Faith and Creativity

Have you ever noticed the lack of creativity within the Christian church? Just look at how the average church names itself. Often, they are named after the street name or town/city where they are located.

And I can't tell you how many creative types say that the church has NOT made a home for them. Creative people "think outside the box" and this often makes religious people feel uncomfortable. No wonder the church has a reputation of being boring.

Everything is often so predictable. Even churches that put on a show by adding productional elements, are still so predictable, formulaic and often unimaginative. And please don't get me started on the creativity drought found in Contemporary Christian music.

Why do I suggest that people of faith should value creativity? Is it simply because of my personal bias as a creative type or is there a deeper reason?

Like creativity, doesn't faith require us to use our imaginations and to visualize? A creative sculptor has to visualize what they want to sculpt as they create their art. A musician has to exercise great imagination to create music. When faith tells us that there is a God, a heaven, a hell, does it not require us to do the same?

Secondly, and perhaps a foreign concept to many of us, what is faith if it doesn't challenge us to critical thinking, just like creativity does? No wonder this is a foreign concept. People of faith aren't exactly known for critical thinking. I left a particular Christian denomination years ago because I found that they inherently rejected critical thinking and couldn't provide answers to my questions.

I've watched the church view critical thinking as a threat to core doctrine. But I have always believed that if a doctrine is true, than it can survive all critical thinking as long as our we are objective. I instinctively believe that the truth will withstand all assaults if we are open to it. I don't deny my biases and can't eliminate them, but do everything that I can to minimize them.

Perhaps some of you don't see the connection between critical thinking and creativity. This is best seen via illustration. I teach guitar as an adjunct professor and private instructor. When I give my students a scale, I ask them to question it. I challenge them to ask, "What can possibly be done with this set of notes?" The result of such critical thinking is that they will try ordering the notes of a scale in creative ways that yield all sorts of melodies, phrases and patterns. They end up coming up with things that are new. So, while it is not often said, creativity is directly tied to critical thinking.

A simpler example, that non-musicians can better appreciate, is to take the game of Scrabble. Each player is given seven letters. Success requires the player to question the letters they possess asking, "What words can be formed??" This type of critical thinking will yield the fruits of creativity.

Another reason that everyone, whether religious or not, should value creativity is simply because creativity allows for repetition. I can endure, and even enjoy repetition, if it is done with creativity. I need to remind myself of truths that I have known for years, but if those truths aren't presented to me with the freshness that creativity provides, I'm not going to be able to receive them. A church that can't present old truth creatively, will be challenged to endure boring repetitions and grow stale with traditionalism. The only alternative is for it to find "new truth", which is not exactly an inherent quality within religious faith, and is a back door to heretical teaching.

Something else that is interesting about creativity, is its connection to propositions and systems. In the above two examples, creativity has to be applied to propositions (think black and white). I ask the musician to apply creativity to a scale, which is born out of the system of music theory. The Scrabble player applies creativity to letters to form words.

Christianity echos this truth when it says:

"Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." Romans 10:17

"The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." John 1:14

Computers are even examples of this connection. The fruits of digital creativity are found in Youtube, Itunes, MySpace, and even at a more rudimentary level in the graphics of the operating system (GUI for you computer geeks). Yet, all of it boils down to the binary propositions of 0's and 1's (black and white, right and wrong).

So I'm not simply advocating that people of faith should make things up. The creativity that is faith is hinged to the propositions that we commonly call theology and Divine revelation.

So given all of the above, why is it that people of faith so often lack creativity and imagination? I would expect people of faith to have the most profound imaginations. Could this be the consequence of centuries of institutional religion that has produced a top down hierarchy of compliance as opposed to the critical thinking process of considering other's perspectives via the dynamics of a true community?

Have you ever noticed how often Jesus engaged people with questions?

Faith Balances the Extremes

Faith is belief in moderation, the opposite of extremes, the antithesis of the "one-ended stick".

It is obvious that faith can't exist without belief. Whenever Jesus encountered someone who struggled with belief, He would commonly ask, "Where is your faith"?

But notice that He also never asked, "Where is your certainty?"

Just as faith is impossible without belief, it is equally impossible without the presence of doubt.

If you are absolutely 100% certain of any belief, it can NOT be defined as faith. No one has FAITH that they are going to die. No one has faith that the sun will come up tomorrow (although it IS possible, but extremely unlikely that it will NOT come up).

If faith is a belief that is the mean between doubt and certainty, than it appears to in the middle between two extremes.

So why is it that people of faith so often find themselves at the fringes of life?

If you do NOT have faith, then what are you left with except to believe only in that which can be proven with certainty (which is very little) or with a perpetual skepticism that leaves your mind unhinged.

"Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same. The more the life of the mind is unhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself." - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, pg 60.

Such thinking changes nothing, not even its adherent.

I once heard a local pastor say it this way: "If your faith hasn't changed you, then you need to change your faith."

Meaning Without God

Can one really live a life of meaning without God? What is meaning if it is not purpose? If a purpose maker that transcends the boundaries of our individuality does not exist, then how can the attempt to make up meaning without Him be any less than self-deception; an illusion?

I illustrate with an example. Suppose you say that the meaning of your life is to work a particular vocation that you happen to be good at and derive lots of satisfaction out of (BTW, you'd be the exception and not the norm). That vocation could be anything, but let's say it is to be a police officer, just for sake of illustration.

Why is your life purpose to be a police officer, I might ask?. You might reply, "Because I'm good at it and I enjoy it." "Why do are you good at it and why do you enjoy it?" You might tell me how you are a good shot, and are a natural authority figure, love risk, love serving the community, etc. You might also tell me why you enjoy these things. But WHY are you good at these things and WHY do you enjoy them? Without God, do you really have an answer that goes deeper than evolutionary chance? Why would evolution care? Only beings care... Can the very chair you are most likely sitting in right now care? Can a random process have a purpose, a will, for your life?

If you simply believe in meaning without God because you WANT to believe you live in such a world, then stop asking questions. If you ask too many, they inevitably lead you where you don't want to go.

The Hand of Hope

In light of pictures like this, I don't see how there can be any doubt as to whether or not abortion is killing.

Perhaps this smacks you in the face because you had an abortion. I'm not throwing stones. There is forgiveness, but it is a forgiveness that only God can give. I certainly don't condemn the remorseful. How could I when I also have sin that begs the same forgiveness?

Now to those who distract us from the truth by arguing choice, murder is a choice, but do you believe society should permit it? Discrimination and prejudice are choices, do you believe society should permit them?

What screams louder?

C.S. Lewis changed the way that I think. To sum it up, he presents our emotions and longings as being "signposts" which point to truth. Prior to Lewis' interpretation, my instinct was to look at emotions only as an outworking to our world.

Lewis once said that the existence of the stomach was evidence that there also existed something in which it could be filled with. What does this truth tell you about the hole in your heart?

Lewis probably acquired this worldview by G.K. Chesterton. In his book Orthodoxy, he wrote:

The test of all happiness is gratitude; and
I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom. Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their
stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings
the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can
I thank no one for the birthday present of birth? Orthdoxy pg 30.

It seems that we have this innate longing to thank, or dare I even say worship, someone outside of ourselves. If this longing goes unfulfilled, we are destined to find life meaningless. This sentiment was acknowledged by OsCar Wilde.

Chesterton writes about this:

Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for
sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being
Oscar Wilde. Orthodoxy pg 32

Like anyone of faith, my doubts sometimes scream at me. But what screams louder is this longing to live for someone bigger than myself.

Why would nature care about our comfort?

When my wife's grandfather was in Hospice, the Hospice workers told us that right before someone dies, there is a chemical that increases in the body which lessens the pain.

This process begs the question, "Why would this process have evolved, given that evolution is driven by SURVIVAL of the FITTEST"?

An unexamined faith is not worth believing

If a scientist submitted a new theory, published in a scientific journal, it would certainly be subject to testing and analysis.

Yet, I'm astounded at how many skeptics won't perform the same testing process on religious claims. It is because they misunderstand faith. If faith is believing in something that has absolutely no evidence, then no testing is necessary. This is their mindset. But such a mindset not only misunderstands faith, it is a great excuse for the skeptic and non-religious to bury their heads in the sand.

"An unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

A belief can be based upon faith but have evidence that supports it. For instance, the probability of my dying in a plane crash is very slim, thus I fly. However, because I can never ultimately know for sure if I'm not on an airplane that will crash, my belief is based upon faith. Even though it is a reasoned belief, reason doesn't obsolve it from being faith.

It is very convenient for the skeptic to divorce faith from reasoning. To do so, gives them a reason to not ask the ultimate question of religion's claims:

"Is it true?"

Before simply dismissing faith as man-made, I ask the skeptic to show me that he/she has examined religion's claims and has a good reason to reject them.

Simply claiming religion is man-made, without demonstrating evidence of such an examination, demonstrates prejudice, not a bold attempt to ask questions no matter where they might lead...