Sacred Art: a Theology in Process Conversation

This month, we discussed the question of a sacred-secular divide. What makes a piece of art worth our time, or even good? Is there a difference between sacred and holy when it comes to art, and is it appropriate for Christians to read the more mainstream genres of sci-fi and fantasy? Delving into the pursuit of everyday holiness, here are some thoughts on bringing Christian discernment to the complex world of art.

Kelli: The main concern frequently presented is that sci-fi and fantasy books are usually general readership, as opposed to works put forth by the Christian publishing model, which involves sacred imagination and worldview. So the question of reading sci-fi and fantasy really comes down to this: Is there a sacred and secular divide? 

Mike: I’m going to say no, because I think you have to come down on one side or the other.

Now we know that some things are appropriate or not appropriate, and I think we have to use our own judgment. But I’ve seen a guy from the pulpit boasting, “In my house we only listen to Christian music. I only have Christian magazines.” And that’s just bragging. I can find in Scripture where it says you’re getting your reward right now.

I have many more-liberal friends on Facebook because I want to understand what and how they’re thinking. And I think you can and should read or watch things that are secular. Now I’m not advocating we all start watching only R-rated movies any more than I would encourage excessive drinking. You have to be smart, right? But we’re talking about stories.

Breaking Bad is terrible, but it’s well done at the same time. And what I appreciated about it was that they never glorified what the main character did. It destroyed him, and at the very end of the show—spoiler alert—he actually says, “Yeah, it was all about me.” So I think that’s a positive message in the sense that you have to be careful about your motivations behind doing anything.

Callie: If you take it outside just art, the idea of secular versus sacred is kind of dumb. You have Tish Warren’s Liturgy of the Ordinary; you have Andrew Peterson with Every Moment Holy—all of those writers say no to a divide. Everything about your life is sacred; everything about your life should be holy. Even if it isn’t holy, it’s still sacred, and it all ties back to God.

And so in some situations, maybe institutionally, it’s practical to try to separate religious beliefs from the “secular.” Institutionally that may work. But when it comes to actual life, it doesn’t.

Kelli: It’s important perhaps that we distinguish for our readers the terms holiness and sacredness, because there is a difference we are intending with those words even if their dictionary definitions are similar. Not everything is holy, not everything reflects God’s character, his perfect goodness and divinity. Sacredness is about what is set apart to God, devoted to God, and from our human viewpoint, surely many aspects of our art and daily moments fail that standard. But from a divine perspective, is there a realm in our existence that God doesn’t reach? No, there isn’t. God is involved in these moments and these artifacts even without direct intent from us. Human truth with a capital T still can come forth from God’s broken creation because he is still holding it all together and bestowing his mercy and grace on the just and the unjust. That’s the distinction, I believe, between holy and sacred.

But for the sake of looking for holes in our argument, let’s come at this same issue from the opposite side. If there is a divide between the sacred and secular, what is secularness?

Mike: Shooting from the hip, I would say anything worldly. But you know, I keep thinking about my university’s production of Doubt: A Parable, too. I remember someone at the school who totally shot the play down with the idea that this secular writer was promoting his postmodernism, and so his message had nothing for us because it was about doubt. One of the reasons Shanley wrote Doubt was because he saw people who were so confident in their point of view that they refused to even consider another point of view on any given subject. So he wanted to write a story that says, hey, maybe we should slow down and re-evaluate and doubt what we’re doing. I think this critic was afraid of Shanley suggesting we doubt our salvation, because we do have security and defense. But at the same time, we have security in only one thing. I still have to be wary of all my other decisions in all other areas.

Callie: From what Shanley writes in the preface, I’ve always believed Doubt was about people who professed confidence as a veneer over the cracks in their faith they refused to acknowledge. Nuance, maybe, but I think there’s a difference between telling people who have confidence in their faith to doubt it and telling people who are plastering bravado over their doubt, “Hey, it’s okay to look your doubt in the eye. You don’t have to ignore it.”

Mike: So I didn’t think the message of that play was a terrible thing. It was a “secular” message, but I could get behind it. So Doubt is a “secular” message, but in what way?

Kelli: And that’s again why we have to define the question, What is secular? My understanding is that secular is something that doesn’t have to do with the holy, doesn’t have to do with God. And yet as we’ve already said, doesn’t God have reign over every inch and atom and particle of our lives? Doesn’t every part of our being need to be pointed in worship to God? Is there anything that I can do in life that is apart from that presence or knowledge? I don’t know that you can say that.

Mike: Anything apart from God’s presence or knowledge? Yeah, I don’t know if you can say that.

Kelli: So if there’s nothing that is apart from God’s presence or knowledge, then every action, activity, thought—whether it’s relationships, changing a child’s diaper, work, paving city streets, taking out the trash—isn’t all of that sacred in a sense, when it’s done with an audience of one?

Callie: So applying it back to the question of what stories are appropriate, the act of writing the book might be sacred, but the book itself is not necessarily sacred. And just the sacredness of the act of writing doesn’t clarify for me whether it’s good, and whether I can read Terry Pratchett without losing my soul. 

Kelli: This goes back to the nuance between secular and holy. All of us in the world should be sacred, but we are not all set apart to God; there are things, people, actions that are profane. My criminality cannot be sacred. And I don’t even want to come close to saying that it is. Anything can be sacred, but not everything is. On the flip side to that, nothing is beyond the scope of God’s purview.

I suppose what I am trying to do is break down the idea that there is secular art and sacred art. Granted, I understand there is art with God as its subject, like a stained-glass window. But my theology and philosophy is that we do ourselves a disservice to make a distinction between sacred and secular work, sacred and secular art, because God created this good world and everything in it. Everything that we are to do, our entire being, is to be about God’s glory, whether that’s causing the flourishing of the city or creating beauty through the image of God and the ability that he gave us to be creative and imaginative. So even the work I’m doing now on a manuscript thinking about physics and chemistry and biology, most people would think that’s a secular subject. And yet we know that everything we learn in those fields points us back to general revelation and whether or not God created the earth. So everything goes back to God. But I’m not trying to say that every action of creating art is holy, because I don’t think it is. Holiness depends on intent, will, and reference point of worship.

Mike: I never really thought of it that way, but I think I agreed with you before you explained it. Because construction workers aren’t building temples every time; they’re building houses and outhouses.

Kelli: But don’t we need outhouses? And doesn’t creating a hygienic place to handle a natural function create the flourishing of people in cities? And doesn’t that please God? And here’s where people start to think this is heresy: Is that work just as important in the eyes of God as the ministry?

Mike: Well, scripturally you can point to where it’s more important, or equally important. Some parts of the body are made for honor and some to dishonor, right?

Kelli: Exactly. Then you can also ask, does that person creating that outbuilding so the city has hygienic ways of disposing of waste, does that person have to be consciously doing so in the service of God in order for it to be a good work that causes the flourishing of the city and creation?

Mike: Yeah, only if it’s a Christian outhouse. If it’s a secular outhouse, no.

Kelli: (Laughs.) Now if he builds a shoddy outhouse, then that is not doing the service that was intended. If there’s shoddy artwork or a shoddy literary argument, that artifact is not doing the work of service that it should. A literary argument can be dishonoring of God. And that area is where I start to determine whether art is good or not, the argument of the art itself. What is it arguing for? Is it joy? Is it real? Is it true? Is it authentic? Is it relevant?

If you read the whole series of Harry Potter and follow the literary argument, ultimately, J. K. Rowling is pointing to biblical concepts fully and without question. Have you read it? I’m going to spoil it.

Mike: No, I have not read those books. I’ve watched the movies and thought they were terrible, and now I wonder if it’s because those messages you’re talking about were ignored or truncated. Because to me the movies just get darker and bleaker and bleaker.

Kelli: Well, so do the books, in a way. The books are a fascinating thing because the protagonist grows up. He starts at eleven and he ends at seventeen. And yes, the world grows darker because the evil villain gains more power. But also, Harry is growing up. There’s more naïvety in the beginning and it has a middle grade feel, and then he gets into adolescence and high school and there’s deeper thought and deeper understanding. So it’s this cyclical process of defeating evil and understanding the challenges in culture to defeating evil, and over and over again relearning what this concept of love really is. And so love goes from this very simplistic thing, to this nuanced thing as Harry grows in understanding, to this understanding at the end that for him to be family, to have true love, requires sacrificing himself. All along the way he’s been trying to save everybody and find his family, and he discovers that the only true way to find those things is to be family to others and to lay down your life for them. He learns that evil can’t touch true love and that love defeats death in the end. It’s a phenomenal story that ties into all kinds of mythological history. And Rowling has a strong literary argument that not only has biblical echoes but also is, I think, worthwhile.

And that leads to my other argument for sci-fi and fantasy. It’s difficult in our current culture, or in any culture that has blind spots, to write a novel and come at real problems face on. Rowling uses this idea of half-blood/pureblood as a metaphor for racism and classism in the UK. And because it’s in this fantasy world, reading it we can say, “That’s absurd that they are worried about lineage. The character obviously has magic in her. It doesn’t matter if she has pure magic blood.” In the books, lack of pedigree breeds cruel disrespect and profane names, and this issue divides characters on the side of good and evil. Rowling makes a profound statement about human dignity and worth in the midst of her literary argument. What sci-fi and fantasy do very, very well is that they address cultural issues we have a hard time talking about otherwise. Because when we transport these issues to another arena outside our own context, we can see the ridiculousness of our own positions and hopefully apply them back again to the way we live.

So is that artwork good? Is it secular or sacred? You tell me. I think, ultimately, the Harry Potter novels answer my question of whether something that seems fully apart from God can bring glory to God, which is the ultimate purpose of humankind and the universe. It’s not about us. I think Rowling does that, and along the way her craft is good, her literary argument is biblical. So that checks the box for me.

Kelli: As an ancillary concern to what we’re talking about—effectively evaluating the merits of individual stories—we have to answer the question, “What is story for?”

Callie: Story is meaning. Stories are how we find meaning in the world around us, how we communicate meaning. Because if you don’t have any sort of narrative, there’s this absolute loss of coherency.

Kelli: So a good Robert McKee answer.

Mike: I think Arthur Miller is a good artist to talk about because he never writes about Christ, but he does talk about issues that we as Christians deal with. The American Dream, for one. And I think that’s the point of the whole conversation. What about those subjects are worth Christians discussing?

Callie: Okay, take Into the Woods. I love Into the Woods because it’s about cycles and abuse, and because I’ve been in cultures where those played out very distinctly, very horrifically. So I love the way Sondheim addresses what it takes to break the cycle, what it takes to say, “I’m going to take this pain, I’m going to feel it, but I’m not going to hurt you in response.”

Kelli: So truly, the writers that we really enjoy and whose writing sticks with us tend to be not only good at craft but in some sense they also are good discerners of culture—or maybe their times or the issues of space and science and how they affect our worldview, our dreams, and our visions. Good writers are also good exegetes of the human condition.

Callie: These writers know what it means to be human. I think it’s the author’s grasp of humanness that makes these works so good, that makes them remarkable. In Into the Woods it’s the humanness of suffering. In Harry Potter it’s the humanness of love and what it looks like to be a human who can’t love right, but you still have to keep trying.

Kelli: Story is a practical outworking that looks at “How do we do this thing we call the human life?” Sometimes we need to experience life through another character to get a better perspective on our own self and worldview.

Mike: A lot of times we’re just asked to change our point of view for a brief second. And sometimes that’s enough of a message to get you to evaluate the world around you. And that’s kind of a hard skill to master because of the difference between empathy and sympathy. A good writer can make the reader feel empathy, which can change their worldview. What a skill. One day, maybe I’ll have it.

Kelli: Isn’t that a fabulous thing to think about in terms of helping God’s world flourish through story?

Kelli Sallman	Mike Burke	Callie Johnson
Kelli Sallman is a freelance editor, writer, and writing coach, specializing in fiction and narrative nonfiction, as well as inspirational and religious nonfiction. Kelli enjoys the process of helping other writers find their unique voice and story. She uses her teaching and editing skills to coach writers to improve their craft and bring their stories to fruition.	Mike grew up on the sunny shores of Kailua, Hawaii (mostly). After a globe spanning career of swashbuckling adventure with the U.S. Marine Corps, Mike now spends his free time wrestling sea monsters and hunting werewolves. Mike is also pursuing a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing with a minor in Theatre. He believes the Imperial destruction of Alderaan was completely justified.	Callie Johnson works as Editorial Assistant at Kelli Sallman Writing and Editing with a bachelor’s degree in Theatre Arts and Creative Writing from Calvary University. She previously interned with Kelli for two years, working as proofreader and copyeditor on several manuscripts. Her strange obsessions include kerning, East Coker, and the sound of cows chewing.