The sacred, the secular, & the beautiful (2)

But if the sacred/secular distinction is eliminated from how we judge our lives, then it must also be eliminated from our worldview. All the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it (Psalm 24:1); our task is to render all we find to his service. Our quiet manual labor fulfills the dominion mandate given to man in Genesis 1:28. We rule by using things: not only plants and animals, but everything. This must include culture.

How do we do this? We take hold of pagan creations and use them to glorify God. Musical instruments were invented by Jubal, from the ungodly line of Cain (Genesis 3:21). Therefore, they properly belong to paganism. But Christians are commanded to seize Jubal’s harp and flute and use them to praise the Lord (Psalm 150:3-5). All things belong to the Lord; Christians act as his repo men.

This process is fairly simple to grasp when discussing seemingly neutral technology, like musical instruments. It becomes a touch more tricky when dealing with the cultural artifacts produced by that technology, such as music itself. Can Christians really use grunge rock and jazz, or ought we to stick with classical music and hymns?

Well, as the founder of the Salvation Army asked, “Why should the devil have all the good music?” As we approach our culture and world, our question should not be “Is this (music, book, scientific theory, historical argument) safe? Will we be contaminated by it?”, but rather “Can this be used for God’s glory? If so, how?”

We can only answer that question by knowing God’s Word, the Bible. There the Lord describes for us the world in its relationship to him. The Bible is the standard by which we ought to measure all we see. When we hold the artifacts of our culture up to its light, we can discern what is true from what is false. Its framework will enable us to determine what we should flee from, and what we may render to the Lord’s service. From Scripture we learn that God is the Beginning and End, that all purpose and truth rest only in him. Anything else is false and idolatrous. 

Because of his mercy and love for his people, and his desire to provide a good world for them to live in, God has not deprived all pagans of truth and beauty. We live as foreigners in a land which rightfully belongs to us, and its occupiers would ruin all its good fruit if the Lord did not restrain them. Thus, the creations which come from their bent hearts oftentimes have in them the ring of truth and the unmistakable presence of beauty. Shakespeare could be a foul-mouthed, obscene blasphemer, as his comedies demonstrate. He was also capable of writing more eloquently than most of the love between a man and a woman, as his poem The Phoenix and the Turtle proves.

One difficulty in exercising dominion, rendering all the earth to the Lord’s service, is that there are no mechanical rules for doing so. It’s hard, dirty work. If we say all dead Greek and Latin pagans are worthy and all modern pagans funded by the NEA are fit only for the dustbin of history, we’ve missed the point. We must instead pick up the cultural artifacts of the world, examine them in the light of Scripture, discard that which is foul, and delight in that which is beautiful. In the process, we can turn the pagan’s idolatrous cultural artifact into a testimony of God’s character.

Take the film Titanic. I think we can say with a fair degree of confidence that James Cameron was not setting out to make a Christian movie: the celebration of premarital sex which is at the narrative’s center proves otherwise. However, we learn from it some very true things about both God and man. Towards the film’s beginning, a character looks at the Titanic and exclaims, “Not even God could sink this ship!” This, at least, is historically accurate: when the grand vessel set sail, many said precisely that. And grand she was. Cameron does us a great service by showing the breathtaking scale and majesty of the Titanic. The massive turbines of the engine room, creating and harnessing enormous power, are astounding. The gifted craftsmanship behind its lavishly decorated interiors is inspiring. All this was the creation of man. Man truly is great, and Titanic shows us this. But for all man’s greatness, he is powerless before God’s creation. When the Titanic struck an iceberg, she was doomed. Hubris, the fall brought on by arrogance, proved to be the Titanic’s undoing, and this magnificent testimony to mankind’s creative power sits at the bottom of the ocean.

This is a story we have heard before. As at the Tower of Babel, as at the Fall, man tried to supplant God, to take his place as rightful Lord of all. In so doing, man was destroyed. Man is great, but the Lord is far greater. But how do we find this testimony in a movie designed to reap massive profits at the mall? Because we have eyes to see. Because we know who man truly is and what his fate will be. Because we have read the Bible, we understand how all things testify to the glory of the Lord. As we see the world Biblically, we will see how all things find their meaning in their Creator. As we quietly live our lives in his service, we take dominion over the world, rendering it beautiful to the Lord, making its song of praise increasingly audible.