Emily Zenker is an Assistant Editor for Infuze's Books Department.  This is the first article in a series on the sacred and the secular.

 

We live in a category-obsessed society. "A place for everything and everything in its place" is not just a proverb quoted by mothers to their unorganized offspring. Our culture is steeped in the concept of compartmentalization. The modern cry for separation of church and state has become a classic example of this mindset. Yet there are certain spheres of life which cannot be kept from overlapping. The arts, since their formative entry into the world via tomb paintings, religious scrolls, and crudely formed idols, have maintained a steady link to faith and its devotees.

In this modern age, however, there is an increasing draw towards dividing art into categories of sacred and secular. We are no longer content to simply define a book or a painting by its content, but also by what its creator believes. Thus we now have “Christian music” pitted against “secular music,” “inspired” artwork, and a host of other variations on the theme, catering to audiences who are presumably “people of faith.”

 

Yet who can really be considered “people of faith”? Are they only the adherents to specified spiritual codes or principles? Are people of faith only Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, or followers of other similarly accepted religions? Or do all people in some way exhibit beliefs, faith, their own attempt to understand the world?

 

Let’s face it, everyone believes something. People view life through a filter of what they accept as truth. We can consider faith to be the lens through which we see the world around us. Just as I wear glasses with the belief that they help me see more clearly, all of humanity dons a pair of their very own faith-glasses. Faith defines every human, whether it lies in Allah, in themselves and their ability to “get through life”, in the government, or in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

 

If we accept that all people are people of faith, than we can gain new perspective on the arts and the way that we experience them. It is time to view all art, no matter the professed beliefs of the artist, as a creative expression of faith. We, like God, build reflections of our own understanding of truth, though we do not have his advantage of perfect insight. The atheist will create according to the way he or she perceives the world around him. The person of openly professed belief will either overtly or covertly reveal their own perspective on life through their artistic endeavors. Every individual, whether artist or audience, views themselves and their surroundings through their own lens of faith.

 

What the audience sees is not only a commentary on the artist’s beliefs, but also the clarification of their own. Part of the delight we take in art is that it offers us a glimpse into ourselves. It challenges or confirms our faith; it illuminates what we really believe. Art is not only a metaphor for the artist’s personal beliefs, but also for our own. Sometimes it even changes our beliefs, and therein rests the danger behind our delight. If our perception of the world around us can be altered by art, should we allow these changes to occur?

 

For Christians, the answer lies in returning to the ultimate source of creativity: our Creator God. The truth we endorse by our faith should serve as a reference point for any motion away from one idea towards another. If we are honest with ourselves, we will see that there is always some fine-tuning of our faith which is needed. This need can be revealed to us in many ways, and we should not discount the place of art in catalyzing our own spiritual progression.

 

It can be humbling to realize that even a “secular” artist’s work can bring to light the condition of our hearts. Maybe we Christians have done ourselves a disservice by welcoming the modern division of artists and their art into categories that sometimes shield us from a contrast which can lead to personal revelation. Perhaps we should ask whether we really believe our own faith to be so perfected that it should not be challenged.

 

As a person with astigmatism, I can’t always clearly see things that are very close to my eyes or far off in the distance. It strikes me that, in a way, all people are astigmatic to some degree. We often experience great difficulty in accurately “seeing” what is very near to our hearts or very distant from our understanding.

 

Faith is a confession of humanity’s vision problem. By proclaiming a certain idea or religious doctrine to be truth, we declare that there are also lies. In other words, there is not just sight, but also blindness. This dichotomy between reality and our perception of reality is the theme that artists ultimately explore.

 

If we begin to view art as a means for self-examination, a tool for shaping our faith, then we can step back a bit from “sacred” and “secular” categorizations. We are all people of faith, albeit different faiths, and the best question we can ask about art is not “does it conform to my beliefs,” but “does it reveal the truth?” We can only discern the real value of art once we forego the classifications which allow us to remain comfortably unchallenged.

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