Dana Gioia spoke in Acuff chapel during the Christian Scholars' Conference.
From how the powers and principalities of the world influence the Christians’ role in the play of the world, to finding a story in the world, to how Christians should act in this play put on by the world, attendees of the conference were enlightened on the importance of a relationship between Christianity and the arts.
Perhaps one of the most thought-provoking and penetrating insights was delivered by Dana Gioia, a former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
He set out to show the decrease of the Christian’s influence in writing today as compared to the mid-century.
“If speaking of [mid-century] literature, you couldn’t do it without mentioning devout Christians,” he said.
The names he referenced were those of Flannery O’Conner, Tennessee Williams, Thomas Merton, J.R. Tolken, C.S. Lewis, and Robert Fitzgerald.
“All of these individuals identified with Christianity, even though Christianity wasn’t the most prominent idea of their time,” he said.
He asserted that while Christians once actively participated, and more importantly influenced, literary review. In the eyes of Gioia, this is no longer true. He sees a group of writers who are Christians but won’t claim their identity in a positive light because they stand to gain nothing.
“Society has little to no use for Christianity,” he said. He declared that we as Christians have “ceded the arts to secular culture,” which was a “radical departure from the Christian tradition,” and has left society, “without a transcendent vision.”
And because of this departure, Gioia sees a spiritually impoverished society.
Gioia adamantly asserted that he wasn’t suggesting all art should have a Christian influence, but rather, that while Christianity may be removed from the arts, the spiritual desires of the artist and of the audience can’t be removed. It is because of this removal of our Christian influence on the arts that Gioia believes the Church has limited the way in which it speaks to the world and has weakened its ability to have its call heard in the world.
“Look at our awkward, ill-conceived music, our pedestrian liturgy, and cookie-cutter churches, what type of intellectual or appreciator of the arts wants to come into our fold?” he said.
While Gioia paints a rather bleak situation, he firmly believes that we as Christians haven’t ceded too much.
“We live in a fallen world. And because of that, I rejoice in the possibility of redemption,” he said.
As a society we face many problems, problems that require complex and intricate solutions.
“History doesn’t solve problems. Culture doesn’t solve problems. Institutions don’t solve problems. People do.”
It is because of that belief that Gioia believes that Christian individuals, through the arts and literature, have the power to change the world.
He received quite the round of laughter when he said that a Christians hope of survival in the arts relied upon, “faith, hope, and … ingenuity,” and that he wasn’t a Calvinist because “faith alone can’t make a writer, not even with a little hope thrown in, you’ve got to have good works.”
The hope of reclaiming a Christian voice in the arts relied on a “mastery of the craft in secular terms, never forgetting identity in faith.”
Gioia ended by challenging the audience to return to reclaim what was once their tradition. This challenge was well received by Dr. David Lawrence, a professor of history at Lipscomb University.
“His words were incisive, something that all of us have been around to witness but never heard spoken in words and spoken so well,” he said. “It makes one wonder what God has in store for His Kingdom here on earth.”