I spent four days this last week at the Kindlings Fest conference up on Orcas Island. Kindlings is an organization dedicated “to rekindle the spiritual, intellectual and creative legacy of Christians in culture.”

The theme of this year’s conference was “turning mourning into dancing.” Most of the art centered around how we deal with grief and suffering while moving toward healing and rejoicing, toward dancing.

I struggled during this conference because I expected a far different experience than I had. Previously I attended Kindlings Muse events in Seattle focused on discussion of pop culture and theology. In contrast, I found the overall tenor of the conference, along with much of the art present, to be very safe, conservative and out of style.

This is not to say it was lacking in technical excellence, though. Simply, it did not resonate with me as a young creative in the church because what I saw and experienced in many ways represented the art of older generations. It spoke a language I did not understand.

Tongue-tied

I am glad we are no longer fighting about whether or not there should be drums in church. I am glad the conversation has shifted now to a discussion of style and artistic merit. A conversation not about should we use art, but how best to use art. But I fear the conversation has become a stalemate between artists who want to take more risks, try new ideas and styles, and a greater church body that has become comfortable and sees no reason to change.

We are called as Christians to engage with the world outside of the church. Unfortunately, many interpret this as the proverbial Jesus fish bumper sticker and playing Christian radio at work. Clearly there is nothing wrong with either of these things, but to think somehow they speak meaningfully to a non-churched culture? We might as well speak literal Greek!

The church and the culture no longer speak the same language. Fortunately, this coming generation of artists of faith is bilingual. They speak both the language of the church and the language of the culture. There are ways our worship in the church can be enriched and brought to new depths with this new language; not just in our musical styles or powerpoint slides, but our entire Sunday morning church experience. Poets, photographers, film makers, dancers and creatives all want to be part of the discussion now.

One of my favorite film makers is Wes Anderson. I bring Christ to the culture when I see his films with friends and talk about the brokenness of people and families, and ultimate redemption and grace. I don’t bring Christ by forcing my non-Christian friends to watch Kirk Cameron’s latest Left Behind movie.

Much of the art I engaged with at Kindlings Fest was, to me, of the Jesus fish variety. It was art, and it was fine in a technical sense, but there was little depth or relevance to the world I encounter outside the church. Had I invited a non-Christian, non-churched twentysomething to attend, I fear they would have been rather put off by the seemingly out of date styles and sounds.

Teaching the Church to speak

My struggle at this conference was not aesthetic in the sense I thought the art was “bad art”. My problem was much more with language, or more specifically the perceived lack of a language I understood. During the discussion after Septien a women mentioned the church has no language for mourning or trauma. But it does–the church just has forgotten about it or isn’t listening to it.

After my friend Katie’s fiance died, I posted a reflection and video of The Opiate Mass performing “I heard the bells on Christmas day”. I highlighted the words of the final two stanzas:

Then in despair, I bowed my head
“There is no peace on Earth”, I said
Cause hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, good will to men

Then peeled the bells, more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor doth he sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on Earth, good will toward men

A new style breathes new life into words that have rung true across generations. No generation has a monopoly on truth, nor does any generation have a monopoly on style. We are at a time when the traditional church is confused about why young people are leaving, and young people are confused about why the church won’t change.

The Christian titans highlighted during the conference–Lewis, Bonhoeffer and Wilberforce–have powerful voices and are all cornerstones on which we should build. However, with a new generation comes new language for mourning and new language for dancing. Our language is different and often more nuanced, but the message is the same. We are finding our voice and yearn to speak!

Organizations like Kindlings (of which there are precious few!) are doing good work, but the road is long and they can’t get us there alone. The church and the culture no longer speak the same language. My prayer is for an artistic movement in the church that acknowledges the traditions of thousands of years of believers, but continually translates that liturgy into the language of the present culture.

So I leave you with a simple question: Are you bi-lingual?

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Filed under: Art, Church by Jonathan