God Through Art

Hi guys,

I've really enjoyed the discussions we've been having in class about Christians needing art. It's so important for us to be able to see the beauty of God represented in paintings, films, music, and so on. On one hand, no one piece of art could ever entirely capture everything that is God, but on the other hand, representing God through the limitless mediums of art gives us some sense of how limitless He is. All artists with the intentions of portraying God view and portray him differently, yet none of them are wrong.

I believe that it is also important for us as Christians to never immediately reject any work of art, regardless of whether or not it was created with the intentions of portraying God. Beauty surely can still be found in it, and perhaps, for us anyway, God too. That said, when an artist portrays God and does it well, (that is, when the artwork hits a lot of people and hits hard) it can be absolutely stunning. It's when the artwork hits you, and you just sit there silently in the presence of God, thinking, "There You are".

One example I'm thinking of right now is the animated film, 'Prince of Egypt', which I watched the other night with my roommate. It was really powerful for me. First of all, the music-Hans Zimmer, 'nuff said. Secondly, the film was visually breathtaking. And the story itself was just amazing. Reading the story of Moses in the Bible, you don't get all that. You, well, I, never stopped to think how much it had to hurt Moses to walk away from the only life he'd ever known, and to turn around and destroy his former family. I never stopped to realize that Pharaoh was probably Moses's brother, and that Moses loved him. One of the moments that had me on the edge of my seat was when the Spirit of God went through Egypt, killing all of the firstborn (again, beautiful visuals). There was no music during the sequence, and it was kinda scary, because I was just thinking to myself, "This really happened", and you see that the Egyptians aren't a heartless, tyrannical people but mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, and you feel their pain. Anyway, I've gotten off topic now.

What I love about art, films in particular, like 'Prince of Egypt' is that even though they may not get every little detail right, or they fill in the blank spaces in the Bible with things that may not have been exactly what happened, they make the people of the Bible more believable, and we realize that they were people just like us. This, in turn, makes God all the more astonishing.