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Getting Creative with Christianity? || SLP385 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_08: Hello and welcome to the Speak Life podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_08: My name is Thomas with a T and I work at Speak Life and we've had a very exciting week this week.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_08: We've had our December intensive, you know, a week in which uh the doors to Speak Life have been flung wide open.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_08: 90 90 degrees, I think, is as far as they go, but um but it's far enough to admit Christians from far and wide, and so we've had a great week together.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_08: We've been doing theology and creativity together for a week, which has been awesome.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_08: So in this episode, you will hear Glenn, Nate, and Paul talking about creativity and Christianity, and you'll actually hear from some of the guests who've attended this week's intensive.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_08: So I hope you enjoy the episode.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_08: I will catch you later on.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Hello everybody, welcome to the Speak Easy.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Glenn Scrivener, and going around in counterclockwise direction is poof easy.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_07: Nay Morganlock.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_07: I sort of forgot.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: But also in the room, uh we've got uh a couple of uh guests at our intensive down here in Eastbourne.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: We uh have uh a week long of activities for creative Christians.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: So do you want to say hello to the people?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: There we go.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Who who do we have with us?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, I'm Joey.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Fraser.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we'll we'll be coming to join Fraser uh throughout this evening uh to discover wisdom, tidbits, um, just some of your private fantasies.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, generally.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_07: Tell us what issue can we help you with this evening?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us for start.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so the intensive is uh so we put it on we put on four of these during uh the year.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: We've had a September one, this is December, we're gonna have March and May.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: And people come down and we get together to talk about the sort of the intersection between creativity and theology and making some noise for Jesus as creative people.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um Fraser, why have you wanted to come down to the intensive?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah, so I thought it would be helpful to kind of gain some skills um to help me in my my work for um church and work for church in Glasgow, um the Tron Church in Glasgow, and I think the stuff we're talking about here is just really relevant to a lot of the work that I'm doing there.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: So coming down from Glasgow, and Joy, you've come down from Sheffield, is that right?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's right.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, I like making things and telling stories, and I wanted to meet other Christians who do the same sort of thing and just learn from everybody else.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Making things and telling stories, that's what we're all about here at Speak Life.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, what we want to do over the course of this Speakeasy is ask some questions about Christianity and creativity.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Surely, as Christians, we don't want to get creative with the gospel.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: The gospel has been delivered once for all.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: We dare not alter a syllable of it, right?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, what is it about being creative and being a Christian?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a tension?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a synthesis?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Is there synergy?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Is there the dove floating off?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: There might be.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: There might be.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um to kick us off, um, let me ask the question, okay, art.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: When do you think about creativity?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: You think of art?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, what is what is art?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_07: Well, you've been in Rome, so you tell me.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_07: Uh, what is art?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_07: Um, well, you go around the the the tape modern and anything's art, isn't it?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_07: That's right.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_07: Oh look, there's a fire extinguisher, that's art.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_11: Unmade bed.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_11: Oh, it's all um.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_07: Um it's quite hard to come up with a succinct if definition, but I think it's stuff people make.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Stuff.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: So if you make a spreadsheet, is that there is an art to making a spreadsheet.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_07: And if I knew anything about spreadsheet, I literally knew what it hell was, I would be able to do it.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_07: Um, yeah, so there is a the uh there's it's the sense in which art is one of those big catch-all words that we use a lot, but we're probably using it in different ways when we use it.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_07: So it's a bit like love, you know.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_07: You sort of that word gets used for all sorts of things when you only mean it in particular ways in particular contexts.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_07: Um but when we generally talk about art, we're thinking about the stuff crit the stuff people make which is especially creative or beautiful.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_07: That's probably the way most people would be thinking about using it when they say, Oh, I w I like art.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_07: Whereas the art of doing things, art is closely connected to craft and that literally the technical prowess of making a thing or performing a task is is an art.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: So beauty's gotta have a lot to do with it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: I I um interviewed Andrew Peterson early in the in the year, and he said in answer to the question, what is art?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's it is making um more specifically than stuff, making worlds.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's world building.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: So he he kind of pointed to all right, obviously God is the first world builder, and then we're made in his image.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then what Adam is able to do is not the same as what God does, because God makes the world out of nothing, but what Adam is able to do is to name the world and to put a layer of culture on top of the world, and to sort of to offer a pair of spectacles through which you can view ah, it's a badger, ah, it's a llama, ah, it's a flamingo, you know.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but suddenly in in naming the world, he has added an extra layer to the world and sort of built built on the world and built the world, and maybe what we're doing as sub-creators in God's creation is weird.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_07: Because that what that that part of Genesis 2 when Adam's naming the animals is often used with regard to the scientific work that man does, so man is looking to, in a sense, tame the world by naming the world and saying what a thing is and what a thing isn't, which feels like a much more scientific exercise.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_07: Whereas I suppose when people think of art, they probably think more in terms of creativity, more in terms of the imagination, and so we might have more of a challenge to see those verses in Genesis 2 from a Western perspective as a more artistic enterprise.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe from maybe the end of Genesis 2 when he sings, you know, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, which is using words not just in a kind of a utilitarian sense, but to use artistry to yeah, to make to make the words beautiful and not just functional.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, and and there's another thing there, which is in one sense he's reacting to what is out there in the world that God's already made, but there's a sense in which, particularly in that song, there's something he's expressing out from himself, which is an art takes an artistic form.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, and and I think a lot of the time when there is a fear around art or creativity or the imagination is the idea that oh, that's just about self-expression, which isn't really a good definition of art throughout the human history.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_07: But certainly at the moment we think of it, oh well, art, when the kids do art, what shall they do?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_07: They just paint what you like.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_07: How do you feel?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_07: You show us how you feel through the art.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_07: There's no right or wrong.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's no beautiful and ugly then at that stage.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_07: And then it's also completely um uh juxtaposed with scientific approaches, which is nothing to do with self-expression, of course.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_07: No, there's no self-expression in in science.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_07: That's about what's real and measurable and and testable.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Except that maybe the postmodern rot is even sort of intruding on the realm of truth, you know, such that you know that like the ancient triad of beauty, goodness, and truth.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think probably from the 1960s onwards, there was very much the sense of, well, goodness, who's to say, you know, your morality might not be my morality.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then so you you sort of erode the sense of an objective goodness.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you sort of erode the sense of an objective beauty, because you know, you can't you can't tell me that there's an objective standard by which you can judge a poem or judge a sympathy.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: But now, you know, even things like two plus two equals four is is the sort of truth that's never.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: How dare you?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, I I I wonder whether um yeah, even even truth is getting eroded by that sense.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: But certain but certainly beauty.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Beauty's the fur it's almost the first thing that you trade away to a sense of subjectivity.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, well, there's there's no right or wrong answer.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: A poem is just a poem.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: There's not bad poetry or good poetry, is there?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think we kind of want to say there is.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Bad poetry?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like I've written plenty of it.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: I should know.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've had first hand experience of.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: But we we feel really we feel really bad about saying that there's an objective standard of beauty, I think.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: We we feel as though it's just taste.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Some people like jazz music, some people like trip hop music.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Trip hop.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: I was caught between hip-hop and trap, but you know, never mind.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: Trip hop.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Funky house music that they get to listen to.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: Hipity hop.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: Aren't they into the hippety hop?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: These kids these days.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Christoph Keating uh said art is seeking to represent the beautiful for its own sake rather than for some utilitarian purpose.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Which again, art for its own sake, is something that Martin Bailey on the top chat is also in agreement with.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Is it something that's purpose is in itself, not in what it does?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not it's not functional, it's just cause.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, which is kind of nice about like when God made the world, yeah.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Why did God make the world?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think lots of other worldviews out there say, well, God made the world so that we would serve the gods.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas in the Bible, it's like God made the world.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Just cause.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because he wanted to.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because and that was self-expression.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: And therefore he doesn't use his art for the sake of something else.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_07: It's like a Yes, the the use but I don't think we want to say art is defined by its uselessness in that sense.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_07: It's just for its own sake.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_07: I think you'd want to protect that definition and say it doesn't, as so many of our conversations around art within the evangelical world, it feels as though it's a waste of time unless it has some other purpose.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_07: And I I think we want to protect the arts and creative work from this need to, you know, basically just be a a badly wrapped sermon.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_07: Yes.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_07: Um not having a go at spoken word there.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, no, sorry.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_07: I mean right.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_07: But to say that's another conversation to have.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_07: But to say we do want to say that art needs no justification.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_07: In that sense.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_07: Which I think is but I suppose, you know, it's tri tricky when you if you use the word in the definition of itself.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_07: It can be a bit tricky.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: But we're gonna we're gonna get on to the ways in which Christians can use art for other purposes.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I think it's very possible that Christians can use art as more like propaganda.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Have you have you seen examples of this, Paul?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, well I won't name any names, but um yeah, I mean I think there's a there's a lot of kind of um Christian kind of Christian movie type things, particularly which very much have in mind they they've got an agenda and they want to get across a particular message.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_10: Um and generally what then happens is you end up with this kind of piece of I mean you can call it art, I suppose.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_10: Um but this kind of piece of media that um doesn't really I don't know, it doesn't seem to be uh a kind of a good expression of anything.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_10: It's just trying to get people to land on a certain theological point.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_10: Um and you come away from it not feeling like you've seen a listened to a good song or watched a good movie or anything like that, but like you've just been bludgeoned round the head with a kind of very poor sermon.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_10: Yes.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: And whatever artistry might be used, you kind of feel a bit icky about it because you you then think, oh, that's just bait.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: And what they really wanted to do is get me with the hook of their propaganda, their message.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_07: And it's it so the I always think about this in terms of you know, during an international football tournament, you'll have all the England flags will be out around and people have them on the cars and other houses and things.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_07: And the ones that always make me slightly shudder and I'm like right then, yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_07: Is when it's an England flag.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_07: So it's the white cross of St.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_07: George.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, right.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_07: With the word England written on it.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_11: Oh, okay.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_07: Because that that sort of defeats the purpose of a flag.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_07: If you're just gonna write the name of the country, we don't need flags anymore, do we?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_07: Just have pieces of A4 paper with countries' names written on them.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's just exposition, it's too much exposition.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_07: It's like subtitles for people who can't understand how flags work, which is usually through colour and shape.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_07: So it's that's where you just go, I think you've missed the the point of a flag.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_07: You don't need to write the country's name on it.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because the person's probably sh yelling the word as well.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_07: Jingoland adding syllables, yeah.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_07: All three syllables.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_07: But yes, that's that's one of those things where I'm just think, what's the point?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_07: What's the point?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_07: And that's that that's how it goes for a lot of a lot of what we would call evangelical art, in which it hasn't been made respecting the particular constraints and and beauty of the art form, it's sort of been bludgeoned and right, you know.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_07: It's been ruined.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And and again, it's it's part of that.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's part of that like using something for a different purpose.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean Andrew Peterson again, uh like I highly recommend people checking out the um the interview that he gave back in the summer.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because he he narrates this hilarious but also just tragic example of him doing his behold the lamb concert um in a church, and a church got them in and like terrific Nashville kind of musicians, which are you know top level, and they're and they're kind of worshipping Jesus with every song, and they finish the concert by um singing Psalm hundred like together, and then the musicians all kind of exit the stage while the audience are all singing praises to God.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: But they did this in a church, and like the the pastor of the church like insisted on then coming out afterwards and doing like a 15-minute evangelistic presentation.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's like what made you think it would possibly be a better ending.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_07: But it was the particular wasn't it?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_07: He it was about an um uh man trying to communicate with ants, and so it was it was this slightly awkward he then used an illustration illustration of how would you a man communicate with ants, he could become an ant.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_07: You're like he could be ant man, is that what that is a thing that we already have, and it's where's some water?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_07: I just gotta get baptized.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_07: So, but that and and in that sense you want to say, yeah, absolutely, you've you've sort of missed the the value and weight and beauty of the ending and decided to actually make it slightly awkward by coming out with something else.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_07: I suppose my the the challenge with that is, and we think about this earlier on today, but how do you appreciate the depth and beauty of particular art forms of great music, great film, great poetry, whatever it might be, and not basically become a snob who can't see the value in a guy does a talk about a man becoming an ant in order to die for the ants could be used by God in all its foolishness in a context in which people aren't too bothered about singing doxology.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, so so it's it's that really hard thing where a love for the arts which we're you know, it's frustrating when people don't appreciate them, and it's frustrating when people think creativity is just a waste of time, but at the same time the fear is that we get so kind of locked into a real sophisticated palette for rightistic expression that then we're sort of slightly ruined for anything that isn't which is just snobbery, basically, yeah, and and it yeah, so it's and it's hard because it happens every it happens with coffee, like if people like drinking good coffee after a while someone will offer them a like you know, was it a what was it cafe hog?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_07: Do you remember cafe hog?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_07: They probably don't have it anymore, but it was basically the granulate granules of coffee, freeze-dried coffee.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, like international roast sort of thing, like yeah, like it's all like a really like cheap, right?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_07: Like simple instant coffee.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_07: Yes.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_07: And they would they'll probably just throw it back in your face.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, they would probably well, they'd probably spit it into your face because they can't stand it, and they probably hate you because you like it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_07: So how do you how do we do that?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_07: How do what we appreciate the value of art without becoming snobs who as you don't value people who aren't as sophisticated as we are when we're watching, you know, Terence Malik movies and you know, for example.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, yes.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we're not we're not saying we need to become Charlie Kaufman or Terence Malik and s be incredibly highfalutin and and use high arts.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: But we are we are saying God has made us creative.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: And this and and there's a way of communicating that we are we are missing out massive chunks of a human being if all we're doing is downloading information on them.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: And to to honor the humanity and me and the humanity and them, and and maybe it's you know Beethoven or maybe it's bat out of hell, like, but I know which one I prefer.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: But on on some level, can we please engage the imagination?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_10: I mean I don't think it's I think often the the issue for us as Christians though is that particularly in some of the circles we we've moved in, we don't trust there's a lack of trust that people will pick up on anything which is kind of less subtle than simply a preach.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_10: You know.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_10: And so particularly in our circles, the often the the highest thing is the preach.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_10: That's what we often think about, isn't it?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_10: And we've talked about some of those issues in the you know, about how that ends up distorting lots of people's gifts anyway by putting the preacher at the top all the time.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_10: But because we're so preoccupied with it's the preach that's a thing, when you start to do art, art just becomes a way to do a preach.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_10: Um and then it and it becomes not a very good preach as well.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_10: I think often in Christian things, it becomes the bludgeon you round the head with it.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_10: So you can still pre you know there there are a lot everything preaches, I suppose, in some way, shape, or form.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_10: But you know, if you think to some of the videos we've done over the past few years, or even this year with the uh the Christ mouse, yeah.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_10: There is not like you don't get to the end of that video and you go, Oh, I I understand penal substitution and I I understand I'm a sinner who needs to repent and give my life to Jesus.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_10: And I think what sometimes as Christians, some people are scared of that.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_10: They go, like, well, if we haven't got that in, yeah, you know, surely this isn't good enough.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_07: If you had a more sophisticated palette, I think you would have picked them up.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_07: It was all there.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_07: It was just subtle.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, reference Fellini, I believe, in the in the second minute.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: I really want some cheese.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's Paul's level.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's quite refined palette.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um okay, so we we want art to to be beautiful and not to be the bait that then hooks people in.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: So what what is good art capable of?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like because it doesn't just d deliver a dopamine hit.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Lots of things could deliver a dopamine hit.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: What what can art achieve?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_10: Well, I mean, I think I mean I mean good art in any form can i it can do all kinds of things as well, can't it?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_10: I mean you can you can listen to you can come away from a film and you can be profoundly affected by by it.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_10: You know, even if it's the story is removed from you, there can you you can sometimes sit there and think, you know, wow, that really gets me thinking about this, that, or the other, you know, you know, it makes you think bigger things than just, oh, I've finished the story, now we all go home and do that.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_10: Or you listen to a piece of music and you know you can be moved to tears by right music and you know it has a profound effect on the emotions, doesn't it, as well?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_10: Um and I don't think that's just kind of manipulation.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, but that that's what we're doing.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_10: That would be the question thing.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_10: Oh it's just manipulating people, isn't it?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_10: To feel certain things.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_10: And of course you can manipulate people with with music and stuff and you know we've probably all seen you know clips of films or TV shows where they change the music and you see and it just feels like a different thing entirely.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_10: So that obviously does happen but yet I think you know these things do speak to us on a deeper level don't they?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: What level?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like what what is that?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: When you are when you are moved by beauty, when you're move when you're moved by art.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_07: Like yeah I think you're being being drawn out from yourself at some level and you're being you are being drawn into and invited into a a a stream of the world which which is is put there by the divine right it is put there by God.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_07: Beauty is God's idea and so when human beings manage to create things which you know resonate at that frequency you know to use a slightly awkward analogy for it but when we when we are able to create things it draws people out from themselves and can give them a sense of their position in in the universe in a way.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_07: And and it doesn't always have to do that in a way that feels especially comfort comforting or comfortable it can it can leave people feeling alienated and then the question is well is there anything in that particular work of art to suggest that that might not be the final word on reality because that that's the challenge because it's there and we're all made in the image of God and so we all have this creative capacity and we can develop it and train ourselves and learn the craft and all that sort of stuff whatever our worldview is is going to come out in what we create.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_07: And so if you have an impoverished picture of reality and and yet you're a brilliant artist you can leave people ruined because you show them you know you you hang them over the abyss and they have nothing to comfort themselves and they then just have to be I don't know distracted with a joke or something like that.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_07: But if someone's art is is coming from a an understanding of of God's world created and governed by Father, son and spirit right then there is there is actually hope that art can communicate something deeper than the many the many prosaic sentences.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_07: You know prose can be art as well but but but simple statements of fact could do because it moves you and it it taps you into something else.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: So you can be a very good builder of a world but if the world that you're building is an anemic vision of reality and a false vision of reality then you're harming people really by bringing them into that world.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_10: Sometimes people I think y whenever you have a piece of art like a film sometimes you might come away from it and and you you come away from some films don't you as a Christian and you can look at it and you can say oh there's some Christian themes in there.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_10: I mean the classic is there's some kind of sacrifice you know the one who sacrifices themselves for the menu or something you know really kind of quite an obvious kind of thing.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_10: But equally there is that flip side where you can come out and feel that was quite almost anti-Christian even if it's not you know it's not explicitly someone being anti-Christian but it's it's kind of it leaves you like you say hanging.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_10: Um but it I think again it that's how art speaks to you know it can speak to you if you if you're sitting there feeling like there's something wrong here it's pointing you to something that must be right.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_10: You know so there must be an objective thing.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_10: Um I mean I don't know I don't even know is a good example.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_10: I mean there's there's very few films I come out of or get to the end of and think like oh that was awful in the sense of I just feel like the message in here was so off.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_10: You've obviously not seen the trolls holiday special I have seen my little pony film though actually that's actually not as bad as I think the one for I see I remember coming out um I think we we must have watched it at home once the film I give it a year oh yeah that one horrendous and I got to the end of it and so so basically you've got this married couple and then there's like another another girl and um basically they end up at the end just the married couple split so that the other guy can go off and be with the the girlfriend the girl he loves um but it just had such a low view of marriage that it was just so throwaway.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah and I came it finished and I was just like this is awful.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_10: Is that the one that ends with I divorced you I divorce you too exactly like that was a good thing like two people going like hey isn't it great just to just throw away our divorce and you know throw away our marriage and yeah so the give it a year in the title was a reference to the marriage.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_07: Yes yeah not the relationship that was about to start who knows though given their approach to relationships.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah yeah I give that one six months and then after that who knows yeah yeah so that the and and using artistry that's built a world that is just icky to spend 90 minutes in and you and you come out come away feeling unclean or although there'll be many people who've just thought ah what a liberating message.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_10: Well clearly some people to make that film presumably someone does feel that is a liberating empowering message to leave at the end of the day so that's that's quite tricky.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's a powerful thing.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very powerful thing and and and and perhaps cinema is the most powerful of you know the the art forms in terms of it's this sort of synthesis of visual and sound and it's so immersive it's so central to our culture and and and so therefore therefore should Christians be making films?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_07: And if so what kind of films should we be making it a very good question.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_07: But fortunately we've got two people here who uh know all about this um joy come on tell us give us uh give us an answer what do you think should Christians be making films?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_04: Christians should be making good films I like that good films okay yeah yeah yeah Fraser what do you think um as I was thinking taking it back to the question of the function of art and whether it ought to have a function or not and often art has been countercultural and thus shaped culture towards the the direction in which it's countercultural so how then could Christian art in being countercultural potentially shape culture through that art?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_07: Is that a function that could it could have how come we ask the question and we've just got a question he's done this before any very good so just let me check so so we're saying art is cult is is culture making in a way that it it isn't just an expression of culture but it can shift culture and you are you asking what is it that we can do as Christians living in a culture which feels post Christian to sort of redress you know things point things in our direction again is that is that the sort of thing so how do we make countercultural good films?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_07: They've got to be good.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yes I agree yes yeah like it's the the tweet I always reference from back from 2017 someone came out of the um national gallery and they said I've just been through the Western art um wing of the National Gallery and I can summarize it in seven words a thousand years of crucifixions then stripes and and what's interesting to me about that is is for a millennium plus the Christian church was very comfortable telling its really weird story like like here is a symbol of execution here's a method of execution and we're gonna call it sacred art.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's the most subversive countercultural you know like to to to depict a crucifixion at all is like a ridiculous thing.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_08: But to say that your God shows up on that on on that cross is very and and yet Christians with confidence in their story kept on telling their countercultural story and guess what it became culture Wow it's the middle part of the show thanks for staying with us um whatever you're doing maybe you're hoovering at the moment maybe you're going for a run maybe you're cooking mushroom strogonoff why wouldn't you be it's winter um yeah by the way these discussions actually go out on our YouTube channel as well youtube.com forward slash speaklife media mondays at 8pm and you can join live and and even have your your live comments and questions read out and engaged with on air you've probably been hearing that throughout this episode so we'd love to have people join us for that maybe see you in future live streams back to the episode.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah so are there ways that we need to just regain confidence that the preaching of the cross no matter how countercultural is what we'll build and the preaching of the cross as preaching or as culture making as film like it so is there a way in you know to if you make a Jesus film right because you know clearly the crucifixions are paintings of Jesus right so I obviously there's wings of the church who are going to have issues with depicting Jesus at all but to make a Jesus movie feels like how do you now do that without it fee already feeling like right oh and and the chosen would be an example of of something that's happening at the moment which which has a lot of support um I haven't seen it but it it seems as though that is doing a good job at making a good film and and doing a good representation of this but then the other Jesus films whether it's uh Passion of the Christ or what was the one that had um oh just the TV story ever told yeah yeah so so those ones are we are we limited to just doing a sandals and swords Jesus film.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: No I mean yeah yeah I mean so alongside all those crucifixions you've you've also got the life of the saints and you've got the martyrs and you've got all sorts of stories that the church was constantly telling themselves about what was heroic behaviour.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: And what was heroic behaviour might might look like a monk who is stopping the gladiatorial games and getting stoned for his for his efforts or a nun picking up the exposed babies and adopting them into the nunnery and raising them and or or doing any number of very countercultural things.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: But it was all it was always it was always strange things and countercultural things and not and not I give it a year, you know.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_10: Well no I think and I think that's that's the kind of thing which is I think people would as Christians today sometimes we struggle with that kind of thing because we say well we might get to end of that and people will go well that nun was nice wasn't she go but they won't have heard about Jesus and you go is that all it has to be though like but I mean what would be a Christian I mean how would you do a countercultural version of I give it a year?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_10: What would be your what would be the Christian could you could you do it?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_07: Well if you the the th here's the question is the plot of I give it a year which probably we're talking mainly about this film that no one likes but if if there is a Christian version of that film is is the way to tell the same story that you you show the darkness and ugliness of it and so it's not a romantic comedy it's a tragedy.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_07: Right yeah yeah and is it simply that sin has been painted in virtue's colours and that's what we've been we've been shown.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_07: Whereas a Christian doesn't need to change the ending but can tell the same story and say oh my goodness that was so pleasant.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah just change the soundtrack right yeah and you know desaturate the colours and you know and these guys are made for each other yeah in the in the very negative sense they're made for each other like they're welcome to each other is kind of yeah no totally or just depicting I mean what's interesting is you could you could poo poo the depiction of happy family life because that's that sounds so saccharin you know a father tucking in his six year old daughter to bed and saying I love you honey I love you too night night and you think oh that's just hack needs that's just schmaltzy right we don't want any of that and yet that that is the vast majority of what it's like to tuck in a six year old girl and and and it's a beautiful thing.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: How do you how do you do that well?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_07: I don't know but it's it's worth depicting the positives when you when you see people building those kinds of worlds of negatives it's it's worth but and I think that's part of the issue with you know the the great evangelical filmmaking scene which is overwhelmingly in the States but that has those kind of Christian movies you know prayer room or or God's not dead or whatever it is the issue is not that they they just um that they won't show any any bad endings or everyone's got to come to Christ at the end or whatever it might be.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_07: It's that the good guys are far too good.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah and the bad guys are far too bad.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah so that it doesn't paint a an accurate representation of the world as we know it to be and so it's just like well that that's obviously propaganda because we know that that's not what people are like.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah yeah and now now the challenge I think we face in terms of being countercultural to come back to Fraser's question is that we don't have we haven't had for a while I think a clergy hero story so so if there's a clergyman if there is a full-time Christian who is identified within the film as being a Christian they can't be the hero because that's you know part of this terrible oppressive mean you know western patriarchal system right so Christians are obviously bigoted because and that's the shorthand so that's what's out in the culture so to to write stories which had heroic vicars or priests or minor canons if you uh to read the griffin and the minor canon you can have something which might make people think oh what if there was a possibility for a virtuous man of God huh that would be an interesting thing and in a way though you're writing at large with the the book you've got coming out next year we're talking about the the power of the church in giving us all these things we now take for granted in the 21st century and we're diminishing the impact of the Jesus revolution is there a way to do that with individual stories to say let's let's re-elevate or re-up the the the the Christian character but painted in in an accurate way which which respects the art form and doesn't you know just clobber people over the head with and now you too should get on your knees and and accept Jesus and JR.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think like mayor of Easttown uh with Kate Winslit in it because his superb series was on HBO I think and yeah it's on Sky One I think um so I I think I think it navigates that well I think I think the writer was Catholic and it's sort of depicted in where you kind of live it was a Pennsylvania um Easttown it's Del Del Co Delaware County Pennsylvania yeah and I think they I think they do a very good job of showing the ambiguity of humans because as you said with God's not dead the goodies are too good and the baddies are too bad.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah but they've got two clergymen and and one is very compromised and one is kind of a good guy and uh when he speaks with integrity that the whole town listens.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_07: It ends up literally with the bodily bodily assumption of Mary she goes up into the attic but uh but I I think there are there are rare examples of uh of christians who are kind of kind of heroes Christoph says uh all saints in 2017 is a clergy hero story made in mainstream Hollywood um and again and the one I thought of as well silence uh Christoph says would be a clergy hero story of sorts definitely not black and white yeah well silence is a very difficult film to watch yeah yeah yeah um should we have a look um we we're gonna have a look at um a very funny uh part from community can you say can you set up the clip for us uh Nate why why are we watching this clip from community okay so uh community is written by Dan Harmon who uh I usually reference because he has probably done more than anyone else to uh promote um Joseph Campbell's hero's journey as a tool for writing uh stories and Dan Harmon uh writer of community and Rick and Morty and and other things that we probably shouldn't recommend but um he has an episode called Messianic myths and I forgot the other part of the of the postmodern Jesus postmodern Jesus and uh in this uh episode Shirley who is the the the christian um african american lady uh has become aware of the YouTube and its ability to provide um viral uh messages and the fact that millions of people can watch it so she approaches the uh socially awkward and television and and movie informed Abed and asks him if he would help her to make a video for her church so more people would know about Jesus.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: Excellent his name is Abed, which is important.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let's have a look Shirley I read the New Testament the whole thing?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know being raised by TV and movies I always thought that Jesus just walked on water and told people not to have abortions but it's so much cooler than that.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: He was like ET, Edward Scissorhands and Marty McFly combined I would love to make a Jesus movie.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_09: Oh Abd that's wonderful what do you think we should do?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_09: It needs to be cool and addictive like that video of the kitten falling asleep.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely but the story's been told to death so I want to approach it in a new way we need a Jesus movie for the post postmodern world like Jesus as a rap no I want to tell the story of Jesus from the perspective of a filmmaker exploring the life of Jesus that sounds very appealing to filmmakers.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: See in the filmmaker's film Jesus is a filmmaker trying to find God with his camera but then the filmmaker realizes that he's actually Jesus and he's being filmed by God's camera.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it goes like that forever in both directions like a mirror in a mirror because all of the filmmakers are Jesus and all their cameras are God and the movie's called filmmaking beyond film a meta film my masterpiece well it's okay you know you're reacting the way the world did to Jesus I'm reacting the way the world does to movies about making movies about making movies.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean come on Charlie Kaufman some of us have work in the morning damn does this mean you don't want to work on the movie this means there is no movie this is the movie game is jacks and so there we are what so what does she want to get out of this film?
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_07: So what she just basically realizes that her church has got like eight people in it and yet 14 million people have just watched a video of a guy you know skiing with his cat or something like that.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_07: And so she thinks well here's an opportunity here's the technology if the church got behind this we could make a little message and of course our bed reads the whole New Testament overnight and Well, funnily enough, h he goes deep and says, Hold on, I I thought Jesus was just a guy who walked on water and told people not to have abortions.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_07: Right?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_07: So he's taking this cultural view, which is Jesus as random miracle guy, and don't do this.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_07: And then he's saying, Whoa, no, he's like E.T., Edward Scissorhands, and Marty McFly combined.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_07: He's the most interesting character.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_07: So you think, wow, Dan Harman, you've got it, you've realized that there's so much more to Jesus, so much more to the Messiah than you know, the classic cultural uh depictions of him.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_07: And then in a way, he manages to both mock Arbed's kind of meta film about making a film about making a film about making a film about Jesus, and also slightly mock uh Shirley because she's saying, Maybe just Jesus is a rapper, which also feels too lightweight.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_07: So, so I think it's a brilliant way because as the audience we're being shown the kind of stupidity of both of these extremes, one which is so self-indulgent, wrapped up in its own aesthetic sensitivity, and the other which is just blunt, crass, pathetic.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_07: Now, it's really interesting to see what happens over the rest of the episode, and uh people can find that where they find community, but um yeah, I just think it's a really interesting way to address how do we tell the story of Jesus in the internet age with 2,000 years of of Christian art history behind us.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: And when you look back at that art history, I I was just in Rome last week for um the filming of a poem and a and a promo video that we're gonna release soon.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's it's very interesting that you know those Jesus were white Italian actors or whatever, you know, lay models who were brought in, and and very often Jesus was dying on an Italian like hillside.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: And behind there was all sorts of kind of like it was modern for the Renaissance.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: And and so there has always been an updating.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and and there always kind of has to be, because you you've always got to ride that that sort of dual um impetus of of either being on the cutting edge or being totally derivative, you know.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like like just repetition or total representation.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like you've always got to do those both of those things.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: So in a sense, it's not a new question, like d to have to represent Jesus in a modern internet age and the age of the YouTube.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: But um but I but I think I it made me think when I was going through the Vatican Museum and and seeing it at times, you know, here's a very Italian Jesus dying in a very Italian town.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_07: How how could you tell he was an Italian Jesus?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, yeah, he looked like a cricket umpire a lot.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: So he was he was always doing this.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it but he certainly did not look like a brown man in the Middle East, right?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, he looked like a a white guy in the Middle Ages, yeah.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which so bring that into and maybe bring that into community, and maybe Jesus the rapper is not the stupidest, you know, like I haven't seen Jesus of Montreal.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: Have you seen Jesus of Montreal?
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_07: I haven't, no, but I well it was on my watch list and very close to the top of that watch list for a while and then got distracted.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: Probably by we need to do it together, maybe the little My Little Pony movie or something.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, yeah, we uh happens we have children, but yeah, it's it's kind of yeah.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: What does it look like to update the story?
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, w when I made um Meeting the Nativity, we we brought in a director who wasn't a Christian, but he was he was just he was always trying to say, you know, I I want you know the Mary and Joseph figure to be in jeans, yeah, like ripped jeans, and it's gotta be like um and he was always that was always his way of contemporarising you know the story.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas like I kept having to point out, like it's a time travel story.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: We've we've already got the 21st century.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: What they need to encounter is the chocolate box nativity, actually, because that's what's gonna change them and and bring them back.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: But but but that was the conceit by which you bring the first century and the twenty-first century together.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: But you always have to do that somehow.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, you know.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe maybe the chosen does that well by just it's good storytelling, so you just believe that you're a first century Jew.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I it on the issue of of cultural or or non culturally accurate depictions of Jesus.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_07: It is interesting when you go to non-white cultures and they have pictures of Jesus with their skin colour and you know ethnic background, and you think, huh, that's interesting.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_07: That seems as though, from a Western point of view, it is a an adopting of the gospel into the culture, and people are saying, Look, this Jesus is for us too.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_07: And yet, weirdly, it's sort of used as a stick to beat the Western church to sort of say, Ha, you painted a white Jesus with blue eyes inside.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_07: Well, I I think Jesus was for white people with blue eyes as well.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_07: And and yet, because of the other things which are attached to the history of the West of Western Europe, it's got much more of a sense of of oppression or of um control or belittling things.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_07: But I I wonder whether in in the age that we're in, which is obviously so you know global, um, well, it was still a couple of years ago, and now you can't even go to Rome without having to sit in your bedroom for two days waiting for a PCR result.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_07: But um the the challenge now I think is to say, okay, to have these these expressions of the gospel to retell our story, which is the the story of Christ, and not to fall foul of those who are have a list checking it twice to make sure that we're not distorting the gospel.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_07: Do you see what I mean?
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_07: That's the challenge.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, yes.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_07: So that we can be enthusiastic about embracing art forms and and saying let's do this through film, let's do this through through theatre, whatever it might be.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_07: And yet our our struggle is gonna be against obviously our struggle is against is against some flesh and blood.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_07: But there are some flesh and blood people who are very anxious that we would be, you know, going liberal if we if we were to do that.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_07: So I that's that's the the line in a way that we have to walk if we're to be faithful and engage the arts as Christians, I think.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: So that there are always such people who will comment.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, on our our Christmas campaigns, there have been quite a quite a number of commenters over the years on some of some of our videos.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we welcome them tonight.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: We welcome them tonight.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: You've been very well behaved in the top chat, uh, everybody.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, not not everybody has always um enjoyed our creative representations of the gospel.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm trying I'm trying to think of some some examples.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um there was the the meet the nativity guy who was like, you can't you can't just show him as a baby.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: He grew up, he was a carpenter.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_10: Um idiots who know nothing of Christ, I think was the phrase.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_10: That's right.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_10: Idiots who know nothing of Christ.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: He grew up to be I'm a carpenter.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: Which is of course the most important part of the gospel story.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: The idea he would have been happy if at the end of it he was swinging hammer nails.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_06: Like then they're happy.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: Or so yeah, let's let's finish with this.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why why is it difficult to create art as Christians?
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because we're we're trying to get stuff out there.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um but there are there are fears that hold me back.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure there are fears that hold you guys back in trying to be creative for Christ.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um what what are the fears that hold us back?
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_10: Well, I think whenever you I mean, I'm not sure it it's always limited to Christians putting stuff out there, but you when you whenever you do something artistic, there is an element of your own expression coming through it, and so there is a sense in which you make yourself vulnerable by putting something out there.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_10: You know, it it for all the you know, the the point is you remember that comment about Meet the Nativity, right?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_10: And there were like thousands of comments over the weeks, but the one you remember is what you know, yeah but you you know, it's that there is a fear of rejection.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_10: Um or you know whether whether and and I think in the Christian circles the danger of friendly fire is probably maybe feels greater than I mean, yeah.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_10: I mean I think you how many times have we seen people pour over the words of some modern worship song and pick it apart and then decide that oh maybe that isn't quite theologically correct.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_10: Therefore, yeah, this person probably isn't sound.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah what was that one that you didn't want heaven without you, so Jesus you brought heaven down?
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah, that was can't remember what the song is, but there was such a pylon over that.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just like and when you look back at it, you're just like, well, it didn't say you couldn't have heaven without you.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you didn't want heaven without you.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: So Jesus, you brought heaven down.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, and people sort of tearing apart a creative expression of the gospel.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: Not nice to be on the on the receiving end of that.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that could be a fear that holds us back.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_07: I d I do think definitely the the fear of of of the criticism which will come your way because you're not gonna be able to keep all the people happy all the time and because when you're making something in one sense you're trying out something, you're playing with it and you're seeing where it goes.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_07: And so if if the church if the church won't allow people to try something out and to come get the feedback and come back in, then the church will kind of stagnate.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_07: We will actually not get any new worship music, and the worship music that we get will be you know very derivative and will be very it will and so our creative impulse made as made in the image of God, which all people have, you know, but apparently some some people call themselves creatives.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_07: Um I think it's creative.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_07: Creative You're not, you are a creative person.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_07: Um but the um yeah, so so uh the church needs to embrace that the aspect of being made in the image of God and to enjoy that and and to enjoy it when people are are doing things.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_07: The the challenge with a s with a song, I suppose, is that it it goes onto the the list and then it starts to form people's theology.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_07: So I think that's where a lot of the gatekeepers are nervous because they don't want people to be singing things which might lead down the line to very confused understandings.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_07: I don't want to get into that particular song, I I'm not really aware of it.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_07: But the so the there's a fear that that you'll be kind of oh you're not allowed to do that because we need to be correct.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_07: And you know, that's not correct.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_07: Yes.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_07: And you think, well, I I don't know that I was trying to be correct for this particular point.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_07: I was I was playing with an idea and was trying something out.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_07: And so the the criticism, and of course, you know, that's that's kind of life online is getting trolled.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_07: Um Spartan 300 watching.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you for joining us again.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_07: We were very boring last week.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_07: Hope! I hope this week has been what are you referring to?
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_07: Nothing at all.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is be casey.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think and one one other thing that I think certainly in England um it really kind of um is this this cloying desire to be effortlessly superior and and not to try, not to appear to try.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and I think I think there's there's very much a sense, especially in England, of if you put something out there, people are like, who does Glenn think he is going to Rome?
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_02: Swanning off to Rome and saying a poem to the camera.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I see, I see.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_06: He's uh trying try hard with your words, making rhyme.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and that was that was that's the entire point.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_07: If you see a group of lads, you know, with a with a football group of teenage lads, the one you're they will be mocking is the one who's got the kit on, ready to go, enthusiastic.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_11: Yes.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_07: The point is you're supposed to have this effortless ability to control the ball and spank it into the top corner without even breaking a sweat and still wearing you know your jeans kind of thing.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_07: That's cool.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, it's not cool to try.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, but oh, obviously, if we all tried, we'd all do really well.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_07: You're protecting yourself against the five.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_07: If I yeah, yeah, and that's the thing, you protect yourself, and so it's a defensive thing.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and that's why there is a fear of of I think trying things out creatively.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um because yeah, I think yeah, yeah, I think ten years ago I was very keen, especially on my blog, to sort of say, look, I just offer these things out to you.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't claim to be any good at this.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna and then I sort of stopped because I just thought just deal with it.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: If you you know if you think if you think I'm trying to make myself greater through it.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's there's probably nothing I can do to anything.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_07: But the tall poppy syndrome thing is a is is is significant culturally, yeah.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_07: And it it's all it that's the same thing that makes people apologize when they put a beautiful meal in front of you.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, this, it's awful.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, it's so oh goodness.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_07: I can't even bear to watch you eat it because it's so disgusting.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, I overcooked all of it, and you just go, why do you Yeah.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_07: Let me eat you.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_07: It's fine.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's fine.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's fine.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_07: You know, yeah, it's just that that yeah, the fear the fear of of failure, the fear of looking like you're trying too hard.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_07: Um, the tall poppy syndrome, we don't want anyone to get too big for their boots, right?
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_07: You don't want to encourage someone too much.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_07: You couldn't have that.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, you know what'll happen, they'll be conceited.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_07: Exactly.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: So idols, idols everywhere.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's the challenge.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but speaking of creative uh endeavors, Paul, this Christmas.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: You've been trying.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_02: You've been have you been trying?
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how we talk about it, you know, just throwing it up.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_11: Oh, it's awful.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah, Paul.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_11: It's nothing really, nothing.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: Paul has been uh going through the creative process, inspiration through to I don't know, where are we up to in your Christmas number one?
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: Paul Vizas's Christmas number one.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_06: Soon to be released, Christmas number one.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like so you've you've done like a it's more than a demo track.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_10: It's gonna get mixed down It's getting mixed tomorrow, hopefully.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah by yeah, a guy I know called Nick Harvey, who actually works for the BBC, which is you know, he he works he does work for them, amongst others.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: He's kind of a big deal.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_10: He's kind of a big deal.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: He is, he is.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: Should we all hear the next Christmas number one?
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh and then you can let us know where people can rush out and and buy.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's called It's Christmas.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's Christmas time.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_10: It's Christmas time.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's Christmas, it's Christmas time.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: Not at all.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is how it goes.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_02: Did the lick just come fully formed?
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_10: You woke up one one morning and I mean I just wrote it by accident when I had COVID, so you wrote it by accident.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_11: I don't even know how that works.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_10: You were walking with a tray of words and you tripped.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_10: It just fell together.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_10: It wasn't really anything.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_10: But I mean, speaking of art, I mean I don't know about you, but I certainly felt myself being drawn out myself and invited into the divine as I was listening to that.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_10: So um uh Yeah, that was uh I'm sure we've all experienced that at the home as well.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_10: Um Bizarre and there's art, isn't there?
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_10: And that was art.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_10: That was R.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_10: No, I mean I did, I mean, it started off just as that little guitar phrase, which I think really is based on um Greg Lake, I believe in Father Christmas.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_10: There's which I made that comment to my mother-in-law, there's that bit in the middle of that song that goes d- d d don't grow out of that.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_10: And she said, That's actually a piece of Russian classical music that he nicked.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_10: Oh I was like, Well, that's good because I can avoid all the copyright strikes there at that point.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_10: So that's quite good.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_10: And for the for the video, are you gonna get Michael Flatly?
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_10: No, but the the the reason we we we knocked it together, um I I'd come up with this thing and then I sent it to the guy who sings on it, Gary, who um I've done do a bit of stuff with.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_10: Um and we were like, oh yeah, we'll just put it together and get it finished.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_10: And then we decided last week, we're like, well, why don't we release it um and we might try and raise some money for Great Walmart Street Hospital where Libby was uh this year.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_10: And so um hopefully if we can get it mixed down tomorrow, um it will be out some some point soon on Amazon and places you get your music for charity.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, so you can spend your 99p or whatever it costs, and then hopefully bring down Elton John and Exactly.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_10: I mean Elton's already had a Christmas hit.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_10: He's got stuff into Christmas.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_10: Ed Sheeran's had plenty of hits.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_10: So he doesn't need to?
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_10: Exactly.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_10: Church of England, they've got one coming out, but that's just a cover of In the Bleak Midwinter, so it's not very original.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: Cliff Richard, I believe, is also we've got big contenders there.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_10: Take them down.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_10: But I'm sure what with the 20 people watching we can come together and will you will you commit?
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's for charity, baby.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's for Christmas, it's for Libby.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's for it's for sick children everywhere and um Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_02: But um it's Christmas.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_07: Time, sorry, Christmas time.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_07: It's Christmas time.
• 1:04:14
  unknown: It's Christmas time.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_02: I know what you're trying to see.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_02: You trying to see it's not for Christmas, it's Christmas taboo.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um everybody, thank you so much for uh joining us.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Joy and Fraser.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_08: Well, there we go.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_08: It is the end of the podcast.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_08: Thank you so much for listening.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_08: If uh this discussion piqued your interest and you're interested in potentially getting involved with some of these Speak Life uh training opportunities, well, we'd love to have you with us.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_08: You can go to speaklifefoundry.com to find out more and to sign up.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_08: Thank you so much for listening.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_08: God bless you.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_08: Goodbye.