May 11, 2011

 

In What is Art?, Tolstoy claims that Christianity is an inflection point, perhaps the inflection point in the history of art and literature. I would tend to agree. Although his casual chain of artistic influence may not pass the strictest anthropological muster, it does seem clear that something changed with the arrival of the early Christians. He emphasizes the fact that God was now personal, humble; how God was no longer a God embodied in a person or an ideal of beauty or strength, but was defined by “humility, purity, compassion, [and] love.”

 

Christopher Hitchens has a line about how atheism is just the next logical step in the evolution of belief: We went from believing in a panoply of different Gods to believing in regionally powerful Gods to believing in one, universal, all-powerful God. The next step, he says, is to submit ourselves to the final step in the evolutionary chain and believe in no Gods at all. Witty, perhaps, but it ignores the human capacity – more accurately, tendency – towards belief. While a secular humanist can argue that the God of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and now Jesus was an inevitable product of a specific time or culture, the rapid spread of Christianity, not to mention the life-changing reality that belief has on many people’s lives, seems to indicate that there is something more to Tolstoy’s statement than a simple observation of the inevitable trend of human belief.

 

For a dramatic example, we need look no further than Raskolnikov, whose entire Weltanschauung is mutated and transformed through an encounter with faith. Its first seeds are planted by Sonia, herself no stranger to desperate circumstances, but at the end of the book we see that it has taken root in Rodion Romanovitch. The incredibly humbling act of bowing to the four corners of the earth and confessing his sin, inspired by Sonia’s challenge, is very much like an act of confession, replete with the penance of submitting to the proper authorities. It’s also an act of conversion: “It came over him like a fit; it was like a single spark kindled in his soul and spreading fire through him. Everything in him softened at once and the tears started into his eyes” (Dostoevsky, 520). Raskolnikov no longer cares for power or independence; something smaller, more intimate, has crept into his soul and changed him irrevocably.

 

Again we see this theme of a radical break from the past in Flannery O’Connor’s “Parker’s Back.” “He only knew that there had been a great change in his life, a leap forward into a worse unknown, and that there was nothing he could do about it. It was for all intents accomplished.” Echoing Christ’s words on the cross at the hour of his death, O’Connor draws an explicit parallel between the new paradigm Obidiah is entering into and Christ opening a new chapter in history. Each is abruptly shaken from their previous circumstances, suffer, and are betrayed by those they love. As Parker learns, the path is narrow. But there is no question that his life has been altered irrevocably.

 

Especially among the Protestant tradition, there is a long-standing history of being “born again” in Christian literature. Even among Catholic thinkers, the “St. Paul” moment is not uncommon. This theme in religious literature arguably draws much of its power from the knowledge that the tools and crafts of the writer were changed by the presence of Christ. No longer is the purpose of art to adorn an earthly ruler or provide pleasure to one’s master; not even to attract external goods such as fame, glory, and honor. Just as Tolstoy writes that “Christian perception gave another, a new, direction to all human feelings, and therefore completely altered both the content and the significance of art.” For a committed Christian, every act is ordered towards the one from whom all blessings flow. Writing a novel, painting a picture, composing a song – Each creative expression of the soul is an opportunity to bear witness to the one who gives and takes away all things. Certainly there is room for realism, even depression in seeing the state of one of God’s creatures caught in a situation in which there is no escape (such as Tolstoy’s own Anna Karenina.)

 

But just as Christ redeems and makes all things new by the blood of His cross, for the Christian, he also redeems and transforms human actions and practices. Just as our definition of strength and heroism are turned on their head by Christ’s suffering, so too our understanding of the mission of artistry. For the Christian author, even in the darkest circumstances, there is always hope. In the choice between suicide and faith, the nihilist Svidrigaïlov chooses death, while Raskolnikov picks life, repentance, and forgiveness. At the end of “Parker’s Back,” beaten by Sarah’s broom, O.E. cries, seemingly alone, but even in the loneliness there lies a hint of redemptive suffering. He has sacrificed his body to give witness to someone greater than himself, and that lesson of sacrifice is one that, if one is to guess, will stick with him for a long time to come.

 

These examples illustrate a kind of Christian realism made possible by faith. While Dostoesvky and O’Connor are two very different authors, their shared attitude makes it possible to illustrate the most grotesque and tragic vignettes without losing their unassailable confidence in the hope for a resurrection and redemption. Perhaps that’s what Tolstoy means when he says the artists’ goal is “to compel us to love life in all its countless and inexhaustible manifestations.” The Christian has the ability to look into the face of death – be it in the slums of Calcutta, the leper colonies of Hawai’i, or the death camps of Auschwitz – and not lose sight of God’s fingerprint on his sons and daughters. The call to see others in a light of unassailable human dignity moved Mother Theresa, Father Damien of Molokai, and Saint Maxilimian Kolbe to minister in radical, life-affirming ways.

 

In a similar vein, the Christian author has the ability to plum the depths of human suffering to capture life in all its tragic beauty while still offering a path of hope and love, faint and humble though it may be. The major inflection point that was the life of Jesus Christ significantly altered many, some would say all, aspects of human life, and the vocation and practice of artists is certainly one of them. No longer is art’s purpose to grandify or eulogize; art and literature now turn the lens on the least powerful, for “whatsoever you did for the least of these little ones, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Biblical characters and images create a common framework or reference point to remind us of these truths and the reality that the Christian worldview is different. The greatest expression of honor and glory is due not to a conqueror, inventor, or leader, but a “man who is tormented and murdered, yet pities and loves his persecutors.” This is the Christian difference – To look upon the cross and take solace and strength from His sufferings. Art has never been the same since Golgatha, but surely, neither has the whole world.