This post is the second part of our talk with artist/scholar Deborah Sokolove about her calling, the arts, the church, and her new book, Sanctifying Art, with which we will be hosting an online course this spring. Deborah is the Director of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion and Associate Professor of Art and Worship at Wesley Theological Seminary. Deborah grew up in a Jewish family and later found herself working and growing in Methodist circles – that being said, we found that her take on the arts has a particularly Wesleyan ring to it – read on for more.
From the Branches:
What are some “tactics” you suggest in implementing new conversations between artists and church leaders? Do any of these methods take particular cues from Wesleyan theology or practice?
Deborah Sokolove:
While I was not thinking in expressly Wesleyan terms when I wrote Sanctifying Art, it is clear that my thinking has been affected by my long sojourn among the Methodists. I have always been particularly affected by the understanding that all sorts of things can be channels by which God’s grace becomes known to us.
Since you are asking about “tactics” in implementing new conversations between artists and church leaders, I suppose that I would say that the greatest “means of grace” in such conversations would be for theologians, pastors, and other church leaders to stop telling artists what their art should do, but rather begin to listen to the artists’ own intentions and longings and experiences. Of course, every artist will have a different story, a different understanding of what his or her art is about and why they make it, but for too long the church has either been ignoring artists and shutting them out of the theological conversation altogether, or telling them what kind of art to make and what it should mean. When church leaders take the time to listen, to look, to welcome actual, living artists into their congregations, the conversations that ensue will benefit both the artists and the Church.
From the Branches:
What is the most important thing that the Church can learn from artists?
Deborah Sokolove:
That’s a hard question since different artists bring different gifts and perspectives. I suppose the single, most important thing might be how to pay attention, how to sit in silence and simply look, rather than assume that one knows. It is the task of artists to pay attention to THIS angle, THIS sound, THIS gesture, since it is in these tiny details that meaning is found. This kind of attending is a way of listening for God’s voice, allowing us to see God not only in a glorious sunset, but in the way an oily puddle on a city street dances with color. The daily practice of artists, whether painters or poets or musicians or dancers, is a paradigm of spiritual discipline, which does not yield its benefits in a single moment, but rather brings us closer to God over a lifetime of often boring, but always attentive, repetition.
From the Branches:
What is the most important thing artists can learn from the Church?
Deborah Sokolove:
Perhaps the single most important things that artists can learn from the church is humility. In the Romantic era, artists began to think of themselves as the only authentic mediators between God and human beings. Rejecting the Church that had rejected their work during the Reformation, they saw only the failings of institutional religion and not the deep spirituality of countless Christians who read their Bibles, prayed, and went to church, finding communion with God and their fellow humans through these humble disciplines. Artists can, and should, learn from the Church what it means to live in community, experiencing the joys of making art for the sake of a particular audience rather than an amorphous marketplace.
From the Branches:
Is there anything else you’d like to share with church leaders seeking to deepen the art/faith conversation?
Deborah Sokolove:
I think that the most important thing is goodwill on all sides. As in all long-standing estrangements, it’s always easy to think that we are right, that the other guy doesn’t understand us, that it’s easier to just keep talking to people who agree with us. Perhaps the most important question for both artists and theologians to ask one another is, what do you see? What do you see in this artwork? What do you see in the Church? What do you see in the world? If we keep asking one another what we see, and hear, and feel, and then honestly pay attention to the answers, artists will begin to feel more welcome in the Church, and the Church will benefit from their skills, their experience, and their vision.
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Click here to read the first half of our interview with Deborah. To register for the Sanctifying Art book study, facilitated by Shannon Sigler, click here. For information on Be A Disciple’s partnership with Wesley Theological Seminary, click here.
Deborah Sokolove is the Director of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion and Associate Professor of Art and Worship at Wesley Theological Seminary. Deborah is a member of Seekers Church, a Christian Community in the Tradition of Church of the Saviour. She specializes in the intersection of liturgy, religion and the arts. She is on the Board of Directors of the Society for Art in Religious and Theological Studies, and has recently published Sanctifying Art: Inviting Conversation Between Artists, Theologians, and the Church. Read Deborah’s blog here.
