Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Pedro on the arts, pt. I
In July 2001, the kid brother and I attended the Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, IL. It was there that I first witnessed Pedro the Lion. Just recently through a friend I've found a bootleg copy of that show. I get a little fanboy-ish about having bootlegs of shows I've actually been to. Just to hear myself yelling "Play some Skynyrd!"

At this particular show, David Bazan spoke at length regarding the relationship of Christianity and the arts, and subject near and dear to my heart. So since I've got an audio copy of this now, I thought I might transcribe it out for the blog. It's going to be a two-parter as Dave gets a little wordy.

And don't forget: Pedro the Lion, Tuesday, Feb. 8, Singletary Center, University of Kentucky.

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Well, I was going to say this later, but I might as well just say it now to conserve time. There was this, uh… I've been kinda working on this idea. I was trying to have it done for last year, and then I failed. And then I tried to have it done for this year, and then I failed again, which isn’t super new to my thing or whatever. But, it was an essay about Christianity and the arts. And in lieu of having it done and passing it out with all of the units that we’re trying to move, I was just gonna say something because I think this may be the last Cornerstone we play for a little while. If they’ll let me I’m gonna try and come back and present that thing but it’s a little too complicated to get into. But at any rate.

Aw shoot, I was sitting going to the bathroom figuring it all out in my head, and, well, the gist of it is, just as a challenge to you guys and to me and to all of us as consumers and as a challenge to all of those of you and us who are also artists, there are a lot of different factors that come to play and have caused—what in not just my opinion but I think a lot of the leaders of the church and a lot of artists in the church--what’s become a pretty severe ghetto of thought and creativity and artistic expression in the Christian church.

It is something that I think is a result of a great many things. But, the first and most important thing is I think it is a result of misunderstood connection with God and self and what His personality is and who he has created us to be, having been created in his image. There are several things, and I won’t talk about all of them. But this is actually going to end in about thirty seconds.

But, the first is that creativity is his personality. A lot of people, and I was one of them… I used to get really freaked out about people talking about art for art’s sake until I realized what art’s sake was and that is God’s glory. And that’s the thing, I think in Romans it’s pretty clear that everything that God has created points to his existence--the beauty of our bodies, the beauty of all the different systems in our bodies, the beauty of the earth, although we’re undoing his creation relatively quickly, you know all these things. And another thing is that he’s created us in his image and the beauty of that.

******

Part II to come later...

posted by Peter at 1:11 AM
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