The Problem With the Art of Certain Modern Christian Traditions | Jonathan Pageau (Firecamp Podcast)

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The clips on this channel are selected and compiled by certain members of the Facebook Group (linked below) and not by Jonathan Pageau himself.

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[antonia]

When you put it like that It makes so much sense to me. Sometimes at my church I get uncomfortable with certain songs and phrases. And I couldn’t exactly point out why? It’s always a relief to me when an old hymn is sung instead.

[nickkerinklio]

Terrible, generic Christian pop isn’t necessarily a Protestant problem imo. I think it’s specifically an American thing

[deebater]

good! I always though there was something wrong in my 30 years of Charismania. Now in my 4th Orthodox service this Sunday. And although it is 75% in a foreign language - I am still in awe.

[guanabacoaguajiraguanabaco]

After becoming protestant, I always felt guilty that I did not like most of the contemporary Christian music. Listening to Sarah Brightman or Enya provided me with more religious experiences than anything I would hear in Church. I feel vindicated 🥲

[plantnovice]

Art is a language and not all speak it

[aelbereth]

What Jonathan says is so true. Art comes from a vision of the world, a vision of reality, and reflects belief. The more profound the belief in the reality of the spiritual world the more profound will be the art that's produced, whether visual or musical. A shallow simplistic and materialist view of the Christian mysteries will result in shallow, simplistic, non-spiritual Christian art. Contemporary Catholic art over the past 50 years is almost uniformly dreadful. Sentimental and childish at best; banal, ugly and fake-"primitive" the rest of the time. And horribly badly drawn with no artistic skill. But what's most disturbing about it is what it reflects - an absence of any obvious belief in, apprehension of or longing for the ineffable, the divine, the wonder of the Incarnation, the glory of material creation having been redeemed exalted and infused with the Godhead - there's this real sense of absence, of loss of deep meaning. It's as if we're even being discouraged from thinking this way about our faith by being expected to accept these travesties, and the dire contemporary "worship" music too.

Yet there are contemporary alternatives too - in music, great Christian composers such as Arvo Pärt or James Macmillan, and there must be great visual artists too, and poets, but they're not drawn upon, they're not given space in the Church today as a rule. There's a philistine mentality that assumes art of any quality is too "elitist" or inaccessible to the "ordinary" person. But there is also, I would argue, a widespread loss of faith in the truly miraculous and numinous.

Earlier this evening I was listening to some extraordinary 15th century music (by Guillaume du Fay) in honour of the Blessed Virgin, accompanied by stunningly beautiful images of her from the same era. They weren't just beautiful as artworks, but radiated a luminous faith and wonder and joy. Just looking at them could bring you to tears.

The painters who created those images and the composers and musicians who made that music, and the craftsmen and architects who built and adorned churches and statues and humble shrines, all were expressing their faith. It seemed like a different quality of faith than is common today. And "ordinary" people loved it: it was a glimpse of heaven in a harsh, dangerous, uncertain world.

Perhaps as we become more aware of how fragile and threatened and uncertain our present secular materially comfortable world really is, we may rediscover a longing for the Infinite and be able to create great Christian art again.

[plantnovice]

Art is a language and not all speak it

[RoyalProtectorate]

One of the best critiques of christian music I have seen ao far.

[blumythefool]

Oh, cool to see a romanian here.
Hello from Romania!

[pavlostriantaris]

Sometimes they do not view tradition as evil, but rather as replaceable/interchangeable (and pretty much all art as consumable). Frankly, I know not which is worse.

[IphigeniaBurg]

Use the Rumanian rhythms and dances for the Lord.
I know what the Rumanian brother is saying… the Greek evangelicals used American hymns in Greek words until new composers unfolded and brought the Greek/Mediterranean rhythm in worship and it became personal to the Greeks

[RodrigoMera]

I'm not a philosopher but... would one call it an "incarnational epistemology"?

[LiamDangerPark]

Rastafarians make better worship music because reggae is designed for it

[apowave]

I would highly recommend the video Adam Neely put out on Contemporary Christian Music.

[pgranto]

All music is Christ music, the last psalm, let everything that have breath praise the Lord.

[agentk]

Churches could feed the starving artists and make studios for em to work at in exchange for free art and music.

[joshuaweatherston]

The real crime is that the instrument in the thumbnail is actually a bass 😐

[SyoDraws]

So, the issue is that we misunderstand the intent of art within a Christian worldview, conflating it with evangelism?

[apowave]

This is way off. If all contemporary Christian music was propaganda it would not have the impact it’s has had on church culture. Spreading the gospel is part of Christianity Jonathan. I don’t know why you are pretending it’s not. How are you going to win the lost if you can’t communicate the simplicity of the gospel. Baroque and early Christin classical music is profound. But it will not affect culture.