Arts and Solomon

Solomon Dr Loken was sick last week and so we watched the movie “Solomon” for class. I hate it when we do that. I can watch a movie at home. Dr. Loken’s teachings are much better.

There are some movies that can be life-changing. Movies can challenge your thinking and make you see things differently, but in general the “Christian” ones aren’t as good. It’s horrible to say, but it’s true. It seems like these days the church is almost always behind when it comes to the arts, but in years past the church was the center of it all. There has always been something about the “mystery” of God that inspires artists to try to express that which can’t be defined. I guess somewhere along the line the church decided that they had God figured out so art/mystery lost out.

Anyway, it seems to me that in the area of music, the church has gained some of the ground lost in catching up to the rest of culture. But in almost every other area – movies/film, writing, dramatic arts, painting/sculpting – we still seem to be way behind the rest of culture. The truth is that we as Christians have more truth to express to the world than any other people group. We should be setting the bar for every other artist in the world! What happened? How do we encourage people to express themselves to the Lord? We ask them to sing and pray in church, but what happened to these other expressions? How can we “worship” with our lives? our talents? our abilities? What would the rest of the world gain if we were each to take these ideas seriously? What could I offer the world as an expression of my heart to the Lord? What will I offer to Him?

It’s interesting that the movie Solomon is the one that sparked all these thoughts in me. I mean Solomon was the guy who organized all the most creative artists in the world at that time to build the temple. Solomon was an art supporter, and yet the movie/artform that portrayed him was lacking in that area. Weird.

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