer to the question of where the portrayal of the erotic degenerates into pornography” (Gunton, 1993, p.

176). The implication for Gunton is that art’s function is to draw people together in relationship with one another but pornography’s function is to isolate people by sending them into a dark quiet room for reasons of selfish , personal satisfaction. And, this is the expressed purpose of pornography. Interestingly enough, pornography is normally sold or ava ilable in out -of-the -way locations either behind the counter or in an adult -only bookstore, which serves to illustrate how it serves to isolate people rather than draw them together to joyfully explore God’s world . As we turn our atten tion back to Miche langelo ’s David , we might ask what Michelangelo’s purpose was in producing this work of art. Was it to isolate individuals in the darkness of a back room or was it in some way to draw an interpretive community together to explore one of the four cultural functions of art that we pr esented ea rlier in this essay ? Certainly much more could be written on this particular point of differentiating art from pornography . Gunton’s book is a great place to start. Works Cited Gunton, Colin E. (1993). The One, The Three, and The Many . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Romanowski, William D. (2007). Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture . Revised and Expanded Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. Rookmaaker, H. R. (1994). Modern Art and the Death of a Culture. Reprint Edition. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.