HopeArts

In our last Art Topic we broached the question of the relationship between Art and Worship, and whether art alone led to worship, or if worship could lead to art, and just what if anything could be meant by “art-ing” (or, “art-ifying”).

We are told to submit our bodies as living sacrifices, which is our holy and pleasing form of worship. No where are we told in scripture to “make art,” and scripture only seems to discuss artisans and craftsman  in the fashioning of the ark of the covenant or the temple (but not as in any other role within temple worship). This assumes artisans and craftsmen had places within the community, and that such places were assumed natural.

But here is a question: the artisans and craftsmen were given a mandate in the fashioning and building of the temple, yet the new temple is the Body of Christ, what is the mandate for artists today in fashioning and building the new Temple?

What art leads one to worship God? What subject matter? In what manner do we, through “art-ing” make art in a way which is holy and pleasing “art-ing”?  What does “art-ing” in general look like — does it go beyond making a piece of art in a certain way, and found manifestation even in how live our lives and perform our tasks? If so, a Christian aesthetic comes into play, right, an aesthetic which is applied not to a piece of art but to how an artist lives their lives and performs their tasks? What “materials” are used in “art-ing” in life? Faith? Fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, not keeping records of wrongs or coveting but trusting and believing)?