From the Moody Standard: 'The War on Art'

A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to write an Op-Ed for my school's campus newspaper,
My favorite thing about writing Op-Eds is I get to state my opinion. (*Shocking*)

In the past I wrote with a focused response to spiritual community between Jews and Gentiles, on the "Hey, I am a Jew and I want to tell you what that is like!" direction.

This one was still focused on spiritual community, only in a rather uncomfortable vein (as if addressing hatred of the Jews is a rosy topic).

Pornography.

It changes us and breaks our beautiful image of what intimacy is, where we perceive a person's worth, and more importantly, how men and women interact with one another. Why does porn influence the spiritual community? Because it is so juxtaposed to the very core of what being "The Bride" is all about, worship. Here is the article followed by some other thoughts:

Let’s paint a picture in our imaginations. Not an original portrait but one that has filled many with awe as they stand gazing at the glowing colours and perceived motions of Elihu Vedder’s “Fates Gathering in the Stars”. What I will describe to you will tell you more about yourself and your relationship with art than you might expect. And, in turn, your relationship with everything else.Elihu paints three women, healthy and robust, a fire in their eyes and determination in their movements. They are the Fates, they spin the yarn of men’s lives and slicing with mechanic emotionlessness also end the lifespans of the same. Pearls scatter the portrait in clouds of threads, glowing pink like moments of divinity scattered through the webs. Now here is the part where you and art may come into friction. The Fates are almost entirely nude. Ribbons of translucent fabric drape them in a graceful exposure, yet, they are exposed. Growing up with an artistic mother I was familiar with nakedness in classic art. The kind of Psyche’s and Diana’s that bare-breasted embodied a virginal innocence and resurrected sympathy in the viewer. In an era like ours that has let fornication set the normative image in our minds regarding nakedness, a sweetness has left our art. Just as it left the Garden. Not to say that pornography is anything new, or that the church has never had to deal with it before; rather I want to remind you that purity never belonged to a single age. Virginity is an origin, purity a destination. The becoming of purity is a painful process. It burns up your impurities to refine and purge you. With gold, this is rather easy, with souls refinement gets a bit messy. The more grime you clear out, the more you find tucked away.Classical art, the kind you can view freely in Chicago on Thursdays at the Art Institute, does not hold a treasure only experienced by artists of that era. For men like Vedder to paint nakedness in an expression of the soul and character rather than as a lusty opportunity was as much a struggle in his day as it is in ours. Only no one talked about the struggle openly that I know of, and certainly, no one was as ready as us to dismiss it as ‘only natural’. A friend of mine said art revolves around one thing, “naked women,” and he was right. The first expression of art is in a poem as Adam first sees the Woman G-d has created for him, “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” Eve was a work of art that brought Adam to his first burst of praise. That being said, she also had a hand in his downfall. Desire is a beautiful and dangerous gift. In poetry and legend, a woman is either a man’s strength or his weakness; infatuation is either what makes him courageous or corrupt. A wife of noble character is the greatest blessing, a faithless woman offers death to a man. (as Proverbs 6 explains) Art is wrapped up in beauty, there is no art without some rationale of beauty attributed to it. Even if that is only the beauty of the artist’s mind, talent, or intentions. There cannot be art apart from beauty. That being said beauty is dependant on what is true and what is good (if you have taken Dr. Rim for a class you will understand what I mean; if not, try and think through those three concepts apart from each other).Pornography, on the other hand,  is anti-beauty, anti-truth, and anti-good. Thus it is also anti-holiness and anti-art. The battlefield for art is in the mind, each and every mind. No one in Western civilization has been not exposed to porn to some degree. That being said, I am not writing as an ignorant source. Because I have known the vile in porn, I can feel awe in the virtue of art. I also know the shame of meeting holiness knowing myself to be unholy, something all human sinners experience. Rather than beaming before Adam, I’ve hidden before G-d. Dressed in fig leaves. Unaware of what it means to be clothed in His righteousness. The truth is He has known all along what we have hidden in darkness, under those wilting leaves. We can’t fool Him into considering mere nectar to be the same cleansing substance of His own blood. I’ll leave you with one last image of nakedness. The bloodied carcass of a circumcised Messiah pinned down to a wooden cross. This is the catalyst of our worship, of the art we offer unto G-d. The image of Salvation, exposed and bleeding, cutting His own lifeline in agonizing surrender. Because of Love for a “woman”, His Bride. Therefore as a people made new in the image of Messiah, mimic His virtue as well, in all that you do. Put on the armor of G-d and fight for exposing the world to art as the Artist intended. Clothed in garments of praise. You will discover it is the most challenging commission you will ever receive, to imitate the gospel in what you paint, draw, compose, and write. Most of all in how you live. We need artists to teach us beauty just as we need mentors to explain virtue. Don’t struggle alone. As our Student Life Guide suggests, confession really is vital in spiritual growth, and in confession, you will discover you are not alone.

 For the majority of the dialogue today on sexuality there is a silence from the virginal portion of the populace. A few years ago I posted a spoof on Pride Month by "confessing my sexual identity," leading to a simple point: I choose chastity. I'm a virgin in her 20's, a "hopeful" romantic, and ruled by a literature influenced morality. The whole statement had come from a conversation I had with my dad about how ironic it might be if there was a month dedicated to Virgin Pride, as one of the sexual preferences most pressured for alteration. It was on that post a comment was left, "can you still be pure if you lost your virginity?" This alerted me to another reality, we (at least I can vouch for this in the church) consider Purity and Virginity to be synonymous!

They most certainly are not. The mere numbers of porn addicts in the church and Christian institutions ought to be enough to shake that association up. Just because you have not touched a woman, or lain with a man does not make you pure. I have never even been kissed, yet I can sware to you my heart is a mess that is being slowly put through purgatory every day.

I hope that made you smile, "purgatory" and maybe reconsider that I know anything about theology after three years at Bible School. I mean "purgatory" in its root concept, to purify. I wrestle daily with my loneliness and the reality of my purpose as a woman before G-d. If I am trying to find meaning and self-worth in the gospel as a quick help and path to instant peace, I missed the point. At the start there is a beauty in religion, the enamourment of being a redeemed creature, you almost always whisper to yourself like a giddy maiden, "he really does like me!"

Yet reality sinks in, not because the giddiness was less real, but the weight of responsibility in your relationship with G-d takes hold of you. Some days I get so worn out by the prospect of living as He has asked me to live, in love with Him. Sometimes I want to give up and figure out how to find "belonging" in someone else. But then I recall the truth that has taken root in my heart and cannot be removed, both by what I have seen in the lives of those who have run off to "follow their heart" or honesty to become enslaved by their sex drives, or narcissism, and in what I have read in Scripture.

We have eternity in our hearts, while we live here outside of eternity home will remain an aching dream. Longing, loneliness, and desire are things that can drive you toward either purity or ruin. Purity is not virginity, not only because a virgin can be a masturbating porn addict, but because a pure person might have sex a lot with his or her spouse, seriously, my sister is getting married in a few weeks and I fully intend to make baby booties in the next few years.

Also, someone pursuing purity may have been sexually abused or molested. I can't say very much into what it is like to walk through that healing and mourning process, and I know my parents are very thankful that I can't because I never went through anything like that. When addressing issues I want to stay within my own experiences and not try to picture myself in someone else's shoes to tell them what they ought to do or should have done. I will stand beside you and hold your hand so that you can speak because when you do so many of the similarly wounded will become aware of hope and healing.

When confession becomes part of our interactions, so much understanding and restoration take place!

TO sign out, here is the portrait by Elihu Vedder that I love so dearly, and I hope you make praise out of the beautiful things you imagine.