Whatever is Lovely Part II - Skin, Bones, and Vision

Skin, Bones and Vision
The first doctrinal lens that I believe would be helpful in placing Paul’s admonition toward truth, purity and loveliness into focus is the lens of the Incarnation of the second person of the Trinity. More specifically I would suggest the Father’s sending of the Son in the flesh into the world reveals something very insightful and useful in helping us understand Paul. In fact I believe it’s absolutely essential that Paul’s writing (and the rest of the New Testament; even all of scripture) be viewed in the context of the Incarnation given the centrality of that narrative to both Christian doctrine and identity. With that in mind let’s take another look at this passage.

First we’ll have to construct our lens; then we can look through it to see what it reveals. We’ll begin with the incarnation and what it reveals about the Father. Through it we see that the Son’s obedience to the Father’s sending reveals the extent of the Father’s regard for humanity. The Father has such high regard for humanity that the Father sends the Son to communicate that esteem and affection to them through the Son’s presence, words and actions. Of course humanity’s value isn’t self created, and we’ve done nothing to earn the Father’s respect. In fact, the reality is quite the contrary. Humanity has repeatedly and almost constantly driven their collective thumbs into the eye of their creator; but despite all of our collective efforts to carve out some real autonomy, establish some independent identity and reconstruct the gifted divine image apart from our creator, we have not diminished the value of the divine image given to us by our creator. Humanity may have wrecked, dented, cracked, and stained that image, but nothing we’ve done has moderated the value of that image. When the Father looks at humanity the Father sees the inherent nobility, and loveliness that was gifted at creation. Granted the Father is not blind to the damage and ugliness produced by our rebelliousness and sin. In fact it’s so at the fore of the Father’s thought that all of history is bent around its remedy. The Father in looking at a damaged humanity trying to make their lives in a world damaged physically, socially and spiritually by their actions sees beings valuable enough to sacrifice the Son as a remedy to their plight. The Father then sees both the inherent beauty and earned ugliness of humanity simultaneously. This apparent divine both/and view of humanity then is a lens we can use to help in understanding this passage.

Let’s carry this idea of bi-focal vision over then to the arts, and the pieces that Christians create and consume. God’s vision allows God to see humanity’s value in the midst of their sinful ugliness and created beauty concurrently. This of course means that there is loveliness and nobility inherently bound in humanity which can be seen. I would suggest that when humans create, bits of both their loveliness and their ugliness make their way into their creations. Picture a tube of Aqua-Fresh toothpaste. Three separate colors squeeze out of the tube in proportion to the colors that are in the tube. It’s a very crude analogy, but I believe something similar happens when a person creates. Both a person’s ugliness and loveliness are in play and find their ways into what they create. This means that in any person’s creation there is truth, nobility and loveliness to be found, if one has the vision to see it. So then Glee, Lady Gaga and Stieg Larsson may embody much which may be objectionable and ugly from a Christian perspective, but because of the image of God bound up in all involved in the creation of TV shows, and music and novels, there is truth, nobility and loveliness to be found there as well; and according to Paul we should think about such things when we find them. This is not an argument that a Christian has no constraints in the creation and consumption of art and pop culture texts, but it is an argument that the effective loveliness of any given piece is going to be dependent on the individual’s ability to find the inherent truth and loveliness in the piece being consumed. It’s there to be found. The question is whether we see it.

Paul’s urgings through this lens can be seen as an urging to seek and find what is true, right, pure, lovely, and admirable even in the midst of what is false, wrong, impure, ugly and condemnable. This is how the Father sees; bi-focally, creatively and generously. This then leads us to our second doctrinal lens which will help us understand this verse... to be revealed in Part III

Whatever is Lovely - An Introduction

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things – Philippians 4.8 (NIV)

This passage out of Paul’s letter to believers in Philippi is a trump card, or at least it’s used as one from time to time. It’s often the spade laid on the card table of the arts to reign in the creation and consumption of artistic endeavors and pop culture texts which are not regarded as thoroughly and overtly beautiful, noble and pure. Paul’s text is often seen as proof positive that no professing Christian should be watching Glee, or listening to Lady Gaga, or reading Stieg Larsson novels. They are not true, right, or pure, and because they’re not, they’re not lovely, admirable or praiseworthy either. The suggestion that often follows is that the consumption and creation of these songs, shows and novels be replaced with ones that are lovely, admirable and praiseworthy because they were produced and created from a clearly communicated Christian perspective. If all truth flows from God and God is at the heart that all that is true, then Christians who believe in that truth should clearly and obviously bear that out in all they create and consume, the belief follows. Now that I’ve built the straw man, I suppose I now must do a little dismantling, and suggest another possible way of understanding Paul’s text. (In all honesty I hope this isn’t too much of a straw man, and I welcome help and suggestions in providing a more accurate, though brief description of this take on this text.)

I would suggest a principle, or perhaps more accurately a theory, needs to be applied here which I’m coming to believe is Biblical, but not overtly stated in one text or verse: the principle/theory that the shortest most efficient line between two points is typically or perhaps often the least godly/Biblical route to take (I’m still working this one out). So applied in this instance it would mean that just because a piece of art or a pop culture text overtly declares scriptural truths, it doesn’t mean that art or text is in reality an accurate representation of the truth. This would also mean that just because on first blush a piece of art of pop culture text doesn’t seem to be true, noble or pure doesn’t mean it is not lovely, admirable or praiseworthy. I’ll approach this from three different perspectives in 3 following blogs to try to flesh this out a bit. I think I’d prefer to write this one in parts as opposed to writing one long “super blog”. Part 2 to follow soon… stay tuned.