The Artist as a Christian

I'm a churchgoer. I was raised in the church, fell away from it during my marriage to a Jewish man who resented Christianity, went back to it and am now fairly heavily involved at University Christian Church. But I don't go to Sunday school for a variety of reasons, mostly that I'm drawn to the politicl programs on Sunday morning. I watch Meet the Press, the last half of George Stephanopoulus, and a few minutes of the McLaughlin Group before I dash out the door to church. Besides, when I was a kid, adults didn't go to Sunday school.
But today I went. The speaker was Harry Parker, chair of TCU's theater department and a man I know casually from a church committee. More important, his topic was "The Artist as a Christian." He talked about how many people think the two are incompatible and how perfectly he thought they fit together. (He also praised our church for understanding that in a way many congregations do not.) I was particularly interested in his distinction between craft and art, and my interpretation may be loose and mostly my own, but it seems that crafts make something out of "things"--cooking, gardening, woodworking, sewing, etc. Art makes something out of ideas. The artist, like the believer, has to have faith--faith when they face that blank canvas or empty computer screen or first rehearsal for a play, faith that something will come out of it. Harry believes that you can't judge art as good or bad, it's all art though some may not appeal to you--having seen a lot of bad writing, really bad, I'm not sure about that. But he pointed out that the artist creates for the same reason believers believe--because they can't not, because they are compelled to it. And he believes that by directing theater productions he is doing holy work. I think that too about writing, maybe particularly about writing for young minds. But I also feel that I have been blessed with a talent for putting ideas into words and, sometimes, significant ideas to put into those words.
Thanks, Harry, for a lot of food for thought.