Evangelism through the arts

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I believe evangelization through the arts can be effective if it’s done subtly, not heavy handed. I find this particular showing of Martin Hudacek’s “Memorial” nuanced (note how the shadows on the back wall tie in) and for me, heartbreaking. I invite your thoughts, and to share other works, visual arts or ?
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I would agree. Anticatholic media is doing a good job of evangelizing their point of view with movies and TV shows etc.
 
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Unfortunately, nuance and subtlety are not characteristic of most Christian films to date. Of course there is a double standard and blatancy is celebrated in art expressing non- or even anti-Christian views.
 
This is a gorgeous piece of work. Thankyou for sharing.
 
Nuance and subtlety are not characteristics of most contemporary art. People, including visual artists, can be affected by that and it gets mirrored in their work. Thanks for posting this.
 
I wonder if he intended the child’s body to look “glorified.” That’s the effect it has on me, anyway.
 
Interesting that it took him a bit over nine months to complete this sculpture. Rather gestational.
 
On the FOCUS Equip App, their was a button towards sharing, that is how I got the URL. I wrote a summary, it is rough, it was typed on a phone. This summary of the talk is better than what I could have though of. I think this is proper citation? The summary is not perfect.

Beauty, Culture, and Evangelization, Barbara Nicolosi (53:20)​

My Summary:
-The Catholic Church Used to be largest commissioner of art on the planet.
-How did the same people with same creed go to less beauty. Basically of Milan, to Cathedral of Los Angeles.
-Our God is an awesome God. Music in church, to the cult of the banal. Banal, not strong enough. Banal means lame.
-Current Catholic art all about political statements. Not beauty statements.
-If the artwork does not appeal to pagans, it is not Catholic. Lame music means we fail them.
-Learn your theology. YOU NEED TO POETS.
-Common climate, be aware of sovereign Majesty if god and your neediness in front of god. With only one or the other, we kill ourselves due to humility or we are prideful to ourselves on the winning team. You need both.
-Should their even be a Catholic subculture? We do Broccoli better? My Evangelical events are about events we can all come to. Catholic events bring people together. You bring none to Catholicism when you become the subculture.
-THE SUBCULTURE CREATED AS A RETREAT. TV TWITTER ARTS MADE AS A REFUGE. MAN UP MARINE. Then you go out.
-THE FIRST STEP OF TRANSFORMING CULTURE IS TO GO OUT INTO IT. WHERE IS THE BIBLE VERSE FOLLOW ME AND BE SAFE. WHEN DID SAFETY BECOME A VALUE.
-God is going to have to pound you, you can not be a hypocrite. When you are a hypocrite. They say your god is not real.
-Hey God, make it easier for me to be Catholic.
-24/7 screen media reality. That is your time to evangelize. It should not look like 1934 culture. Martyr for being a Catholic, not being mattered for how you say the Our Father and hold your hands.
-Share the beatitudes, as people only know more about our controversial topics.
-All say I do not agree with your church. On week 26 and 27, hard topics of abortion. We will get their. By the time we cover other Catholic content will not be hard.
-Media is not about giving answers. Make them feel a new question. TROUBLED BY NEW ANSWER.
-Crack the hearts and show vulnerability. They will look for next answer.
-We built a subculture. When anything has God, it goes to the lame subculture with fireproof. Now your not allowed.
-YOU DON’T HAVE TO BRING GOD INTO CULTURE, GOD IS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN, talk about God through beauty first.
-A SONG YOU WILL MARCH TO MARTYRDOM. Pray for a flowering of music. Art and poet. I love nuns and Priests, pray some will be poets and directors, engineers. Do it in a beautiful passionate intense way.
-Don’t shoot for the subculture. The passion reaches everyone.
-Wrestle naked with vulnerability and truth.
-1.5 scripts. That’s where people go quit. It takes 1000s pages to be good.
-Gather us in is act of un-charity. Nobody wants to be mean though.
-WHEN DID TELLING THE TRUTH BECOME MEAN? TELL IT SLANT OR THE WHOLE WORLD WILL BECOME BLIND.
 
This lost me when I read the statements about “Our God Is An Awesome God” being banal.

I think the author must be interpreting the word “Awesome” in a modern sense “Awwwesome, man!” instead of in a traditional sense “Our God is an awesome God.”

There is nothing banal about this song.

When someone makes a debatable statement right off the bat, it tends to make me skeptical of the rest of their claims.

I do agree that we need to go OUT in to the arts community to evangelize rather than trying to do “Christian arts” and hoping people will come to our place.

But…I have a daughter who does arts for a living (theater–Broadway), and her parish utterly ignored her efforts to get the people involved in arts. After a year of having no friends or even acquaintances in the parish, she told off the priest and left. Sadly, she hasn’t attended Mass since (other than when she was home with us). It’s just too lonely for her.

Artists who are Christians live and work in a very non-Christian setting with peers who are generally hostile to Christianity. My daughter describes it as “a very tough mission field.”

There are exceptions (my favorite actor, Robert Patrick!), but they are rare. IMO, the Church needs to embrace Her members who are professional artists (in any discipline–theater, music, visual arts, etc.), attend their events as often as possible to visibly demonstrate their support, invite them into their homes to give them a “home-style” break from their “unreal” world in the business, and try to find ways to use their talents in their parish. This approach could easily become an evangelistic outreach.

The worse way to treat an artist is to not care about their work. Remember, they make a living from their work, and when people ignore it, the paycheck can go away.
 
Peeps said:
Our God Is An Awesome God” being banal.
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When rushing to type a summary in a moving van on my phone, I was not cautious about proper grammar. My greatest apologies. I would fix up my post if I could still edit it.

To rephrase what was said in the talk: We have moved from music such as Our God and into the the cult of the Banal.

My rushed statement “to the cult of the banal” meaning a transition of musical taste. My greatest apologies.

The Time stamp of 3:25 in the talk is where the song Our God can be found.

Their will be more rough phrases in my rough summary. My apologies.

I should not have even attempted to summarize the talk, and let you all watch the majesty of the talk. Sorry. Please watch the talk, it is better than my rough summary with poor grammar and lacking detail and voice.
 
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Thanks for clarifying! That makes a difference to me.

I really like the Mullin’s song, “Our God Is An Awesome God.” I like it when a soloist sings the verses and the congregation or other group joins in on the chorus (which is straight rhythm and easy to sing). I do not like it when the entire congregation tries to sing the verses, too, as they have a very “free” rhythm and everyone doing their own thing sounds really disjointed.
 
I know many visual artists. Only a handful work full-time. The rest are freelancers and do work as it comes in, and with no real pattern. This means they need a day job to pay the bills. Other artists take the approach of having a day job and using their spare time to create what they can and then offer it for sale.

The Church has many people contributing their talents but it appears they are little known and/or their networking is weak.


 
Peeps said:
This lost me when I read the statements about “Our God Is An Awesome God” being banal.

I think the author must be interpreting the word “Awesome” in a modern sense “Awwwesome, man!” instead of in a traditional sense “Our God is an awesome God.”

There is nothing banal about this song.

When someone makes a debatable statement right off the bat, it tends to make me skeptical of the rest of their claims.

I do agree that we need to go OUT in to the arts community to evangelize rather than trying to do “Christian arts” and hoping people will come to our place.

But…I have a daughter who does arts for a living (theater–Broadway), and her parish utterly ignored her efforts to get the people involved in arts. After a year of having no friends or even acquaintances in the parish, she told off the priest and left. Sadly, she hasn’t attended Mass since (other than when she was home with us). It’s just too lonely for her.

Artists who are Christians live and work in a very non-Christian setting with peers who are generally hostile to Christianity. My daughter describes it as “a very tough mission field.”

There are exceptions (my favorite actor, Robert Patrick!), but they are rare. IMO, the Church needs to embrace Her members who are professional artists (in any discipline–theater, music, visual arts, etc.), attend their events as often as possible to visibly demonstrate their support, invite them into their homes to give them a “home-style” break from their “unreal” world in the business, and try to find ways to use their talents in their parish. This approach could easily become an evangelistic outreach.

The worse way to treat an artist is to not care about their work. Remember, they make a living from their work, and when people ignore it, the paycheck can go away.
Click to expand...
I’m sorry to hear about your daughter’s experience. She should look for another parish that is supportive of the arts. No NYC creative Catholic should feel “othered” and let that separate them from their faith. I live in Brooklyn and go to a parish that is super supportive of the arts. We even host art lectures. Also, the Archdiocese YA group just started an art and art lovers event. There have been two events so far and tons of young people in the arts attended. She should also listen to the Catholic Creatives podcast.

“The Actor’s Parish” https://actorschapel.org/
My Parish https://oratorychurch.org/
Catholic NYC Events for July 2021CatholicNYC
Catholic Creatives http://catholiccreatives.com/
 
Ironically perhaps, “Our God is an Awesome God” is one of the least interesting pieces by Chris Tomlin. A lot of his other stuff is much better.
 
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