God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art, by Daniel A. Siedell, 2008.

The best and only way to start this review and to be honest about my own limits in understanding the concepts presented in this book is with a quote from the book by the art critic, Donald B. Kuspit, in response to criticism from art critic, Hilton Kramer:

“Clarity in fact is relative, as much the burden of the reader as the writer, for it has as much to do with the reader’s understanding of the concepts the writer uses as with the style the writer uses to articulate them.  Clear thinking is the issue, not clear writing.” (121-2)

So from the outset, I must admit that my understanding of the concepts brought forth in this book are minimal, at best.  Which means this review probably shouldn’t even be written if it was not for the fact that I wrote reviews for the other 53 books I read this year.  Please read this review with two things in mind: 1) I have little to no background or conceptual knowledge in the field of modern or contemporary art and 2) I, as much as I would like to reject the title, would fit within the evangelical title that Siedell challenges in this book.  I am more comfortable with firm propositions and imposing them on the world, though a severe part of me wants to love, know and experience art, in all of its forms.  And the idea of allowing modern and contemporary art room to formulate its own theology is both exciting and nerve-racking to me.  Parts of me want to resort to the comforts of my known theological kingdom and the other parts of me want to embrace art for what it reveals even if it contradicts my dearly held theological dogmas.  So with that, I really just want to put out there some discomforts I have with some of Siedell’s challenges and then how, at the end of the day, Siedell is on the right path.

I found it interesting that Siedell brings in the use of icons (and their veneration) and the Nicene Creed as significant for approaching contemporary and modern art.  I am largely Calvinist with Lutheran sympathies (of late!) and the word “icons” brings up a lot of baggage.  Now I have friends who take Calvin’s view of images made of Christ and God quite literally.  I never have been to that level, but the alarm is still alerted in the back of my head even so.  At what point do icons become idols?  At the core, I think that was the question behind the iconoclasm battles.  Iconoclasts saw icons as a golden calf just waiting to redirect our attention from God/Christ/Spirit to the image itself.  And this view is formed from a low view of human anthropology, what man could lower himself to, most likely will be what he lowers himself to.  So if there is a possibility of turning an image into an idol, then man would probably be willing to do that to deny God (which is what we do!).  I get the argument, but I have never been strict on the matter of icons.  And I rebel against those who hold to it because Calvin did, instead of finding their support from Scripture itself (which a lot of Calvinists do, sometimes unknowingly).  However, the Nicene creed is an exceptional and very biblical formulation of the faith and if that council was good with the use of icons in the realm of the church then I find no fault in it, regardless of what the Calvinist alarm in my head goes off for.  However, I would have been interested to see Siedell maybe handle those parts of Scripture that could be interpreted to be anti-icon or image, if only briefly.  Because even Calvin did not come up with his “word only” approach on his own whim, he derived it from his reading of Scripture. 

I think the use of icons is an interesting one and there is no doubt that premodern Christianity did rely more on visuals incorporated into worship and into the lives of believers.  To lessen the images’ role during that time is to accept the ‘truth’ that modernism or postmodernism are superior or more ‘enlightened’ than pre-modernity, which is historical garbage.  It just seems to me that in order for the use of icons to become a guide and aid in approaching contemporary and modern art, some work may have to be done in revisiting Scripture and those who put together the Nicene Creed in order to revise a Reformation reading of icons and images in the life of the church.  I, also, understand that that would be a whole other book, too, and that there may be a book that does that exact thing already.  So once again, this critique (which really isn’t my critique so much as something I think would come up from those in my theological circle) shows my lack of knowledge more than anything.

Part of the challenge of this book, for me, is that it does not find its basis as firmly in Scripture as I would have liked.  Once again, another Reformational aspect of my perspective.  I am very much Word-based.  However, my devotion to Scripture is found less in adherence to the theology of Calvin or Luther or reformed thinking, but more out of my own personal experience of other types of authority in my life failing me time and again.  Scripture, though I have struggled with parts of it from time to time, has always been the one thing that I could go back to and difficulties that have arisen eventually fell away (and new ones entered).  I find Scripture to be the basis for thought because, though I have failed in my interpretation of it often, it has never failed me as a means for revelation to challenge and enlighten me.  So part of me, at the end of this book, says “so what in the Bible could be brought out to inform this?”  I found Siedell’s use of Paul’s naming the unknown god in the Areopagus to be a very useful illustration for approaching art, but it seems like there could be more taken from the Bible to approach this matter as well.  I found the writings of the artists and critics that Siedell brought into the book to be enriching and helpful in understanding the world of modern and contemporary art, but part of me was wanting more interaction with the Word in the essays.  I think there are tons of resources there to be used in favor of Siedell’s challenges and approach to art.  But once again, that probably wasn’t the direction that Siedell was aiming for necessarily, but instead to inform and give fullness to the history, spaces and workings of the art world so that Christians may be more informed when they interact with it.  And, at that, he succeeds completely!

I absolutely loved his conclusion and his interaction with Rookmaaker’s and Schaeffer’s understandings of the “Christian artist.”  And a lot of the critiques that he made against the way Christians approach and do art now are correct.  Especially this little gem of a paragraph:

“The ultimate distinction, then, is not between Christian art and autonomous modern art but between art that in its union of form and content can bring forth or testify to an embodied transcendence, revealing our ‘amphibious existence,’ and art that denies such transcendence.  It is thus quite possible and indeed quite probable that some of what is understood as Christian art is in fact a profoundly anti-transcendent art, presupposing a world hermetically sealed off from the contemplation of the Son, a purely immanent world in which communication consists solely of messages, sent and received, not of contemplation of and communion with the Divine.  In the Christian artist’s zeal to express a Christian message, Christian art—in the bitterest of ironies—can further contribute to denying Christ’s presence in the world.” (164)

And I totally agree with that understanding of the modern state of Christians and art.  However, I am not entirely sure I would arrive there in the same way that Siedell does.  However, the journey that he takes the reader on is extremely informative and helpful in having a more full and comprehensive understanding of the question itself.  And, in my life, discomfort has bred fruit more than comfort ever has, so, once again, I intend to let the discomfort of Siedell’s arguments to work on me; to get under my skin.  He writes on the subject with passion and with a fervor for Christians to be more real, honest, thoughtful and informed about that which they cast their theological assumptions onto.  And, for that, I can be nothing was grateful to him for.  

Into the Dark: Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century, by Craig Detweiler, 2008.

I have enjoyed reading this series of books coming out of Fuller Theological Seminary.  I have enjoyed them because they display a thoughtfulness from the Christianity community toward the various aspects of art and how beauty plays into the Christian’s worldview and its place within the Gospel.  The books about music and film are especially interesting to me because they touch on aspects of culture that I absolutely love to partake in and interact with.  I admire authors like Detweiler who are willing to explore these avenues of theology and how it relates and speaks to film, and vice versa.  I became very excited when Detweiler began his study here by talking about revelation, the differences between general and specific revelations and the seeming disparity that has grown within modern theology between these two forms of revelation.  I know from my own camp (the general Reformed tradition) that most of the attention is focused on specific revelation (through the Word of God and the person of Christ) and the usual mention of general revelation is usually within the negative context of man failing to recognize the general revelation of God through nature and, instead, being condemned because of their denial of such revelation.  Though some within this camp may disagree with me, I find that general revelation does not always get a full composition within these circles.  There is a lot that is positive about the nature of general revelation, even though it does not save.  Nonetheless, I became excited that Detweiler was considering this, however, I found his introductory and final analysis of how these to types of revelation relate to be weak and incomplete.  I wanted him to really dig deep into these concepts and all I received was a history of how revelation has been seen throughout the church and truly surface thoughts on how to overcome the weaknesses of the past views. 

In the beginning, he talks about the reversal of the interpretative process.  Instead of developing doctrine in order to interpret films and judge their value, he argued for a “bottom-up” approach where we let films and the meanings that are brought out in them help us develop a “fuller”, more “experiential” theology.  I find this unconvincing for one main reason: every person, believer or non-believer, comes to art, science, logic, etc. with presuppositions about how the world works, what they truly believe and real prejudices that all affect how they interpret a text, piece of art, etc.  If you are a Christian, then you have already been inherited into a theological tradition, no matter how broad or specific it might be, you have been raised in a certain way, in a certain area, within a certain series of restraints.  So when you come to watch a movie, all of those presuppositions are already guiding your meaning-making and critique of the film.  So to say that the “meaning of the film” is going to be part of the work in developing the theology of a person is to be naive.  The film, itself, is not unbiased or lacking of presuppositions of its own, for it bears the marks of its creator(s).  Both makers and viewers are all part of the interpretive act, so saying that a 100% objective meaning will come from the film itself is wrongheaded.  For the film is made by men.  And the viewers are already judging the film according to their theology.  You see, it is still top-down, but it is more subtle.  Sometimes we don’t even recognize it.  The funny thing is that Detweiler, in trying to allow the movies “to speak for themselves,” actually tells me more about his theological strongholds than it does about what the movie is truly about.  His analysis, all through the book, is quite good and solid and well thought out, but his own theological allegiances are driving his analysis, it is inevitable.  He ultimately fails at doing what he says we ought to do.  I think the only way films can truly help in the development of out theology is by presenting stories and characters and events in films that challenge our strongly held beliefs.  But even that gives away our personal theological stances because one person’s challenges may not hold for everyone else, because of their theological differences.  So its a pleasant thought to approach movies in this way, but Detweiler fails to prove that this can actually be done.

Like I said above, Detweiler’s analysis of the films in the majority of the book are stellar reflections on film.  However, I felt that the first and last chapter were rather weak and could have been left out because they failed to truly and deeply explore the connection between general and specific revelation so that in that he could ultimately make a case as to how Christians were to rightly associate the two within the realm of the Christian redemptive story, the systematic theology and the Christian’s life.  Instead, I was hit over and over throughout the book of phrases like “and this is general revelation at work!” which tells me nothing if you don’t deal with what it is in a real and in-depth way.  I felt the final chapter ended in an anti-climactic way.  He kind of just faded out his book by talking about his discovery of ritual in the Episcopalian church and how he came to find more revelation in the ritual than he did in film (which was the reverse of his earlier life).  It seemed forced and trite to end a book (which overall was pretty good) like this without ever completely satisfying the reader that his argument could be supported.  

To be honest, half of the book should have been dealing with revelation and the distinctives and coalescing of the two types.  And then the final half could have been the real working out of the theology built up in the first half.  I think that would have been the book that was the most helpful in the discussion of film and theology (let alone music and theology, paintings and theology, etc.)

Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible, by M. Daniel Carroll R., 2008.

Taking the title into account, this would be a pretty hefty subject matter to tackle and one that the author would have to divest the political rhetoric from in order to get the meat of the subject.  Coming in at 143 pages, the book (by admission of its author) is just a primer for people that are relatively new to the subject or who are finally jaded by the politics of the subject enough to find another perspective on it that is neither Republican nor Democrat.  That is one aspect of the book that the author does well on, seeing the validity of the arguments on both sides of the political mainstream while stripping them of their emotional and prejudiced tones and showing their true complexities.  Instead of just critiquing arguments, the author lays them out there to be heard only.  He indirectly critiques both sides of the argument by using the Old and New Testament and exploring the principles that are in the Bible for how we are supposed to relate to sojourners, immigrants, etc. and, also, showing the obligations the sojourners and immigrants have in relating to the new culture. 

The thing I do like about this short little book is that the author is truly attempting to derive Biblical principles for how Christians should act on, think about, and work towards an immigration policy.  He is very clear that, biblically-speaking, there is no room for mistreatment or taking advantage of the Latino/Latina immigrants.  To not show hospitality towards sojourners is to be disobedient in the eyes of God.  However, the author, also, deals with the attitude of the immigrant/sojourner in that they should be hospitable to the people and customs of the new culture.  Both sides must give in order for immigration to be a positive attribute for those coming and those already here.  He gets into some technical aspects of Old Testament Hebrew, at times, but none of it is incomprehensible.  Overall he does a good job of looking at the main movements and themes of the Bible that would be helpful for Christian to thoughtfully consider the issue of immigration in a modern world. 

However, even though it is just meant to be a primer, the overall effect still seems unsatisfactory.  I liked what was there, but it ultimately felt like it needed more meat to the arguments.  The theological and biblical chapters definitely needed more heft to them.  This is not to say that he failed, but he could have easily have given another hundred pages to expand some of his arguments and exegesis.  I think, in the end, the reader would have benefited from more explanation.  There were also some strange theological explanations that I am still working over in my head.  When I first read them, I thought he was wrong in his theology, but with his following explanation, I started to think that maybe he was just wording it differently than most do.  However, I am still not sure that is the case.  I don’t want to combat that stuff until I am completely sure that he is off on his theology.  So if you want to know details of that area, then let me know and I will explain it to you!  The book overall does give a nice jumping-off point for Christians to consider the complexities of immigration and how the Bible speaks to those broader and more specific elements of the issue.

Zombiemania (2008) - dir. Donna Davies

I like to toss in a documentary every year with a horror theme.  Last year was the brilliant documentary, Cropsey.  This year, I decided to go for a more self-indulgent one in Zombiemania, a documentary about the development and popularity of zombie culture in America.  This was no where near the same quality as Cropsey.  The research and work put into it were minimal and they didn’t really give due to all aspects of zombie culture.  Basically, it turned out to be a George Romero/Max Brooks love fest.  There were only mentions of zombies prior to Night of the Living Dead and no attempt to show how previous zombies influenced and were molded into the modern zombie.  A majority of the film was talking about Romero and how he was the king of the modern zombie which he rightfully is, but the name of the documentary is not Romeromania.  He is a significant part, but not the whole picture. 

On top of that, I cannot stand Max Brooks, even if he is the son of Mel Brooks.  Matter of fact, guidebooks to the zombie apocalypse are quite possibly my least favorite part of zombie culture in this country.  It always ends up being self-indulgent and pretentious in its result.  You want to write fiction, make a movie, do a graphic novel with zombies then go for it, but the second you attempt to write something like Brooks writes out of a subject that is overwhelming metaphoric in the first place than it seems you are missing the whole point.  *Soap box ended*  The production of the documentary was sub par, at best.  The transitions to interviews in full screen and widescreen formats was choppy and there was very little that was aesthetically pleasing in it altogether.

The Cusack Chronicles: Igor (2008)

So in a kingdom that makes its profit from creating evil inventions in order to sell them to the rest of the world, what happens when an igor (the lowest class of society) creates a monster who is good (though, admittedly, by mistake)?  That is the premise behind this CGI film.  It is a massive improvement over Cusack’s last attempt to do an animated film, Anastasia.  There was nothing incredibly unique about his voice work, but he does do a good job of the stereotyped hunchback slurred speech.  His two buddies, however, were great characters.  Scamper, the Camus-esque immortal, but suicidal rabbit, and Brain, the stupid, but heartfelt brain in a jar, were the key to the humor of this film.  Voiced by Steve Buscemi and Sean Hayes, respectively, these two did great jobs and were the most interesting characters in the film. 

Overall this film is an enjoyable one for the whole family, though it does start to wear a little thin in the last third.  Questions of good and evil arise, which is always interesting, however, they, as Hollywood tends to do, made the discussion a little too shallow and started off with a wrong premise.  People are not inherently good and in the words of St. Paul, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”  Sometimes we drawn to evil because it is in our nature and we are not strong enough to overcome it in any significant or lasting way.  There was a lot in this film that could have been good foundations for a deeper and more interesting discussion of good and evil, but, instead, they went for the cliche, happy ending.  The other interesting subtext that struck me was how much it seemed to be an analogy for the Bush administration and the wars that he began.  Considering Cusack and the others definitely took this view, it would not be a far stretch for that subtext.  Especially when Cusack’s igor states “He lied to us.  He tricked us into believing that we need to be evil to survive. But we don’t! None of us do.”  Sounds like a political statement in disguise.  Funny enough, I don’t necessarily disagree with it either, however, I bet we would disagree on the solution to that problem.

The Cusack Chronicles: War, Inc. (2008)

Welcome to purely commercialized and privatized American occupation.  In an exaggerated, and intentionally comical, portrayal of what happens when imperialism is brand operated under the informal control of nations.  Strangely enough (and scarily enough), this film parallels some major trends in American cultural and political imperialism.  John Cusack took the gloves off in making this film in order to address some pretty weighty political issues about privatized military para-troops and cultural coercion in the Middle East.  Not only this, but this is the closest to a sequel that Grosse Pointe Blank that Cusack fans can expect.  Joan Cusack and Dan Akroyd make appearances which is only the beginning of the blunt and subtle similarities between the two movies.  Hauser (Cusack) is a hit man who is hired by the ex-vice president (Akroyd) to delete a Middle Eastern oil minister while under the disguise of a trade show producer pawning Tamerlane (the privatized American company in charge of the occupation and military presence) products.  He must also deal with the marriage of an Eastern Britney Spears (Duff) and a left-wing journalist (Tomei) in the midst of it all.

The comedy reaches absurd levels in this film, to the point of being truly absurd, at times.  However, that being said, there are some truly inspiring potshots at the state of America’s presence and perception by the world.  Privatized military and occupation is not as far-fetched at one might think and, so, the laughs are tinted with a healthy dose of serious contemplation.  This film is not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, nor is it anyway as classically funny as Grosse Pointe Blank, but, with all of that aside, it is an entertaining and often humorous film to watch.  Think of it as Martin Blank on an international level with more at stake, both in narrative and in message.  This review was brought to you by Tamerlane.