THE ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT WORLDS
American churches, by an overly-recessive cultural policy, have
put a foot down on the creative process, forcing music innovators who are
Christian out into an increasingly anti-Christian secular world to make
a living. That’s an issue close to but beside the point. The
main point is that churches do not seem to understand, or have lost the vision,
that church is the hub of community.
The “difference. . . . between sects and churches [is that] the
sectarian is always rooted in his cosmopolitan in-group; the churchman is
ideally rooted in his whole community or parish (a geographical rather than
an ideological concept).”78
Church goers, including pastors, spread their money in the secular
arts and entertainment worlds without considering the implications of its
empowerment. Las Vegas and Atlantic City receive them continually
by the millions with open arms. Christendom, apparently, has had little
reason to think it could be entertained any other way. Having so little
originating from within Christian community to interest them, Church goers
rush to Disneyland. What we find, then, is Christian community being
left to fight rearguard actions against such as the following (received
by way of a press release):
“Lead [sic] by The Promise Keepers and The American Family Organization,
religious groups all across the country are banning together to try to keep
the album, Freedom Is A State Of Mind, from reaching store shelves.
Songs like "The Bible Is Bullshit," "Drug Dealing God" and "Jesus Christ
Homosexual," were taken a bit too literally by the conservative groups, who
missed the deeper meaning of the songs.”
There is no marketing network within or between Christian communities
for those creating, writing, or producing innovative work. No investment
being considered or made. Barely to be mentioned are closed shops
of generally familiar fare - church music directors (usually with university
degrees trained almost exclusively in standard repertoire) featuring their
own works - and in-church venues that concentrate mainly on performances
of pop industry-inspired music, also closed shops. There is no understanding
of, or energy spent to understand, the problem. No plan. No
broad community-to-community connections being made. No outreach to
engage creative artists. No nurturing. No dialogue. No
leadership from among those in positions to act in that capacity. No
self-sustaining economy envisioned. No vision.
Trying to get this point out by way of the Christian publishing
industry has so-far proved futile. Christian publishers, it seems,
can or will not tolerate a less than flattering outlook. This can apply to
the many published apologists writing in defense of the faith, and others
active in church matters. With the exception of Francis Schaeffer,
gaining his perspective from living outside the United States, none has taken
a look at the situation. The few among the established being published,
whom I personally contacted, were adamant in their defense of the status quo,
one going so far as to argue that the situation was being well-taken care
of by American churches. Yet he could not give an instance where that
was occurring.
It also appears throughout so much of American Protestant practice,
both in speech and art, that the outreach effort, especially from Evangelicals,
is meant to appeal mainly to the unsophisticated; that the determining factor
in almost all communication must be to the understanding of the least emotionally
and intellectually developed. It’s as though it is felt that sophisticated
people must be left to their own devices for salvation, on the presupposition
that sophistication equals unregeneratable sinfulness.
This is not to say that the sorts of creative work supported by
this treatise need always to be for the sophisticate or even specifically
about Christ. That would be counter-productive. Music, itself,
is non-specific; and language and visuals, functioning by way of metaphor
and imagery, can keep channels for making subliminal connections vibrantly
alive. C.S. Lewis said that he himself came to faith through thought.
Those who know a thing or two, experienced in life, conversant with varieties
of thought, are not necessarily hopelessly confounded by their own wisdom.
And innovative music and its corollaries are not just for sophisticates.
Innovation can be simple and modest, as well as complex. Such work can
be for any and everyone of all ages and levels of comprehension.
The New Age pagan has already heard what he or she wants to hear
from Christian creative energy and presupposed witness. Although Jesus
Christ is rarely if ever denigrated by the non-Christian, the Christian
and Christianity are regularly held in low esteem and regarded as philosophically
irrelevant, having had their say. The non-Christian often only sees
the Christian in his breathlessly self-satisfied preachiness, or as sappy,
cliche-ridden sentimentalist; as infamous hypocrite, or as interfering busy-body;
and, among participants in the arts world and intelligentsia, as cultural
low-brow. The sort of stuff that provides fodder for cheap-shot depictions
to 2nd-rate screenwriters.
Historically, large numbers of Protestant Christians, without necessarily
understanding how, have unwittingly taken their lead from Plato in “regarding
music and all art as situated on the lowest epistemological plane.”79 The music deprecator throughout earlier church history
liberally and literally quoted from Plato in support of his position.
And music-haters in later church history simply copied what had been written
by the earlier writers and what they had quoted from Plato. Plato does
not hold to the divine origin of talent. Plato, with all due respects,
was a cultural fascist:
“’The poet shall compose nothing which goes beyond the limits of
what the state holds to be fair, legal, right, and good.’
“The philosopher in Plato, therefore, deals with art with a high
hand, and the politician or “lawgiver”, the real “hero” of [Plato’s]
Laws, carries out his instructions.”80
The “politician.”. Has an American ring to it, doesn’t it.?”
Thank God for Aristotle and Augustine.
Celebrity-Ism
The 20th century has seen the rise of pop stars as idols.
We use the term loosely. The Bible, in the Old Testament, relates
the effect upon a man when in the presence of God. He is agog, he
falls to the ground in a faint, he even dies. Except for dying, I guess,
these are pretty much the symptoms seen among the young when in the presence
of certain celebrities. So, to refer to pop stars as idols is not far
off the mark.
And being idols, they are, invariably, role models. Fans
act out what the model shows them, some few even succeeding as performers
themselves. Like their parent generations with movie stars, the Boomers
and subsequent generations do not look or expect to find among their own
anyone who could do for them what the celebrated pop star can do.
In any case, it is possible to see in this an irrepressible human
social need for a class to be above - an aristocracy - instances of an elite
of individuals created by media - or a case, as Baltzell puts it, of “irresponsible
elitism.”
“As long as America remains an open and democratic society, with
the traditional emphasis on social mobility and the rewarding of merit,
a natural elite of ability and ambition will come to the fore in every generation.
But as Michael Young and other social philosophers, from Walter Lippmann to
Hannah Arendt, have cautioned, all virtues, even merit, may be pushed to
harmful extremes. Thus, the democratic ideal of pure elitism may lead
to a kind of anarchy at the top. For the elite concept is merely a
sociological category that includes all persons who have been successful in
their chosen fields; it is not a real group with normative standards of conduct
or admission. This category is all too prone, moreover, to be composed
of individuals motivated by the standards of success and individual self-interest
rather than by any class standards of honor or duty. The great American
anthropologist Ralph Linton saw this possibility very clearly when he wrote
that the decline of our bourgeois culture was in part the result of an excess
of democracy and irresponsible elitism.
“‘The lack of a definite aristocratic culture which provides the
members of this ruling group with common ideals and standards of behavior
and thus integrates them into a conscious society is perhaps the most distinctive
aspect of the modern condition. Exploiters and exploited have existed
since the dawn of history, but the only parallel to the modern situation
is that of Rome in the days of the late Republic. Here also power came
to be vested in the hands of a group of self-made men who had no common
standards and no feeling of responsibility to each other or to the state.’”81
Not the accomplishments of art - or any accomplishment, for that
matter - but glamor and fame of publicly celebrated persons comes closest
to satisfying the need for a noble class and for heroes that in slightly
more ancient times were provided by folk tale and myth, but which are now
provided via spin doctoring and media.
Celebrity-ism also means an upper social stratum that fears and
avoids the competition that stands comparison having to do with public image.
Individual members in this upper stratum are vulnerable to usurpation from
professional peers and up-and-comers of similar skill or talent to replace
them in their field of success that gave them their membership on the elitist
stage in the first place.
Democratic free enterprise, which gives us such an elite, is an
endless plain of continual competition, leaving little time for thoughtful
stewardship. Altruism, then, for any cause cannot be high on the list
in a democratic elite. Real heros put their lives on the line for
what is right. Doing right, among an elite of celebrities, takes backseat
to self-interest. High-profile shows of support on behalf of public
causes taken by them notwithstanding. In fact, “high-profile” is
the point of appearing at benefits. Causes are almost always sought
after by celebrities as “opportunities” for career maintenance or enhancement.
And what is this at the end of the trek, the mecca
of westward man? It is Oz, the capitol of Kansas, the great packager
and dispenser for America dreaming. It is a desert of rock and roll,
anthem music for doing your thing, and chubby wizard smokes a mean cigar,
counting ticket stubs. It is the holy shrine underneath a fading celestial,
where idol worshippers come to walk on brazen stars, dreamers come to celebrate,
waking up as junkies, prostitutes, and beggars. It is Oklahoma by
the sea. It is Philadelphia on the Pacific where Pop performers create
in boundless space. It is a pathetic boulevard beneath a mocking sun,
down to the beach and ease and volleyball with famous faces at the edge
of a continent on the rim of a vast crevasse. It is the end of westering
man.
Witchcraft
“Glamor,” probably of Scottish origin, is a term of witchcraft.
It means the appearance of beauty where there is none.
“‘It’s witchcraft, baby,’ says Sharon Stone, the movies’ current
high priestess of glamour.
“How willingly we in that mass seize upon the glamorous as
exemplars; and how eagerly we strive to emulate them. . . . Glamour’s excitement
embraces a contradiction: an enchantment that’s a kind of slavery; a projection
of authority that inspires inadequacy. . . .
“Glamour embodied the refinement that the crude immigrant
hondlers who pioneered the industry sought even more eagerly
than money. Refugees from the fur, rag, scrap-metal, and glove trades,82 they gave up their dreams of conventional business to go
into the unconventional business of dreams, which offered them a quicker
way to wrap themselves in America and in respectability. . . .
“Jesse Lasky, . . . when on his deathbed, he was asked to
state his religion, he answered, ‘American.’ If the blessings of American
abundance and individualism needed a visual correlative, screen glamour
was it; an act of prestidigitation that dramatized the magical possibilities
of the nation and kept alive the promise of promise itself.
“By constant reiteration of glamorous images, movies taught
faith both in individualism and in consumption. . . .
“Richard Avedon, . . . says, ‘Glamour is the appearance of
the possibility of achievement.’. . . . Glamour is the belief in the possibility
of salvation through magic.”83
Need I cite on? Yet, this industry of bewitchment that has
captivated nearly every generation in 20th century America would not have
been possible if those who claimed to be Christian had not participated
in it. It is not the thing itself, but the powerful grip it has on
generations unable to grow up outside of its spell, before they have the
wherewithall to sort it out. The eye is a tyrant. What the church
succeeded in doing to control the excesses of theater it has been virtually
unable to do with film and television. And even less so with pop music,
an allied branch of these witcheries of glamor.
“If you can’t lick ‘em join ‘em,” I am beginning to hear people
say, in so many words, even in conservative churches, respecting whether
or not to allow the “young people’s” music in, without looking around
in the least to see what might have been overlooked all along in the way of
resource. “Young people’s” music is all about attitude, feeling,
being carried away -
“‘Glamour is in attitude. It is also in their [star’s] means
of transportation. They’re not walking, you know. They are being
driven’.”84
“‘Whatever glamour is, it is to make up for something that
isn’t there - either anymore or at all. . . .
“‘The final artifice is making it seem there’s nothing to
it. It’s a resignation to performance [cf. Augustine’s “Love
of action,” under Contemporary Musics]. . . . The first thing
you check at the gate and give up forever is spontaneity’.”85
The awe inspired by the products of glamor, that is, the awe of
nothing, is the awe that was once reserved for divinity. Acceding
to what it has induced to be emulated in the young is condoning what has
replaced the position of God in their lives - nothingness.
“The playwright and movie glamour boy Sam Shepard sets out the
seduction and abrasion of this spell in his play about the Hollywood film
community, “Angel City” (1976). In one scene, a producer’s secretary
charts the spellbound’s landscape of unfreedom:
“‘I look at the screen and I am the screen. I’m not me.
I don’t know who I am. I look at the movie and I am the movie.
I am the star. I am the star in the movie. For days I am the star
and I’m not me. I’m me being the star. I look at my life when
I come down. I look and I hate my life when I come down. I hate
my life not being a movie. I hate my life not being a star. I
hate being myself in my life which isn’t a movie and never will be.’”86
Glamor is a town in which anything is okay, and anyone in it, too.
And they are lining up to get in, and are storming the gates, and are dancing
to the appearance of music. Why not? It’s been okay up to now,
right? It’s part of the American success story. It is ongoing
history. How can you tear them away? It feels so good.
How can austerity compete? How can you remove them from the palpable
presence of myth, even with moles and dishevelment and all that is music
to them? Once they get to Glamor Town, how will you get them to leave?
Will Amy Grant do it? Is she the One we have been looking for?
The a priori imprimatur of divine popularity. So what
if “go out and get ‘em for God” has turned into marketplace economics!
How about that success of a multi-award-winning Gospel singer being attributed
to his “smokey blend of sex and spirituality.” Okay. Let’s hear
it for spirituality - the American Way.
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