Our Creative Mandate (Part 2): Dancing in the Rain

Ready for love... with a smile on your face... and... erm... ready to buy a Golf.

It's an extraordinarily generous gift of God that we can make art. He didn’t have to make us creative but by His choice here we are writing, singing, painting, sculpting, designing, acting and dancing. That God allows us to build on what He has already created: to re-create; to make complex and diversify is an astonishing outworking of His character.

God did not say, “Let there be culture” but commissioned Adam and Eve to cultivate the earth with Him and for His glory. Adam is commanded to name the animals: a task of ontologically inventive significance. Prior to Genesis 2 it is only God who names the animals. Now, Adam is granted a creative partnership with his maker, reflecting the image he bears to his sovereign father. Amazing!

When I look back to the creation mandate I see so much that helps me to understand this great human task of being creative.


Take Genesis 2: 4-6.

"When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground"

In order for creation to cultivate there needs to be two vital ingredients: an action of God and an action of human beings. In this case man works the garden and God brings the water: as Adam worked the land God makes a groundswell of water under his feet bringing life to his efforts - cultivating the land and bringing growth. This is a creative partnership between God and man that we see throughout Scripture. Think of Bezalel who (in Exodus 31) is filled with the gift of God's Spirit (God's action) and works with skill ability and knowledge (Man's action) producing the creative fruit of the art of the tabernacle. Think also of David who wrote songs and hymns while alone in the wilderness. Think of Ezekial and Hosea who changed societies through creative acts inspired by the word of God.

If our creative mandate is to cultivate all things (make culture) how do we experience this groundswell of life in the arts? Do we still experience it or is this just a Genesis thing? How does God bring life enriching water to the creative industries?

Our part seems clear: like Adam we are to work and care for our culture. We are to work well: “Work with all your heart as working for the Lord…” as Paul puts it to the Colossians (3:23). His part is to operate His Spirit. As we work, write, sculpt, dance and sing we do so in the hope of God’s Spirit who brings growth and blessing (enlargement) like the water in the creation story.

I invite you to skip along with me as I try to understand something of what it means to work in the groundswell of God’s Spirit and make art for His pleasure: creating and cultivating; making art in the water; dancing in the rain.

Air Guitar Art

Deep in the darkest recesses of my parents’ garage I recently came across a much-loved object from my childhood: sandwiched between boxes of old Wonder Stuff records and videotapes (remember those?), I found what to most people would look like an old tennis racket: A very battered tennis racket… but to me this was no ordinary Wilson Raleigh Junior. This had been my axe of power, my wielder of wrath, my chrome-plated flying V with custom pick-ups and leopard skin strap. This was my old air guitar.

If you’ve ever fancied yourself as a bedroom rock-star you too might have spent nights in front of your parents mirror raising an imaginary plectrum of power to the ceiling, strumming down with full rock furry to the sounds of your favourite air guitar hits. Come on, we've all done it.

Air guitar is escapist fantasy at it’s best. All twang and no substance. There’s nothing real about it. Beyond the ability to press the play button on your Sony walkman, air guitar requires absolutely no skill whatsoever. Air Guitar is a pretence: we pretend we’re doing something amazing when really we’re just larking around.

I've been thinking about how sometimes we Christians in the arts play the Air Guitar in creative culture.

Sometimes we play air guitar to the creative industries.

We see some really cool graphics on a billboard or the cover of an album and we copy it for our mission week publicity. A Christian band like the music of a guys like Coldplay or U2 and copy their sound exchanging but changing the lyrics to be more edifying or more ‘Christian.’ The Christian painter who likes the energy and freedom of Jackson Pollock and apes his style only saying it’s the Holy Spirit who guides his brush, not his subconscious.

In all these ways we play air guitar to what someone else has already made. We echo what everyone else is doing in a bid to be culturally relevant but in so doing, we’re always two steps behind the rest of society, rather than leading the way. The world leads the church rather than the church leading the world. Or, to put it another way, the world becomes the salt and light of the church rather than the church being the salt and light of the world.

Sometimes we play air guitar to God.

Paul encourages us to work hard in all we do as working for the Lord and not for men (Col 3:23). When we create we make for an audience primarily of one: we create for Christ: So we are to sing, dance, sculpt, design, model, write, compose and paint with all our hearts for Jesus, not just the guy who’s writing the cheque. This is our spiritual act of worship – our art!

In Genesis 1 Adam and Eve are commissioned by God with the stewardship of the earth. God tells them to “Fill the Earth and Subdue it”… taking care of all living things and the planet itself. Genesis 1:28

This isn’t just an instruction to do the gardening: this is a biblical mandate to take care of all creation. That means all animals, all humans, all culture. Christians aren’t called to play Air Guitar to culture, we are to be it’s custodians; we are to make culture, pioneer it and define it: move beyond air guitar