Can actors be regenerate artists?

This is a question I’ve wrestled with, especially since my area of artistic interest is that of the performing arts: Are you a regenerate artist if you perform the works (plays, musicals, etc.) of others?

What does it mean to be a regenerate artist?  For those who have read Bob Briner’s Roaring Lambs, you may have noticed that it tended to be all about writing.  He believes Christians should be involved in every culture-shaping profession, but seemed to suggest (or maybe he stated it outright, I don’t remember) that if you want to shape the culture, you have to write the script.

I definitely think there are two main reasons Christians can be called to the arts – to create culture shaping art (see Act One) and to personally impact the lives of other people in the arts (see Hollywood Prayer Network — okay, maybe not the best example, but you get the idea).

Granted, I think every Christian involved in the arts should aim to do both (and they feed off each other – you won’t gain others’ respect if your art is crappy and if your art is excellent you will impact others whether you want to or not).  But I think there is a distinct difference between the two.  I think the creation of culture-shaping art is directly regenerate, while regenerating the people who are in the arts is a somewhat more indirect way of being a regenerate.  So I guess it’s both/and.

But, I would still ask the question of whether performing others’ works is a regenerate activity.  To the degree that one is so talented one can control which works are performed, I would say yes.  But simply signing up to play a citizen of Padua in a local performance of Kiss Me Kate, probably not so much.

I’ve drifted toward producing (and am tempted toward directing) because that gives me the ability to determine which show is performed (a potentially regenerate activity), as well as to shape a show to emphasize a redemptive message.  But even that can have its limits.

My sole producing credits have been of two iterations of a musical revue of my own creation – God on Broadway.  In 2007, I pulled together 11 songs from Broadway shows that I felt dealt with spiritual themes and recruited some talented folks to sing them.  I paired each song with a Bible verse that I felt communicated the same message or interacted with it in a very interesting way.  For 2008, I took it a step further, utilizing more songs and throwing in several monologues, as well.  In that iteration, rather than pairing songs with Bible verses, I instead ordered the songs to create somewhat of a spiritual journey story arc and explained that framework in the program.

That all sounds very regenerate, right?  Perhaps.  But in the second iteration I found myself increasingly frustrated as I tried to shoehorn songs into the themes I wanted them to be, while at the same time wanting to respect their original context.  And occasionally I’d find myself scouring my Broadway CDs trying to find a song that fit the underdeveloped theme I was trying to flesh out, bemoaning songwriters who threw in a single phrase that made a song unusable for my purposes.

That’s when I came face to face with the limitations of using the works of other people.  And that’s when I really, really wished I was a songwriter and could just come up with songs of my own.

So, back to the original question:  Are actors regenerate artists?  Or more broadly, are those who perform the works of others (songs, shows, whatever) regenerate if they are not the one selecting the work?

What say ye?

Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

One of the things I’d like to do on this blog is review/summarize books about redeeming the arts.  The problem is, I’ve got a stack of books and very little time to read them.  So for this first, I’m simply going to cheat and link over to a review the regenerate Mrs. did a couple years back of Steve Turner’s Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts.  I encourage you to check it out.

How else can we communicate The Story?

As I’ve stated before, I believe that much art that resonates deeply within the human heart does so because it in some way reflects The Story.  This thought was provoked several years back when I read the following summary of the spiritual warrior’s authority in A Discipleship Journey by Dave Buehring (which I highly recommend if you’re looking for a good, comprehensive Bible study):

• God has all power and authority (Job 42:2; Mt. 28:18).
• God gave man authority to reveal His image and glory (Gen. 1:26); to have dominion (means to subdue, conquer, to bring into subjection) over the Earth and every living thing on the Earth (Gen. 1:28); all things are under man’s feet (Ps. 8:6-8).
• Through deception, sin and disobedience, man opened the door to Satan and lost dominion (Gen. 3:1-13).
  • Satan became the ruler of this world.
  • Man suffers the consequences of sin, sickness, disease and death.
  • Apart from Jesus, Man has no authority of his own.
  • Satan has authority on the Earth to the degree that people give him access through their sin and disobedience to God.
• Jesus was sent by the Father to defeat Satan and to establish God’s authority through the church…
• Jesus passed His authority on to the church
  • Jesus has given believers authority over the powers of darkness (Mt. 16:19; Lk. 10:19).
  • New Testament believers did many of the same works as Jesus: they received authority to heal sickness and diseases (Acts 3:1-10); they received authority to raise the dead (Acts 9:36-43); they received authority over demons (Acts 16:16-18); they received authority to preach the gospel so that men and women could come to Jesus (Mt. 28:18-20; Mk. 16:15-18).
  • This same authority has been given to us as believers today so that God’s Kingdom might be advanced in the lives of people and in the nations of the earth (Lk. 10:19; Jn. 20:19-23; Rom. 8:31; Jam. 4:7; 1Jn. 4:4).

Can’t you see echoes of all great stories in this?  Man is given authority but loses it through his own misdeeds and Satan usurps authority.  The rightful king is toppled from the throne.   The aimless youth is ignorant of his royal heritage.  The chosen deliverer is unaware of the untapped magic within him.  The self-centered rebel becomes aware of a much higher calling on his life.

One little-known book that captured and highlighted some of this for me was The Oneprince by Bill Hand.  Hand created a world of humans, rats, and badgers, and when he bats around names like Pentatutinus, Josiah, and Yerushela, you know he’s got some Biblical analogy going on, but he keeps you guessing (is the wizardess named Iscara who lives in Magdalawood symbolic of Judas Iscariot or Mary Magdalene or both?  I’m still trying to get ahold of the out-of-print third book in the series to find out).

The MFA is the new MBA?

Ben Arment has sparked an interesting discussion on his blog with his statement that “seminary teaches you to answer questions from the Bible that no one is asking” and that he wishes he’d gotten a film degree instead.I’m intrigued because, although I should probably agree wholeheartedly, I’ve been having very different (but somewhat related) thoughts lately.

My Pulpit Ministry class has rekindled my desire to “preach” via other ways than delivering a sermon (granted, it has done so by making me read expositors who argue that the only way to preach is via sermons, but anyway…).  Obviously, for me this is a desire to preach by way of the arts, hence prompting me to launch this blog.

It has also made me question what I want to do once I finish my seminary degree.  I originally started the degree program so I could more effectively (and more renumeratively) engage in pastoral care and counseling.  I’d originally intended to pursue a Psychology/Counseling degree, but after reading Cloud and Townsend’s How People Grow: What the Bible Says About Spiritual Growth I became convinced that I could more effectively counsel if I was grounded in Biblical understanding rather than psychological understanding (NOT that I have anything against psychology — those who do drive me nuts.  But I know I want to counsel in a Christian setting).  Anyway….

As my degree program has progressed, however, I have realized that it’s much more about my own spiritual growth and that God could use it in a number of ways (including, say, starting a theatre company) that have nothing to do with “full-time ministry.”  As a result, I’ve been intrigued at the thought of a lot of people obtaining seminary degrees (or otherwise obtaining a more comprehensive theological understanding and greater spiritual maturity, which a seminary degree can, in fact, facilitate) and then going into completely different disciplines for full-time work.  I suspect it would lead to some interesting results.

Every story has a villain

A few days back I wrote about the power of storytelling and how I think stories often resonate to the extent that they reflect THE story.  Well, while doing sermon prep the other night I was skimming through John Eldredge’s Waking the Dead and was struck by this passage about spiritual warfare:

“Think of it– why does every story have a villain?

Little Red Riding Hood is attacked by a wolf.  Dorothy must face and bring down the Wicked Witch of the West.  Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi go hand to hand against Darth Maul.  To release the captives of the Matrix, Neo battles the powerful “agents.”  Frodo is hunted by the Black Riders… Beowulf kills the monster Grendel, and then he hs to battle Grendel’s mother.  Saint George slays the dragon.  The children who stumbled into Narnia are called upon by Aslan to battle the White Witch and her armies so that Narnia might be free.

Every story has a villain because yours does.  You were born into a world at war…

You have an Enemy.  He is trying to steal your freedom, kill your heart, destroy your life.  As Satan said through Salieri, “I will hinder and harm your creature here on earth as far as I am able.  I will ruin Your incarnation.”"

The villain is one aspect of The Story.  I’ve managed to track down the outline of The Story I referenced before (and incidentally, it too is referencing spiritual warfare).  Once I get a chance I’ll type it up.

Oh, and if you don’t get the Salieri reference, you really need to see Amadeus, preferably on stage.

Psalms as Monologues

Is it heretical to say that public reading of the Bible can sometimes be lifeless?  Far too often, we lose the drama inherent in much of Scripture.  What do you say we bring it back?

A while back I learned one of the Psalms as a monologue and I ended up using it as part of my God on Broadway musical revue (I’ll explain that at some point) this past year.  It struck me once as I read through a chronological Bible that the Psalms are spread throughout the Old Testament to a pretty considerable extent.  I’ve often wondered what span of the Old Testament story could be told simply through the Psalms.  I’d like to put together a series of Psalm monologues that would trace a picture through the Biblical story.  It could be powerful, but I have to figure out in what context to perform it.  I’m not sure people would come to a “Psalms as Monologues” non-musical revue (what’s the monologue version of a musical revue?).  It needs some further context, but I’m not sure what.  Anyone got any ideas?

Incidentally, here’s the Psalm (137) I used as a monologue.  There just so happens to be a Godspell song based on this Psalm, so we used that, too.  How can you NOT read this with passion?

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.

There on the poplars
we hung our harps,

for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill .

May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.

Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”

O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-

he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

Must-reads and a must-watch for regenerates

I’ve got a running list on the sidebar of what I consider “musts” for regenerates.  Thought I’d go ahead and point those out.

The two pieces of writing on the list make it simply because they are two of the best pieces of writing I have ever read.  The Grand Inquisitor episode from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is absolutely fantastic and very thought-provoking.  A couple years back I managed to obtain a script version of the book and hope to some day memorize the Grand Inquisitor story and use it as a monologue.

“Letter to My Children” is Whittaker Chamber’s introduction to his book Witness.  Back in the day Chambers accused the much esteemed Alger Hiss (he had two Supreme Court justices as character witnesses) of being a Communist spy.  Witness tells Chambers’ story, complete with the very sensational (at the time) story of the evidence he’d hidden in a pumpkin on his farm.  The introduction to the book is a letter Chambers addressed to his children explaining why he did it, how he turned away from communism and atheism, and of the inherent conflict between Communism and Faith.

Both of these are available online so you should read them right now.

The must-watch, on the other hand, requires you to go to a website and order it, but it’s well worth it.  “Most” is a Czech-language film (“most” means “bridge” in Czech) that’s about a half hour in length (don’t worry, it includes subtitles).  It’s an extraordinary example of regenerate art and a very powerful film.  I’d say more, but I’m not sure how to without giving the storyline away, so I’ll just leave it at that.  Go order yourself a copy (and a couple to give away).  You won’t regret it.

Giving voice to G.K. Chesterton

I intend to add a sidebar listing regenerates of yore (folks like C.S. Lewis, George McDonald, Tolkien, Handel, and, sadly, Madeleine L’Engle, who passed away in 2007) once I figure out where to link each of them.  But I thought I’d go ahead and highlight a group that does a fantastic job of giving voice to one of them.

At the Christian in Theatre Arts annual conference several years ago, I had the pleasure to see Peculiar People perform their production “The Happy Man,” which is composed almost entirely of direct quotes from G.K. Chesterton.  Through acting and a bit of puppetry, if I recall correctly, they brought his statements to life in an amazing way.  It was a fantastic production and I highly recommend bringing them to your area to have them perform.

And for free, here’s one of my favorite Chesterton quotes:

Is it possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes the daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. Heaven may encore the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain.

At that conference, I also got to see Doug Berky do an incredibly moving (but completely silent) performance with his amazing masks, as well as Jeannette Clift George (who played Corrie ten Boom in the movie The Hiding Place) perform her one woman show, “Corrie, Ruth, and Me” (the Ruth in question is Ruth Bell Graham).  If you ever have an opportunity to see either of those, I highly recommend them.