Point of View October 31, 2024 – Hour 1 : A Biblical View on Imagination

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson.

[00:00:20] You know one of the things we need to be able to think about is how to relate to the arts and culture and creativity and imagination.

[00:00:28] So we're going to spend an hour today talking about this and I might just mention that if you have already been receiving the various booklets that we send out,

[00:00:36] you have probably seen this one that I'm holding up right now which is entitled A Biblical View on Imagination written by Steve Miller.

[00:00:45] We will be talking not only about that which is about 2200 words but we have the longer version of that.

[00:00:53] So in some respects that like the CliffsNotes version and we have if you go to our website pointofview.net you can download the expanded edition which is 8000 words.

[00:01:04] So there is a lot of great material there that we'll be discussing but again if you have already read the booklet and were looking for more,

[00:01:13] I wanted you to know that that's free and on our website.

[00:01:16] The author is an individual that we talk about quite often because it is Steve Miller who is the producer of course of Point of View.

[00:01:23] He's also an actor, has a bachelor's degree in drama as well as a master's degree in media and communication from Dallas Theological Seminary.

[00:01:30] More than that he's also done graduate work at the University of Texas at Dallas and as an individual as we've talked about before that has taught drama,

[00:01:38] theology, rhetoric at the Covenant School.

[00:01:41] We have some of the plays that he's been in, some of the other TV programs he's done and we are just privileged to have him in studio today to talk about this issue of creativity and imagination.

[00:01:52] So, first of all, this was a work of art, was it not? Because, and really a work of concern and issue because you really in this long paper that we're making available,

[00:02:03] raise a lot of very important questions that we as Christians need to think about.

[00:02:06] I hope so. Yeah, I do. And you know, when you came to me some time ago and asked me about writing the booklet, I thought I would love to do this.

[00:02:16] I didn't realize how long it would take to do something like this.

[00:02:19] So we we called it down to, you know, a couple thousand words.

[00:02:22] But Jeff, you want to read the whole thing, you can go on the website and do it.

[00:02:26] I think that I am very convinced that the imagination is critical to the way we operate.

[00:02:33] As an actor, that might that might not be a big surprise.

[00:02:38] Obviously, I engage my imagination, creativity all the time.

[00:02:41] But I argue here in the paper that it is really broader than that, that it is part and parcel of the way our minds work.

[00:02:49] It's it's how we view the world.

[00:02:52] And so in that case, it's it's important because it helps us recognize the way God made us and the way God deals with us, helps us understand him better.

[00:03:02] It helps us understand ideas of mystery and all better when we engage our imagination.

[00:03:09] As we go through this, I think individuals that maybe had never really thought about this realize we're having to use our imagination when we read scripture, because some of scripture is historical and literal.

[00:03:20] Some of it is poetic and actually not to be read in a literal sense.

[00:03:25] We always run into people saying, well, I read the Bible literally.

[00:03:28] Well, yeah, but you don't if you're understanding some of the nature of that as well.

[00:03:34] But since we're talking about imagination, I hate to start with a dictionary definition, but we might just get into what we're talking about.

[00:03:40] Yeah, let's do that.

[00:03:40] I mean, that's the first thing I thought.

[00:03:42] I thought that it seems a little bit silly, you know, but let's look at what are those?

[00:03:45] What does the dictionary say about it?

[00:03:47] And Merriam-Webster's dictionary, OK, it says that imagination is an act or process of forming a conscious idea or mental image of something never before wholly perceived in reality.

[00:03:59] OK, a great place to start, because what it helps us understand is that imagination is more than just a child folding a piece of paper and calling it an airplane.

[00:04:07] Yes.

[00:04:08] Or us, you know, having children having imaginary friends or us standing in front of a painting or going to a concert or a film or a play and engaging our imaginations.

[00:04:18] It's the way our mind makes things basically how it makes.

[00:04:25] I believe Janine Langan said that it's the way that imagination makes images out of the chaotic influx of our sense perceptions, which is just it.

[00:04:35] If we start to think about that, how do we process all the things that we that that are coming into our minds by way of our senses?

[00:04:43] We do it imaginatively.

[00:04:44] One of the reasons I want to do this is because we really do believe that Christians need to be in the arts.

[00:04:49] And oftentimes if you're in the artistic realm, you say, does the church have anything to say about this?

[00:04:55] Does the Bible have anything to say about this?

[00:04:57] Anybody that has received your little booklet that has a couple of pages worth of suggested recommended resources and end notes or recognize that certainly that is the case.

[00:05:07] But let's get to the other part of imagination, because I love what you say at one point.

[00:05:12] It's not just an add on.

[00:05:14] It's not like a software extension.

[00:05:17] Imagination is much more important than that, isn't it?

[00:05:19] It really is.

[00:05:21] Again, I would say it's part and parcel of the way we understand things.

[00:05:26] If we look at the scripture, but if we say, you know, where does the scripture tell us about imagination?

[00:05:33] As you know, because you've written scores of these booklets on a biblical view of X, Y, Z.

[00:05:39] Do we we don't view the Bible as a sort of encyclopedic resource?

[00:05:44] It's a good place to start.

[00:05:45] Let's find the passages.

[00:05:47] Let's look through the concordance and find the things that talk about it.

[00:05:49] But that's really just just the beginning.

[00:05:52] I want to look at how the Bible, how the writers employ imagination, how it is discussed by the in the Hebrew scriptures and by Jesus.

[00:06:03] And we can just go ahead and start taking off and finding out where it is in scripture if you want to do that now.

[00:06:07] Might as well, because you have a whole section here on the biblical basis for imagination.

[00:06:11] Again, some of that is in the small booklet we've already mailed out.

[00:06:14] But I think before we get to that, we have to recognize that sometimes even we read different genres of literature.

[00:06:21] The example you use is Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken doesn't literally mean that he was standing in a literal woods looking down two roads.

[00:06:30] But those kind of illustrations that we see in the world are certainly things that are actually showing up in the Hebrew scriptures, aren't they?

[00:06:39] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:40] And on the other side of that, as we were talking before the show, if you read Winston Churchill's account of World War II, you don't say, well, that must be a that's just a nice metaphor about about human struggle.

[00:06:51] No, it really took place. It wasn't poetry. The Psalms are poetry. And as you mentioned, the literary genres are multiple.

[00:06:59] We have epistolary narrative, poetic wisdom literature and so forth.

[00:07:03] And we have to understand how to read each genre in order to understand it correctly.

[00:07:08] When when David, for instance, says that in Psalm seven, the wicked have dug a pit and and fall into it.

[00:07:16] We may be able to imagine that that physical image of a pit. We may have actually seen one.

[00:07:23] But what do do we then say, oh, he must have been referring to it to a little bit. No, he wasn't.

[00:07:28] And we draw the conclusion that he is referring to something broader, that we are sometimes victims of our own actions, so to speak.

[00:07:37] Yes. Well, and again, when he talks about a pit or another example, you use his Psalm 23.

[00:07:42] The Lord is my shepherd. Well, it doesn't mean the Lord is a shepherd and that he really has sheep, but he is like a shepherd.

[00:07:50] And we can talk about that as well. But let me come back after the break and get into this whole idea of how much freedom we have in the scriptures,

[00:07:59] because you use an example. And I love this one of pomegranates and about the tabernacle and the temple.

[00:08:06] And it does seem to me that those illustrations help us understand that we have more freedom in terms of using our imagination.

[00:08:14] And that's a good thing, because we have certainly seen that in artistic renderings in music and certainly in plays and a number of others.

[00:08:22] So we're working our way through this particular booklet, which we have mailed to those of you that are donors, a biblical view on imagination.

[00:08:31] And that is very readable. And it is, of course, shorter than the one that we are making available today, an expanded edition.

[00:08:38] And all of those are free. And if you find yourself saying you'd like other copies, we'll talk about how we can get those to you as well.

[00:08:45] An important topic will continue with Steve Miller right after this.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] Erwin Lutzer calls for Christians to take a bold stand for Christ in a collapsing culture in his new book, No Reason to Hide.

[00:09:09] He says we should not be complicit with a culture, nor should we be complacent in the culture.

[00:09:14] Instead, we should be courageous.

[00:09:16] He identifies all sorts of threats coming at Christians from the culture.

[00:09:20] Most of them are coming from outside the church, though some have made their way inside the church.

[00:09:25] But one chapter was surprising to me.

[00:09:27] He focused our attention on the issue of self-worship.

[00:09:30] Erwin Lutzer uses an illustration he heard from John Stone Street, president of the Colson Center, that illustrated the modern self-movement.

[00:09:38] Suppose you are lost and have a compass that points to true north.

[00:09:41] That means you can figure the direction in which you're walking.

[00:09:44] But let's now suppose you have a magnet in your backpack that causes the compass to always point to you.

[00:09:50] Without a point of reference, you have no idea which direction you're headed.

[00:09:54] This is an apt metaphor for self-worship today.

[00:09:58] He also quotes Carl Truman and his book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution.

[00:10:07] I did an interview with him when the book came out and have been encouraged to see how many Christians are reading his book.

[00:10:13] He explains how Sigmund Freud's drive for sexuality was combined with Karl Marx's quest for political power.

[00:10:19] Sex is now politics.

[00:10:21] Our modern society now associates sexual freedom with political freedom.

[00:10:25] Therefore, the great sin in our culture is repression of our sexual desires.

[00:10:29] That is why Christianity, the church, and the Bible are seen as enemies that must be overthrown.

[00:10:35] That is why we Christians find ourselves in a society of self-worship promoting sexual freedom.

[00:10:40] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View.

[00:10:46] For a free booklet on a biblical view on big data, go to viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:53] That's viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:58] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:03] What is a biblical view of creativity and imagination?

[00:11:06] That's what we're talking about today.

[00:11:08] In studio with us is Steve Miller, and I might just mention that his booklet that we have sent out,

[00:11:12] A Biblical View on Imagination, is certainly one that you may already have in your possession.

[00:11:17] But we also are making available today, it's free of charge, an expanded edition.

[00:11:21] The booklet that you may already have or have read or plan to read is about 2,200 words.

[00:11:27] This expanded edition, 8,000 words.

[00:11:30] And, Steve, we were talking about some examples in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament.

[00:11:34] We talked about Psalms.

[00:11:36] Let's go back to Exodus for just a minute because that, to me, was one of the most interesting

[00:11:40] things that we're talking about, because here we have God setting forth what the, first

[00:11:46] the tabernacle, eventually the temple we'll get to in just a minute, but what the tabernacle

[00:11:49] will look like and how the priests will be actually put together and the robe that they

[00:11:56] will wear.

[00:11:57] But in the midst of this, you show in some respects that there's a lot more flexibility

[00:12:02] for imagination even in the book of Exodus.

[00:12:05] Absolutely.

[00:12:07] And Exodus, remember, is the book that gave us the Ten Commandments.

[00:12:12] Some very specific, no, there's not a lot of leeway here, okay?

[00:12:16] But when the temple was built, when the tabernacle was built in, I think it was Exodus 25 through

[00:12:24] 31, it's a huge extended passage, God gave Moses, yeah, there was a lot of creativity.

[00:12:30] There were some very specific things he told them to do.

[00:12:33] But you mentioned the priest and the robe and the pomegranates.

[00:12:36] Talk about that.

[00:12:37] There were pomegranates sewn into the hymns of, I'm not sure what they, material they used

[00:12:44] to make the pomegranates, but they were sewn onto the hymns of the robe.

[00:12:47] That was a thing of beauty.

[00:12:49] There was not a particular reason for it.

[00:12:52] And the interesting thing, one of the interesting things is, and Francis Schaeffer brings this

[00:12:55] up in his Art in the Bible, one of the colors that God said to use for these pomegranates,

[00:13:00] blue.

[00:13:01] Well, that doesn't exist.

[00:13:03] There's no such thing as a blue pomegranate.

[00:13:05] So what was the purpose?

[00:13:06] It was supposed to be beautiful.

[00:13:07] It was supposed to be beautiful.

[00:13:08] It wasn't representational art per se.

[00:13:11] And then moving on, you mentioned the tabernacle, or rather the temple that Solomon built in

[00:13:19] 2 Chronicles.

[00:13:20] Tons of cypress wood, gold, stone, metal.

[00:13:26] There was this molten, what do you call it, a molten sea.

[00:13:28] It was this cast metal tub, as it were, held about 10,000 gallons of water, which is about

[00:13:36] 40 tons.

[00:13:37] And it was, it was beautifully carved.

[00:13:40] What was the reason for it?

[00:13:41] We don't really know.

[00:13:42] It was probably some practical reason for it, but it was a thing of beauty.

[00:13:46] That was, that was enough right there.

[00:13:49] And again, there are just all sorts of examples in 2 Chronicles, for example, of various kinds

[00:13:55] of intricacies in the pillars and all sorts of things, the mass relief and everything that

[00:14:01] was there simply for beauty.

[00:14:03] It had no functional purpose whatsoever.

[00:14:06] And so you see that.

[00:14:08] Of course, we've talked about the Psalms and I'll just keep it moving down the road because

[00:14:11] there's so much to cover.

[00:14:13] And that is by the time we get to the New Testament, we'll again, you have Jesus telling stories

[00:14:19] and all these parables.

[00:14:21] Maybe one of the parables actually took place, but most of those are completely imagination.

[00:14:27] They're creativity.

[00:14:29] They're very creative ways of trying to communicate.

[00:14:32] And it can be really short, like the mustard seed, but they can be very long, like the prodigal

[00:14:37] son.

[00:14:38] Right, right.

[00:14:38] Jesus did not go about teaching and preaching the way that we do today.

[00:14:44] I'm not suggesting we go to that, that, that model.

[00:14:49] But here's what Jesus would do.

[00:14:50] He would tell a story.

[00:14:51] He would tell these parables.

[00:14:52] As you mentioned, he would give an object lesson.

[00:14:55] He would ask these open ended questions that just drove people kind of crazy.

[00:15:00] If we were to do that, I was thinking the other day of how funny it would be as if a preacher

[00:15:04] got up and decided, here's what I'm going to do.

[00:15:06] And he gets up and he tells a couple of stories.

[00:15:09] Then he takes a coin and he makes some comment about God and government.

[00:15:13] And then he asked the question, but doesn't give an answer and says, you guys have ears.

[00:15:17] Go figure it out.

[00:15:17] And he sits down.

[00:15:19] That would be the way that Jesus might go about a sermon.

[00:15:24] And we, we kind of don't know what to do with that.

[00:15:27] But he would say things like in John 10, the crowd really pushed him to say, they said,

[00:15:33] if you're the Christ, tell us.

[00:15:34] Right.

[00:15:35] And what did he say?

[00:15:36] He said, I told you and you didn't believe me.

[00:15:40] And then later on in Matt or earlier in the gospels in Matthew nine, he says, go figure

[00:15:46] out what this means.

[00:15:47] Yes.

[00:15:48] I demand.

[00:15:51] Mercy, not sacrifice.

[00:15:53] He says, take what you know, because you're well trained in this in Torah and Psalms,

[00:15:59] prophets, you know, the scriptures, take what, you know, take what you see me do.

[00:16:04] Take what you hear me say.

[00:16:06] Noodle on it and use your imagination.

[00:16:10] Now that that that's again, it's not that there were not hard, fast things that were true.

[00:16:15] It's that he said, I want you using what we now call Socratic reasoning.

[00:16:19] Right.

[00:16:20] Ask questions, figure it out for yourself.

[00:16:22] I'm not.

[00:16:23] This is not a true, false, fill in the blank quiz.

[00:16:28] I'm giving you here.

[00:16:28] Yes.

[00:16:29] Just fascinating.

[00:16:30] And again, we could camp out on that.

[00:16:32] But I do want to maybe take some time to get to another part of your paper, which I thought

[00:16:36] was really interesting.

[00:16:37] And that is the need for imagination, because we as we'll get into in just a few minutes or

[00:16:43] maybe after the break on the next one, we live in a world which has been dominated by

[00:16:47] the modernistic, humanistic, atheistic kind of worldview where everything's logical and

[00:16:52] linear.

[00:16:52] And I think we've pushed a lot of that away.

[00:16:56] And that's why I think people love people like C.S. Lewis and others, because they recognize

[00:17:01] that we not only have a logical aspect to the scriptures and to our understanding of God's

[00:17:08] word, but also an emotional and aesthetic understanding as well.

[00:17:12] Yes.

[00:17:12] And C.S. Lewis himself struggled with that.

[00:17:15] When he was an atheist, there was this struggle, he said, between the two hemispheres of his

[00:17:20] brain, the rational and the creative.

[00:17:22] And today we think of Lewis and most of us would know, if nothing else, his wonderful creative

[00:17:26] works of fiction, Lion, Witch and Waterrobe and so forth.

[00:17:29] And Chronicles of Narnia.

[00:17:31] So he but he didn't know what to do with that.

[00:17:34] And it was when he discovered the truth of the gospel through Jesus Christ that he realized

[00:17:39] that those two could be put together.

[00:17:41] And he one of the things that brought in there was this understanding, was this concept

[00:17:46] he mentions called the far off country, this idea of of a world that exists out there that

[00:17:52] we have yet to experience.

[00:17:53] And he would say and I'm probably going to mess the quote up.

[00:17:56] But basically, if we realize that we're always longing for something that that is not in this

[00:18:01] world, maybe the truth of it is we were made for another world.

[00:18:03] Well said.

[00:18:04] He he said, if you were to be able to talking about the idea of nostalgia and romanticism,

[00:18:10] if you were to be able to go back and experience if you have an idea of something in your mind.

[00:18:15] Oh, this was a great when I was 10 years old.

[00:18:17] I had this wonderful experience.

[00:18:18] If you could go back and re experience it, would it carry with it all that you now remember?

[00:18:24] Would it be like you remember?

[00:18:25] No, it wouldn't.

[00:18:26] It wouldn't.

[00:18:27] There's this wonderful scene toward the end of our town by Thornton Wilder, where a character

[00:18:36] is given the ability to come back after having died and to experience the things and see if

[00:18:43] they were like she remembered.

[00:18:44] And they weren't.

[00:18:45] And they weren't.

[00:18:46] And Lewis would say it's because we long for that which we we don't have, but we know

[00:18:52] is out there somewhere.

[00:18:53] And that's what brought into Christ.

[00:18:54] And again, that's really one of the most powerful arguments sometimes in evangelism,

[00:18:58] because you can, as I've pointed out before, meet the physical needs of your dog, your cat

[00:19:04] or other animals.

[00:19:05] And they seem relatively content.

[00:19:07] You can meet the physical needs of human beings and they roam this planet looking for

[00:19:12] more.

[00:19:12] And you talk about the fact that in Ecclesiastes three verse 11, it says that God has set eternity

[00:19:18] in our hearts.

[00:19:19] And that's the fact that we're still longing for that far off country is due in part to

[00:19:24] the fact that we're created in God's image.

[00:19:26] And we are different than the rest of creation.

[00:19:28] Absolutely.

[00:19:29] The uniqueness of of humanity over against those who say that we're just, you know, we're just

[00:19:35] another being, you know, in this world.

[00:19:37] One of the things that that I find fascinating is the way that that over and over again, secular

[00:19:46] and Christians, secularists and Christians both seek to, as Shakespeare would say, body

[00:19:53] forth these things.

[00:19:54] There you go.

[00:19:54] In the Midsummer Night's Dream, Theseus talks about he says, as imagination bodies forth the

[00:20:02] forms of things unknown, we give them a local habitation and a name.

[00:20:09] We naturally want to take what we imperfectly and partially understand in our minds and show

[00:20:18] them to people and let them hear them and let them see them.

[00:20:21] I love that because you do make that transition to Shakespeare.

[00:20:25] And of course, I'm talking to a person who's been a Shakespearean actor.

[00:20:27] So obviously he knows that.

[00:20:29] And that's an illustration.

[00:20:30] But you use some other examples, too.

[00:20:32] For example, William Blake asking this about a tiger of all things.

[00:20:35] What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?

[00:20:39] Well, if you expand that, we do look around and recognize we're created in God's image.

[00:20:44] And everything that we see, the creation, as it says in Romans one, really speaks to the creator as well.

[00:20:49] Yes, yes, absolutely.

[00:20:51] And Malcolm Guy, let me just say before we go to the break that Malcolm Guy has a great book called Lifting the Veil.

[00:20:56] And a lot of what I got about Theseus' statement, Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, bodying forth,

[00:21:03] he expands on wonderfully and beautifully.

[00:21:05] It's all part of this biblical view on imagination.

[00:21:07] Of course, we have been making available to those of you by mail the booklet, which is a biblical view on imagination.

[00:21:14] But I thought you might like to read the expanded version.

[00:21:17] So we have made it easy for you to go to pointofview.net, even during the break.

[00:21:22] Click on that button that says download your free copy.

[00:21:26] Make sure you have enough printing of material because you will really enjoy it.

[00:21:30] We'll be right back.

[00:21:31] Who can you trust?

[00:21:34] Years ago, many of us could probably have provided a fairly long list.

[00:21:39] But today, well, today it seems we almost can't trust anyone.

[00:21:44] Educators don't even know what a woman is anymore.

[00:21:48] Many so-called public servants have shown all they care about is themselves.

[00:21:52] The FBI has been accused of bias, law-breaking, betrayal, and journalism.

[00:21:58] It's largely corrupt with no Clark Kent standing up for truth, justice, and the American way.

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[00:23:10] And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:14] Continue your conversation today with Steve Miller in studio as we talk about a biblical view on imagination.

[00:23:20] We do have an extended version there as well.

[00:23:23] And if you would like to get extra copies of the booklet, maybe you'd like to hand those out to a group.

[00:23:28] Or a little bit later, we're going to talk about what you could do to use this.

[00:23:32] Perhaps you have children or grandchildren that are actually in a Christian school or a classical Christian school that would desperately need to hear some of this.

[00:23:41] Or if you are in the arts and say, the church isn't speaking to this issue of the arts, and I would certainly welcome this.

[00:23:49] Perhaps you would even like to schedule Steve to come and speak to your group.

[00:23:52] So all of that is an application that we're going to give in just a minute.

[00:23:56] But Steve, one of the sections of your particular extended version, but it's also, of course, in the booklet, is the roots of our current view of imagination.

[00:24:06] And it turns out that there is a classical model and then there's the modernist model.

[00:24:12] And in some respects, we still are living in this kind of logical, linear, modernist, atheistic view.

[00:24:19] And as a result, we don't know where the issue of imagination really fits.

[00:24:24] Yeah, that's exactly right.

[00:24:25] The classical model, and as you mentioned earlier, I used to teach at a classical school.

[00:24:30] My wife teaches there now.

[00:24:31] We talk about the ideas of truth, goodness, and beauty.

[00:24:34] These are ideas that came out of that model, which found its roots in Aristotle and Plato and even informed by the biblical record.

[00:24:41] There was also what's known as the modernist view, and I'm going to shorten this and hopefully do a decent job.

[00:24:47] But I mean basically informed by people like Rousseau and Voltaire, and it went on into the Enlightenment period.

[00:24:55] They carried it over to basically to say nothing is really worth believing unless it can be sensorily perceived.

[00:25:03] You know, if you can deal with it through your sense perceptions, then it's good.

[00:25:09] Otherwise, not so much.

[00:25:10] Out of this, what do we get?

[00:25:11] We get a demand for ironclad proof.

[00:25:13] Mm-hmm.

[00:25:14] We have this aversion to mystery.

[00:25:18] And that doesn't work well in Christianity.

[00:25:22] God is still very much a mystery.

[00:25:25] And there are blacks and whites in this world.

[00:25:29] There absolutely are.

[00:25:30] But if, for instance, your faith stands or falls on an exact understanding of how the sovereignty of God relates to man's choice or exactly how the bread and the wine become the body and the blood of Christ in the Eucharist, you're just going to be disappointed.

[00:25:53] And so what I try to make known here in this section is this idea that the church today is many, some faith traditions less than others, is missing out and are really becoming more children of the Enlightenment than the classical model.

[00:26:12] Yeah.

[00:26:13] Well, and when you talk about the arts, if you are gifted in music, well, the church knows where to put you in the choir and the orchestra.

[00:26:20] Right, right.

[00:26:20] But if you're gifted in dance, and we really don't know what to do with you there, or if you're gifted in painting or whatever, sculpture.

[00:26:29] I mean, and again, we've had people on this program, and I just watched him again on another television program, painting, and talking about it used to be that you would go to the church to see the best art.

[00:26:41] Today, sometimes people that are artists say, I'm not sure where I fit inside the church.

[00:26:46] And that comes back to this idea of modernism, doesn't it?

[00:26:48] It does.

[00:26:49] And I think what's happened largely is that the modernist mindset, which is very pragmatic, it takes away this idea of the objective truth, goodness, and beauty, and says, well, what do you feel about it?

[00:27:03] What do you think about it?

[00:27:04] And many people in the church would shudder at the thought that they're modernists in that sense, but we are, because we're pragmatic.

[00:27:10] And two things I think have happened.

[00:27:12] One is we have tended toward pragmatism, and two, we have overemphasized the secular-sacred split.

[00:27:21] Pragmatism.

[00:27:22] Okay, what good does it do?

[00:27:23] Now, most of us wouldn't stand at sunrise in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico and say, oh, that's so beautiful.

[00:27:31] Now, what does it do?

[00:27:32] What does it do?

[00:27:34] That's missing the point, right?

[00:27:35] It is beautiful, and that should be enough, and yet we do the same thing.

[00:27:39] We do that very thing when we look at art sometimes.

[00:27:42] We will say, well, this is a beautiful painting, but let's say Frederick Church, Icebergs.

[00:27:48] You can go to the Dallas Museum of Art and see it.

[00:27:50] It's beautiful, but it's just a painting, right?

[00:27:53] Well, that's beautiful, but look at this one about Jesus.

[00:27:55] Well, that's better.

[00:27:56] That's better because it's going to bring people to Jesus.

[00:27:58] No, that is missing the point of the art, and I'm probably overemphasizing what we do, but I think that's a real tendency that we have is to over-pragmatize the art.

[00:28:13] And then we tell people in the church, well, and this gets into the sacred-secular split.

[00:28:18] Because, again, everything that's spiritual in the upper story is good.

[00:28:22] Everything in the lower story is evil, and that was, of course, the problem with the Greeks,

[00:28:27] and that was the problem of Gnosticism, and we need to reject that for sure.

[00:28:31] Oh, we do. We do.

[00:28:33] And when we have artists come into the church, what do we do with them?

[00:28:38] I think sometimes the tendency is to say, well, now you need to sing for Jesus.

[00:28:44] Now you need to draw pictures of the disciples.

[00:28:47] Something along those lines, being a bit silly about it.

[00:28:50] But it's true that sometimes what we do is we have someone who, whether they're a believer or not,

[00:28:54] they start out, let's say they're a musician, and they're a pianist, and they play beautiful jazz music or classical music,

[00:29:01] and they get saved or somehow recognize that maybe what they ought to do is be singing for Jesus.

[00:29:08] But there is nowhere in the Scripture where you get the command that the art that you do,

[00:29:16] that the creative thing that you do needs to have the pragmatic effect of bringing people to Jesus.

[00:29:23] It's just not in there.

[00:29:25] I might just mention, too, that I've said that this is a generation that knows not Schaeffer.

[00:29:30] Francis Schaeffer, of course, wrote a book called, and it's a relatively small book.

[00:29:33] You and I both read it, Art and the Bible.

[00:29:35] But in their particular article that you have here, you mention the fact that Francis Schaeffer said,

[00:29:41] because we believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, there shouldn't be this artificial division between or hierarchy between,

[00:29:48] you know, Christian and non-Christian, between sacred and secular,

[00:29:52] because there are some real opportunities to paint, to draw, to produce whatever it might be,

[00:30:01] things that don't necessarily always have an evangelistic thrust but might indeed.

[00:30:06] And it is amazing over the years, Steve, as I've talked to individuals who become Christians,

[00:30:11] sometimes it was the things that weren't intended to be evangelistic at all,

[00:30:14] just speaking truth to human sin or depravity or to the need for the transcendent,

[00:30:20] that were the spark that caused them to begin to consider the gospel.

[00:30:24] Absolutely.

[00:30:25] I'll give you an example.

[00:30:26] I hope this is a good example.

[00:30:27] I was on my motorcycle the other day coming home from Fort Worth.

[00:30:31] I was riding eastbound.

[00:30:33] It was about 730 or so.

[00:30:35] And the gorgeous moonrise on the horizon, you know, where the moon is about,

[00:30:41] looks about three times the size as it normally is.

[00:30:44] And I just wanted to raise my hands and praise the Lord.

[00:30:47] That's not a good thing when you're on a motorcycle.

[00:30:48] No, I wouldn't recommend it.

[00:30:50] Did that draw me to God?

[00:30:51] It did.

[00:30:52] Was it evangelistic?

[00:30:53] Did God say, I'm going to, was that some sort of evangelistic way of teaching about Jesus?

[00:30:58] Not necessarily.

[00:30:59] But, you know, you mentioned the way that we tell people they ought to go into a particular kind of art.

[00:31:12] And I find that when it comes to music, we're especially prone to do that.

[00:31:15] I mentioned that earlier.

[00:31:17] Sometimes what we do is we have this artificial split, you know,

[00:31:20] rhythms and melodies and tempos are innately pagan or Christian.

[00:31:25] And I think most of us realize that's kind of false.

[00:31:27] But are you using your gift the best way you can and honoring God in doing that?

[00:31:34] That's the question to ask.

[00:31:36] Well, again, we're going to get into this whole question about moving forward

[00:31:39] and what practical advice might be to artists and the rest.

[00:31:42] But you also have an interesting quote here in which one individual said, you know,

[00:31:47] when I talk about Christian art, I don't mean church art.

[00:31:49] I just mean Christian in the sense.

[00:31:51] C.S. Lewis had a quote years ago.

[00:31:52] He says, you know, we don't need more books about Christianity.

[00:31:55] What we need are the best books written on any particular subject with their Christianity latent

[00:32:00] or the Christian worldview in them.

[00:32:02] And so if you can see that in terms of the fact that sometimes whole books and authors we've had on this program

[00:32:09] are relating to a particular issue.

[00:32:12] And it could be atheism or artificial intelligence.

[00:32:16] It could be cultural issues.

[00:32:18] It could be human sexuality.

[00:32:20] But we are giving it a Christian worldview.

[00:32:23] It isn't necessarily looking like a Christian book.

[00:32:26] It could be read by Christians or non-Christians, but it has a set of Christian assumptions.

[00:32:30] And that's the same thing with Christian art, isn't it?

[00:32:34] I think so.

[00:32:34] I think what we're doing is we're demanding of art something that it was never intended to supply.

[00:32:40] We're saying this art needs to do X, Y, Z.

[00:32:45] When in reality, what it needs to do is to reflect the glory of God as he has made himself known to us.

[00:32:55] And in so doing, whether it is an Arthur Miller play or a Schubert symphony or whatever,

[00:33:00] it's going to tell truth, it's going to be beautiful, and it's going to talk about goodness.

[00:33:05] And sometimes that goodness and that beauty is seen in contrast by viewing its opposite.

[00:33:10] We're going to take a break.

[00:33:11] When we come back, we're going to sort of answer the so what question.

[00:33:14] You know, what is practical advice we would give to those of you that have artistic ability?

[00:33:18] But more importantly, as an individual that's taught at a classical Christian school,

[00:33:23] if we really wanted to teach about art and music and culture and these very important issues in imagination and creativity,

[00:33:31] how can we and should we be doing that if we want to raise up the next generation of Christian artists?

[00:33:37] We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:33:42] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] Spending this first hour really talking about a biblical view on imagination,

[00:34:05] and certainly this is an important topic.

[00:34:08] But Steve Miller, who is, of course, the author of not only the booklet,

[00:34:11] but even the expanded version, is in studio with me for a few more minutes.

[00:34:15] And, Steve, I thought we'd just come to you real quickly and talk about what this means to the artist

[00:34:20] and then to the Christian school, because I hope people might want to order other copies of this booklet

[00:34:25] or even download that and use that as they may.

[00:34:29] Maybe have you come and speak,

[00:34:30] because we need to develop a Christian view of every area of life,

[00:34:34] and the art and culture, creativity and imagination are very important.

[00:34:39] They are, and I don't want to leave this on a theoretical note.

[00:34:42] So let us definitely talk about the practical version.

[00:34:47] Talk about what do you do if you feel like I have certain creative gifts,

[00:34:52] I love to use my imagination,

[00:34:53] I don't really know what to do with it.

[00:34:55] And I encourage you to go out, by all means, go find the institutions,

[00:35:02] the organizations in your community that you can,

[00:35:07] where you can connect with people who do what you do.

[00:35:11] If, for instance, you're an actor and that you get online,

[00:35:15] find out where the theaters are.

[00:35:17] If you're not sure where to start, go to your local college, community college,

[00:35:20] go to the arts department, ask someone there.

[00:35:23] Say, look, I do this.

[00:35:25] I do, I paint, I sing, I act, I do whatever.

[00:35:28] I write.

[00:35:30] Where can I plug in?

[00:35:31] Where are there organizations?

[00:35:33] Where are there things around here that I can get involved in?

[00:35:36] And by all means, train.

[00:35:39] By all means, work at it.

[00:35:42] There's another thing.

[00:35:44] Just because you're creative, just because you're an artist,

[00:35:47] doesn't mean that you're born with this ability that needs no work at all to be,

[00:35:54] you know, in order to produce something, you've got to be, you've got to work at it.

[00:35:59] I have a friend who is, she's a Christian theater director,

[00:36:05] and I have worked with her before.

[00:36:07] And basically, the thought in her mind is, if you love Jesus, it's okay.

[00:36:14] Come on, get on stage.

[00:36:16] And I say, nah, not so much.

[00:36:18] I may love the idea of playing the violin,

[00:36:22] but I'm going to sound nothing quite so much like a trained seal

[00:36:26] if you put me with a violin.

[00:36:29] It just doesn't make sense.

[00:36:31] We need to train and do over and over and over.

[00:36:35] What do we do?

[00:36:36] Repeat.

[00:36:37] If you're a writer and you don't know where to start with your dialogue,

[00:36:40] think of an imaginary dialogue.

[00:36:42] Imagine what it would be like if a daughter and a mother had an argument about curfew.

[00:36:49] Boom.

[00:36:49] Go.

[00:36:50] Write a dialogue.

[00:36:52] I don't know what I'm going to make a play out of this.

[00:36:54] I don't know.

[00:36:54] It doesn't matter.

[00:36:55] Write.

[00:36:56] Do something.

[00:36:57] So the one thing, the first thing I would say is,

[00:37:01] do what you know to do with your gift.

[00:37:05] Explore avenues of training and connection within your community.

[00:37:10] Yes.

[00:37:11] One of the concerns I have,

[00:37:12] and this has happened in both the public schools because of funding,

[00:37:15] but also in the Christian schools because of this modernist kind of pragmatic idea,

[00:37:20] is if we have to cut one department,

[00:37:24] guess which one gets the ax the first?

[00:37:26] It seems always to be the art department.

[00:37:28] It often is.

[00:37:29] Or the music department or something like that.

[00:37:31] That's right.

[00:37:31] I think Albert Einstein said,

[00:37:33] knowledge is not as important as imagination.

[00:37:38] Knowledge is limited,

[00:37:39] and imagination circles the world.

[00:37:41] I know that in Texas,

[00:37:44] football is king, right?

[00:37:45] So if you're going to take from the football or the athletic department in Texas

[00:37:51] and give it to the arts,

[00:37:52] you might have a fight on your hands.

[00:37:54] But it's true.

[00:37:55] The STEM is important.

[00:37:57] These things are critical.

[00:37:59] The technology,

[00:38:00] the hard sciences.

[00:38:01] But yes,

[00:38:02] sometimes what happens is the arts tend to get short shrift.

[00:38:06] And I think it's because we don't understand how they do influence people.

[00:38:14] We have engineers,

[00:38:17] mathematicians,

[00:38:18] accountants,

[00:38:19] architects who are tremendously creative.

[00:38:23] And I think that,

[00:38:24] for instance,

[00:38:25] if you look at the way mathematics and music

[00:38:26] or mathematics and art connect,

[00:38:30] there's a beautiful interrelation of those two things.

[00:38:34] And I thought of this,

[00:38:35] this is somewhat related.

[00:38:36] A minute ago,

[00:38:36] I mentioned Christians in the arts.

[00:38:39] Doesn't mean necessarily Christian art.

[00:38:40] Let me say this.

[00:38:41] If you feel like you need to be singing hymns,

[00:38:46] if you feel like what you need to do is sing songs about Jesus,

[00:38:48] you need to write plays that are based on scripture,

[00:38:51] by all means,

[00:38:52] do that.

[00:38:52] Do not hear me saying that's not what you should do.

[00:38:55] Not at all.

[00:38:56] You do what God leads you to do.

[00:38:58] But I think one of the ways you find that out

[00:39:00] is by being involved in a local community of people,

[00:39:04] to ascertain what it is you do best

[00:39:06] and what your calling is.

[00:39:08] I did put a link.

[00:39:10] We put a link,

[00:39:10] Karen did,

[00:39:11] on the website for Art House America.

[00:39:13] That's there.

[00:39:13] That is a tremendous organization

[00:39:16] started by Andy Ashworth and Charlie Peacock

[00:39:19] about 30-something years ago.

[00:39:21] In Nashville,

[00:39:22] there's a branch of it in St. Paul, Minnesota,

[00:39:25] and there's one right here in Dallas,

[00:39:26] Art House Dallas.

[00:39:27] It's a great place to go

[00:39:29] to connect with people

[00:39:30] who are involved in your particular discipline

[00:39:34] and in a faith community.

[00:39:36] And by the way,

[00:39:37] there's plenty of people who come to events

[00:39:39] that I've been to at Art House Dallas

[00:39:40] who are not Christians.

[00:39:41] But they have that undercurrent of faith

[00:39:44] that undergirds what they do.

[00:39:47] And I encourage you to look them up

[00:39:50] if you're in one of those three areas,

[00:39:51] but more importantly,

[00:39:53] to find something locally in your area

[00:39:55] where you could be a part of a community of artists.

[00:39:59] And again,

[00:40:00] you're talking about community.

[00:40:01] I was thinking another C

[00:40:02] that you have in here,

[00:40:03] calling.

[00:40:04] I think in some respects,

[00:40:06] you can understand your calling

[00:40:08] simply by doing the work.

[00:40:10] And sometimes it requires the work.

[00:40:13] And sometimes I think people give up too soon.

[00:40:16] Think of all the people

[00:40:17] that might have been great musicians

[00:40:18] that finally said,

[00:40:19] you know,

[00:40:20] but I'm not going to spend that requisite

[00:40:21] was 10,000 hours of practice

[00:40:23] to be really good.

[00:40:25] Or I was hoping I might be a painter,

[00:40:27] but I just didn't want to put in the work.

[00:40:29] But sometimes you can discover your calling,

[00:40:31] but that also happens within a community.

[00:40:34] But just before I run out of time,

[00:40:35] I would say that this would be a resource

[00:40:38] that we should really be making available.

[00:40:40] And that's why I was so excited

[00:40:42] that in addition to,

[00:40:43] what are we up to now?

[00:40:44] At least five dozen booklets

[00:40:46] that you wrote this one on imagination

[00:40:48] because this needs to be something

[00:40:51] that is taught in the churches,

[00:40:54] taught in the schools,

[00:40:55] taught maybe in various writers groups

[00:40:58] or actors groups

[00:40:59] and things of that nature.

[00:41:00] So I'm hoping this is the beginning

[00:41:02] of an opportunity for you

[00:41:03] to go and speak

[00:41:04] and to get some of these resources

[00:41:06] in the hands of those individuals.

[00:41:07] Well, I hope it's an encouragement to people,

[00:41:09] you know.

[00:41:09] And I also hope that people

[00:41:11] who don't consider themselves,

[00:41:13] quote, creative or artists

[00:41:15] might recognize,

[00:41:16] well, wait a minute,

[00:41:16] I have an imagination too.

[00:41:18] I think about things imaginatively too.

[00:41:22] And to understand that as we do that,

[00:41:25] I think we reintroduce,

[00:41:26] I think I mentioned this earlier,

[00:41:27] concepts of reverence and awe

[00:41:30] that are all too easily missed

[00:41:32] in our understanding of God's word

[00:41:35] and the way he relates to us in this world.

[00:41:37] What I like about this extended version

[00:41:39] is on the booklet,

[00:41:41] I think you have five end notes

[00:41:42] and the extended one you have 24.

[00:41:44] So it illustrates that you've taken out quite a bit.

[00:41:47] So if you want the CliffsNotes version,

[00:41:49] that booklet,

[00:41:50] which we've already mailed out,

[00:41:51] is available.

[00:41:51] And if you'd like to get a copy,

[00:41:53] you certainly can contact us here

[00:41:55] at Point of View.

[00:41:56] If you'd like to contact Steve,

[00:41:58] again, just simply go to pointofview.net.

[00:42:01] You will first of all find the download

[00:42:03] for the free copy,

[00:42:04] which is there,

[00:42:04] the expanded version.

[00:42:06] Click on that picture there

[00:42:07] or pick up his picture

[00:42:09] and there's a place where it says contact us

[00:42:11] and you can just leave a message

[00:42:13] at POV at pointofview.net

[00:42:15] or something of that nature

[00:42:16] and that will get to you.

[00:42:17] And I just appreciate the fact that you,

[00:42:20] in the midst of everything else

[00:42:21] you're doing around here,

[00:42:22] you took the time to write this.

[00:42:23] And number two,

[00:42:24] I think this is the beginning

[00:42:26] of something even more significant.

[00:42:28] So again,

[00:42:28] thank you for writing

[00:42:29] A Biblical View on Imagination.

[00:42:31] It's been great to have you in.

[00:42:32] Thank you, Kirby.

[00:42:33] It's been an honor.

[00:42:33] I might just mention that

[00:42:35] on the other side of the glass

[00:42:36] is where he'll be

[00:42:37] as we talk about some other issues as well.

[00:42:39] So if you find yourself saying,

[00:42:41] I'd like to know a little bit more

[00:42:43] about this particular issue,

[00:42:44] you can go to the website,

[00:42:46] pointofview.net.

[00:42:47] Since Steve has been in studio,

[00:42:48] you can also go to that red button there

[00:42:50] which says watch or listen.

[00:42:52] You may know somebody

[00:42:53] that's in the arts

[00:42:54] who has always complained

[00:42:56] that maybe the church

[00:42:57] doesn't seem to appreciate my gifts.

[00:42:59] You might send that on to them as well.

[00:43:01] If you'd like to contact him

[00:43:03] or contact us,

[00:43:04] it's all available at the website,

[00:43:05] pointofview.net.

[00:43:11] The Bible tells us not to worry.

[00:43:14] And yet,

[00:43:15] there is a lot of worrying stuff

[00:43:17] in our world today.

[00:43:19] Thankfully,

[00:43:20] the Bible doesn't stop

[00:43:22] at telling us not to worry.

[00:43:24] God gives us a next step.

[00:43:26] He says we need to pray.

[00:43:29] But sometimes,

[00:43:30] even knowing what to pray

[00:43:31] can be difficult.

[00:43:33] And that is why Point of View

[00:43:35] has relaunched

[00:43:36] our Pray for America movement,

[00:43:38] a series of weekly emails

[00:43:40] to guide you in prayer

[00:43:42] for our nation.

[00:43:44] Each week,

[00:43:45] you'll receive a brief update

[00:43:46] about a current issue

[00:43:48] affecting Americans,

[00:43:49] along with a written prayer

[00:43:51] that you can easily share

[00:43:53] with others.

[00:43:54] We'll also include

[00:43:55] a short free resource for you

[00:43:57] in each email

[00:43:58] so you can learn more

[00:44:00] about the issue at hand.

[00:44:02] Will you commit

[00:44:03] to pray for America?

[00:44:05] Go to pointofview.net.

[00:44:09] Click on the Pray for America banner

[00:44:11] at the top of the page

[00:44:13] to subscribe.

[00:44:14] Again,

[00:44:15] that's pointofview.net.

[00:44:18] Click on the Pray for America banner.

[00:44:21] Let's pray together

[00:44:22] for God to make a difference

[00:44:24] in America.

[00:44:28] Point of View

[00:44:29] will continue

[00:44:30] after this.