Why Christians Care About Art and Beauty

Kasey Olander: 

Welcome to the Table Podcast, where we discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Kasey Olander. I'm the web content specialist here at the Hendricks Center, Dallas Theological Seminary, and today, I'm excited that you've joined us today for our conversation on art and beauty. The guests that are going to be joining us in this conversation, we have Dr. Brian Chan, who is Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Worship. Thanks for being here, Brian. 

 Brian Chan: 

Thanks for having me. 

Kasey Olander: 

And we also have Dr. Neil Coulter. He's senior writer and editor of DTS Magazine. Thanks for being here, Neil. 

Neil Coulter: 

Thank you, Kasey. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. I'm eager to jump into this conversation, since the three of us went to the Sundance Film Festival, and I feel like both of you have a lot to say about art and about beauty, and so I'm excited that our listeners get to hear from your expertise. 

So I feel like, in a sense, this conversation might be sort of difficult to have because we're using words, we're not really using visuals and a lot of the mediums that art usually uses, but we're trying to capture something that is not always verbal whenever we talk about art and beauty. So I'm interested to learn from you guys as we navigate this conversation. So why don't we start off with, Neil, I'll start with you, but how did you get interested in art and beauty? What is your experience with it? 

Neil Coulter: 

My background is music, and so I went to Wheaton College as a music major. And from Wheaton, went on to grad school in ethnomusicology. So I was learning how to do field work and ethnography, how to work with communities that maybe haven't gotten as much notice from musicology. And from there, my wife and I joined Wycliffe Bible translators and ended up spending 12 years in Papua New Guinea in the Pacific where I was in ethnomusicology and arts consultant. 

So we spent a few years living in a remote village, and then the remainder of the time I have went out to various locations and worked with communities and churches to create new songs using their own languages, their own musical styles and instruments. In some cases, this was the first time they had put their own artwork to use for Christian and worship purposes. So that was our role for 12 years. And then we came back to the US where I teach at a couple of schools and work at DTS. 

Kasey Olander: 

That's awesome. 

 Brian Chan: 

I'll add for Dr. Coulter too, as part of his background, he's the adjunct professor for a Christian View of Art. So very pertinent, the 

Kasey Olander: 

Perfect person to talk to about having a Christian view of art. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that you're helping people and not just learn worship songs that you knew, but helping them to create their own art. 

Neil Coulter: 

Yeah, it was a way of getting people engaged with scripture. That was, in many cases, in the process of being translated. And so, to help people understand what is the Scripture for, what do we do when we get the New Testament to the Bible, A way into that was songwriting and drama and storytelling, and artwork of all kinds. 

Kasey Olander: 

Gosh, that's awesome. What about you, Brian? 

 Brian Chan: 

What was the question again? 

Kasey Olander: 

I'm sorry. What is your interest in art? What's your experience with it? 

 Brian Chan: 

Oh, yes. So I've been a visual artist for many years, and been an exhibiting fine artist. And was in Hollywood for 18 of those years, just working with actors and artists, as well as exhibiting at that time. And I really discovered my love for biblical beauty from here at DTS when I was a student and when I did my thesis on the beauty of God and art and worship. 

And I discovered that through being a historical theology concentration where looking at the heritage, the history of our faith, so much of art was interwoven with our faith and how we understood things theologically. And then diving into the exposition of scripture and seeing how much scripture actually uses a lot of art and aesthetics and that just set my heart on fire for it. And it blended in so well with me as a visual artist, me as a writer, and even as I was a fight trainer in Hollywood as a certified Kung Fu instructor. And even just seeing beauty in fight choreography and in Kung fu. So I think that the art and beauty side really has many dimensions for me. 

Kasey Olander: 

That is really cool because that's not something that people normally think about in martial arts as a form of beauty and art. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. So is it fair to say, we've used the word art, but is it fair to encompass film and theater? And you mentioned music and visual art in addition to, is that fair to use that term broadly? 

Neil Coulter: 

I think so. When I think about art, I think more of arts plural, which encompasses so much. Even just oral verbal arts, storytelling, proverbs, joke telling, puns, things like that. It's all this creative expression that is doing something more than just conveying a direct meaning, but it's being more playful about it. So when I say art, I'm thinking not just of paintings in the museum, but really the whole spectrum of what humans might do creatively. What do you think, Brian? 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah, that's good. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah, I agree. I would think of the term, the phrasing, the art and aesthetics. And I think in the scriptures we see that expands the smell, even, like perfume making. And so when it comes to the aesthetics as a focus on all of our sensories, how do the aesthetics, the arts, appeal to all of our sensories in order to connect with our minds, our mental sensory as well, too. So yeah, I agree with that. 

Kasey Olander: 

That is really fascinating that already this has so much more layers to it than people just think of sometimes just painting as art or something like that. But it's so much more broad than that. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yes. 

Kasey Olander: 

And I love that you brought up humor. I feel like I have to go home and think about that humor as art. It's funny, we actually have an episode called Taking Humor Seriously. So thank you for plugging theTable Podcast. 

Neil Coulter: 

And I think that word art, the word, for us, means the whole concept of all those things, either visual art or the whole spectrum of arts. And that word as a concept is actually historically not nearly as old as I think a lot of people would assume that hundreds of years ago people didn't necessarily have this category in their minds for art as a separate profession, as a separate thing to do. And in other cultures around the world today, what we would look at and say is art or artistry might be functional, it might be ritual function, it might be nothing that… Because that category doesn't exist. And so we are in this moment, culturally and historically, where we say the word art and it draws in all these other connections, all these other things, but it changes throughout time and from different places. 

 Brian Chan: 

Even looking older civilizations, art was used to tell history, art was a means of learning, and it was a pedagogical means as well. And there was no separation between really the functional and the aesthetic. They were blended together, which I think in no surprise why we would find so much art and aesthetics blended in with faith in theology as well, too. Art can be a means, a way of connecting with reality. 

Kasey Olander: 

That is really helpful. A lot of times we have this false dichotomy of what's productive and what's artsy as though they're antithetical to each other when historically that hasn't been the case. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah. I think you really see that development during the modern age, that dichotomy that's split happening during the modern age. 

Kasey Olander: 

That's fascinating. Well, in light of all that, Brian, how would you say it? What's beauty? 

 Brian Chan: 

What is beauty? Well, I think in many discussions nowadays, beauty oftentimes is relegated to a subjective definition or relative definition. I think a biblical view of beauty introduces us to an objective view of what it is. And that objectivity is first defined by God who created beauty, and it's based on his subjectivity, the subjectivity of what pleases him or reflects his character, the subjectivity of his words and his works. And so, we have an objective canon of beauty that is bound in the subjectivity of who God is, which is fascinating to me because that means that when we discover what is beautiful and aesthetically pleasing or convicting, it centers and revolves around an individual a being. And so you can't get away from experiencing the cosmos and not seeing that the cosmos revolves around the heart of a divine being. 

Kasey Olander: 

That's interesting. So you're saying that it's related to who God is. 

 Brian Chan: 

It's related to who God is. Yeah. Who God is in terms of his character, his nature, his works, his words, and his will. 

Kasey Olander: 

Can you flesh out the idea of objective beauty then? Is that what you're talking about? 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah. Objective beauty would be something that is an absolute. It is a definition of something that does not change from person to person. It is something that exists in reality. I see it as similar to gravity. And for a long period of time and a part of the heritage of our faith, and even for the ancient Greeks, there was this understanding of a canon of beauty. And it's only more in recent modern era into the postmodern era that that sense of a canon of beauty was really lost in our everyday culture. And yet it's something that is built into people still. 

So if you ask people what is beauty, they may start off with well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and beauty is subjective, and the more they talk, they start stating things that are common usually to nature, and they start stating things that reflect balance, harmony, symmetry, order. And there are certain things wired into us where we think of what we think of as beautiful, and I think that's part of both a reality God created in the cosmos, as well as how he created us in his image to be able to resonate with what he placed in the cosmos. Does that make sense? Those two things match. The reality of beauty in the universe and people made in His image are able to sense what that beauty is. 

Kasey Olander: 

That's fascinating. So what is this canon of beauty that you're saying that we've lost? Is it that what you're talking about? 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah. So a basic canon of beauty would say that beauty involves order, unity, harmony, symmetry, balance, and all of that is to produce two things, two qualities, which is a flourishing and goodness. So if you think of the opposite, it is not too hard to realize, okay, that is a canon. Because when you think of the opposite, we don't really want that. We don't want chaos that is destructive to life. We don't want the lack of flourishing or the lack of goodness or fragmentation. We don't want imbalance. 

So you hear people talk about, I'm trying to achieve balance. I'm trying to find harmony, whether they're looking for beauty in life in their soul to experience beauty in their minds. So when you look at art, for instance, like let's say a visual art, but we have the rule of thirds, we have horizon lines, vanishing points, and we talk about composition and contours and shapes, and all of that is forming a sense of order. 

Otherwise, they're random paints, and we're bringing random paints together to create something. There's a sense of order, something that's coming together in unity, and that can be broken down even further into understanding what all that means in terms of proportion, how things are in proportion to each other. Then you add the theological element into it, which is the basis of it. And this is where God comes in, is that all of that stems from who God is. God created something out of the mess, the formlessness and emptiness and created the universe in six days. There's order. There is composition. There is symmetry, there is the expanse above and the expanse below. There are the sea creatures teaming in the seas as well as the creatures flying in the air. There's constant symmetry and balance. There's man and there's a woman. 

And then the world was created to be blessed, to flourish, to be full, to be good, and that's what He called it repeatedly. Good, good. And the Hebrew term for that has a semantic connotation of delightful, pleasing, pleasurable. And when you think about this is the subjective, and I'll stop here. When you think about when He declared good, this is before He created people. So the only person in reference to who He's referring to in terms of who it's delighting and who is pleasing to was Himself, that's why beauty is first and foremost subjective to God. But because He's creator, what is subjectively beautiful to Him is objective rule for the rest of us. 

Kasey Olander: 

Wow, that's fascinating. You think about, people who don't have training in art and don't know that there's principles, and it's not just haphazard, but that there are certain things that you follow and- 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah. A way to understand it. And we experience it though. We experience it all the time. We experience balance in story. We experience balance in the way we dress. We experience balance in relationships, harmony, order, all of that. When you stick a group of people together, they start forming societies and civilization and unity and order is what we progress and tend towards. That's the natural goal orientedness of our human nature. 

Kasey Olander: 

And that's one of the universal human longings that doesn't always get addressed. People think about everybody wants to be loved, but beauty, I don't know that we always articulate as something that we're searching for. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Kasey Olander: 

Neil, anything to add to that? 

Neil Coulter: 

Yeah, I just think it's interesting what you were just saying about how we pursue beauty or strive for beauty. If somebody comes to you and says, my life is a pursuit of goodness, no questions asked, of course. My life is a pursuit of truth. Perfect. 

Kasey Olander: 

Good for you. 

Neil Coulter: 

My life is a pursuit of beauty. Well, suddenly a lot of Christians say, wait a minute, that's a conversation. What do you mean by that? And yet, what Brian is saying is if we believe in a world that is founded upon a loving God who continues to be involved and loves His creation, then pursuing beauty is not a frivolous or flippant lifestyle. It's actually pursuing the truth of the world of how God made us to appreciate His creation. So it's just interesting. And I think beauty is, it confronts us. It makes demands of us. 

So I think part of coming to beauty and contemplating artistry in this case as we're talking about, it's something that pushes us to become a different sort of person. And I think beauty can be a little risky because of how it might clash with your worldview. So having a worldview of created by God, when you see the beautiful in the world, it pushes you to be closer to God, to be a different person. Without that worldview, beauty can maybe push you away, push you to something else. So it's always a relationship as so much of what God does and says before us is not just for us as individuals, but it's a relationship to draw us into something more. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah. A couple of things there that Dr. Coulter said is so important. I'm so glad that Neil, that you pointed out the element of truth, and that's part of the classical canon of beauty is I don't have truth. And just as one example, Plato wrote in The Republic that people don't desire lies, they desire truth. 

And one of the basic understandings of truth is that truth leads to flourishing, which is what beauty does. And if that's the case, then when you encounter genuine beauty, it is also a discovery of what's true. It's epistemological at the same time. So there's so much value in beauty, and I love the last thing that Neil said there, which was that it pushes us to be better. I think, going back to there was something that Neil said, referring to a good and loving God. The fact that there is beauty in the world and the fact that people resonate with beauty is a testament that there's a good and loving God because it pushes us to be better. It pushes us to seek for more, and we are beings who can be inspired to have greater vision and seek for more, rather than just be a blob mass and just kind of a lump, just feed me and I'm enough. But there's so much more to us and we realize there's so much more because we do sense beauty. 

Kasey Olander: 

In the same way that objective morality, we all have a sense of right and wrong. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yes. Yes. And that would fall in line as well too, where if there were vices, immoral, unethical conduct or conditions, traits that lead to a lack of flourishing, well, classically we would say that's not beautiful. Aristotle would say that's not beautiful, nor would the scriptures. And so, there's a connection between the virtues that lead to greater flourishing in life and the fruits of the spirit. And this idea of fruits being something very visible and aesthetically wonderful and pleasing. I was just talking about an orange tree today. You don't notice a tree that's an orange tree until the oranges start coming out on it, right? And then that's when you see, wow, look at those oranges on there. 

Kasey Olander: 

Right. Yeah. I feel like y'all are highlighting some really important things. We usually think of beauty as this, what a shallow pursuit, if that's your life's end. But you're talking about so much more depth and richness to it in pursuing beauty, right? 

Neil Coulter: 

Yeah. So it's not beauty as this outside of ourselves standard. You look at a landscape or a person or a vocal tanbur that you hear or a taste in a dish, it's not like you look at that and just almost outside of yourself. It's good or bad. It's a critique. But it's an invitation to more of a relationship with the world around you with the people who created and produced these things. And I think looking at artistry and thinking about beauty, it's a way that we kind of test ourselves to see what do we really believe? What are our ideals? And every time we come against, we come to an encounter with a work of art. It's not just applying a standard to it and saying, well, this is six out of 10, or this is four stars. 

But it's about how am I engaging with this and how does my engagement with whatever this is, relate to my most deeply held beliefs? And so in that way, it's this active. It's not just a static and sterile process of here's beauty, here's me, here's my opinion about it. Now I move on to the next thing. But it's a really relational and it should draw us together as people, as we engage with all of this together and just figure out who we are and ask ourselves questions all the time. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. How do you help people to cultivate that sort of attitude? If our default is to go from like, okay, I like this or I don't like this. How do you help people along this journey of engaging better with art and beauty? 

Neil Coulter: 

Oh, that's a great question. I think the first thing for me that I would advise is when you encounter a song or a film or a painting, you spend time with it and you don't go in thinking you know already what you're going to think about it afterwards. I think a lot of times we go into a movie or a church service even and before we even go through the door, we pretty much know what we're going to think about it. And we go through the process so that we can verify that yes, I was right. I did think about that. 

Kasey Olander: 

Confirmation bias. 

Neil Coulter: 

So I think patience first and just spending time with it. We were all at Sundance Film Festival last month, and while there we saw a lot of really interesting films, particularly the feature length documentaries were really intriguing. When we got to know some of the filmmakers behind those movies, we heard things like a filmmaker saying, "I started making this documentary eight years ago." Or I remember another filmmaker saying, "We filmed in this location for 250 days." And when you hear that, you suddenly realize, who am I to spend an hour and a half with this movie and say, eh, that's not my favorite. What's next on the schedule? 

But I need to first of all say, this is a gift. Thank you. It doesn't matter, liking or not liking right away, because this is the product of somebody's real heart motivated, passionate, enthusiasm for something. And so my first question, encountering artwork is not, do I like it or do I not like it, but it's what sort of gift is this that I'm receiving? Why was this important enough for somebody to spend years of their life doing? And then, that's the conversation that starts. And so it's not a quick response of like or not like, but it's what sort of process, what sort of gift am I receiving here? 

Kasey Olander: 

And that's a really key principle to apply when you're listening to people too, not just coming to evaluate what they're about to say, and then that's it. But coming to a deeper encounter of being patient, of listening first, and then before you can even move to evaluating, do I agree or disagree with them. 

Neil Coulter: 

And when people are making things, making any sort of artistry, that is a space in which people can tend to ask their deepest questions, and they play around with what the answers might be. And so we might disagree with what the answers are in that instance, but the questions are likely to be the questions we all ask. We all want to know what's the good life? What's the abundant life? What does it mean to live well? What do all of these things mean to us? And so, that's the entry point. You say, what are the questions this filmmaker or this artist or this singer is asking? And how are they finding their way through the answers? 

Kasey Olander: 

And there's a sense of vulnerability from the artist. They're presenting something to you that you can then engage with and realizing that they put themselves in a vulnerable position, then you can honor them with the way that you engage with it. Yeah. How about you? 

 Brian Chan: 

I think that how we engage with the beauty of the art has to do with conversation and contemplation. Something that we actually have. We have to create space for. And I think a society oftentimes will try to create space for that. So a movie theater is designed so that you focus just on the screen, all the lights go off. Have you ever been in a movie theater before where they forget to turn off the lights? That's happened to me before in the dollar theater. You cannot focus on the screen. And that's one of the reasons why you want to go to the theater versus just watching your home. Even at home, my son, when his movie night, he wants all the lights turned off, even the lights upstairs. That little bit of light up there is so that you can focus on the screen. It's creating contemplative space. 

And Craig Detweiler writes about this in his book Into the Dark, so making a plug for Craig Detweiler. And that book was based on his dissertation, I believe, where what happens when you enter into a dark theater, you create a contemplative space. And in that contemplative space, you allow for your mind to sink in to the work of art, whether it be a film or story. A lot of people, they love having that one spot they sit in to read their book, where it's quiet. And whereas that coffee shop where it's that corner spot, that chair. Same with art. The galleries were designed so that you would actually pause in front of a painting and look at it comparatively to business offices where they hang up pictures on hallways. You're not meant to stop, you're walking past. So those are the two contrasts of type of spaces we run into in society. 

Is it decorative where we're meant to just pass by it? And decorative is okay, we need that too, or is it you're meant to engage with it further, so there's contemplative space for it? And so society I think sets up some of those spaces. I think then we have to look at our own lives. How do we either engage in the spaces that society sets up already or how do we create some of those spaces in our own lives? And it's John Dewey who said that's the killer, I'm paraphrasing, he didn't use the word killer, but he said, "The killer of creativity is really the mundane, the humdrum." It's the constant movement of life, the busyness of life we got to do, do, do. Where society is creating space to remind us, come to the theater, go to the gallery, come to the park, the arboretum, where you can just sit and contemplate and engage. 

And that's one of the things I think Aquinas says is such a value of art and beauty is that level of contemplation. Because as Dr. Coulter said, a conversation has begun between an artist presenting an artwork, which is the medium for that conversation. Then the audience comes to the table, the table for that conversation. And if that is true, and you think of God as the artist, and you look at the universe as His artwork, well, He's put something on the table constantly for us to engage, to contemplate. And the mental busy space of life can detach us from what is already there that beckons us to contemplate and converse. 

Kasey Olander: 

Right. Yeah. The heavens declare the glory of God, and we can see His eternal power and define nature. He's invited us into a conversation just by virtue of the fact that we live in this world He created. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah. Yeah. And when you look at the description of the tabernacle, There's constant contemplative spaces where you're just at the altar burnt offering. Now you're at the wash basin, and there's movement through that, but it's contemplative space. There's no distractions around. There's not like things you got to do. It's focused. And then all the aesthetic elements that come in. Everything from the visual to the kinesthetic to the smell. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. And that sort of goes back to the order that you were talking about earlier. It's not haphazard and random, but creating space is intentional. 

 Brian Chan: 

It's intentional. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. Anything to add to that? 

Neil Coulter: 

Yeah. Oh, I just love what Brian was saying because I think that's one of the things that the arts can do for us is they frame things so that we know to take time to give some intentional contemplation. So a song takes time, which is just this thing. Time is continually progressing. And a song says, now, I want you to make this three and a half minutes a specific space that you're going to focus on this one thing. So out of all the time that's progressing around us, now we have a focus for that three and a half minutes or whatever it is for the song. And a painting. It's a painting in the studio, but then you frame it and you hang it in a distinctive place on the gallery wall, and it is literally framed. Or the arboretum, it's nature, and yet it is bounded to tell us, no, take a minute. Don't just walk. Take a minute and think about what this is like. 

And I think we see that a lot through the scriptures and through traditions or history, that there are all these ways that God has created everything and then found ways to help us say, okay, here's a boundary. Here's the tabernacle. Here's where I will meet you here. I'm everywhere. This is my creation, but I'm going to bound this space and here's where we're really going to have some special time. And art does that. And as we lose art and the arts in public education, we lose that specific way. You just take a part of your day and say, this time is going to feel different, but you're going to do something different with your hands and with your whole body at this time. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah, it's good for your soul. And going off of songs and contemplative space, I'm glad when you mentioned that, I thought of how many of us like to sing in the car? We just go at it singing in the car or in the shower. Come on folks. Admit it. And I remember once I had a stoplight and I look over to my side and I see this lady, she's belting it out in her car, and it's like, you think no one sees you, but it's that bound space. You're in your own little space that it's contemplative for you. And I realize as I'm watching her lips move, it is the same station that I'm listening to on my radio. But the shower is the same way, too. It is like bound space. You're not checking emails, but it's contemplative. And I think it goes to show that we seek it. Our souls need it. We need that contemplative space that engages with something artistic like music. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. You're mentioning our souls. And I think also along with that, you guys have said a lot of things about our bodies. That we're embodied humans. You're talking about all of the senses things we feel, things we… I don't need to list them all, but you're talking about us as humans that we're embodied creatures, too. I think a lot of times as Christians, we sort of shrug that off and don't really prioritize the fact that we are embodied. But a lot of times, I think the way to get through to our soul sometimes is by starting with our body and sometimes having postures and the way that we pray, or there are different rituals that we do at church or whatever, we taste something in the Lord's Supper and we hold it in our hands. And so that's a really interesting thing that you guys are highlighting. It's not like the sensual things are flippant or shallow, but they're really rich and filled with meaning. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah, the physical is important. I think art and aesthetics validate that. That God created the physical as well as the spiritual. And that's really the first way we engage with art and beauty is physically. We see it, we smell it, we taste it. And through that, it activates our mind's eye to be able to perceive things that are invisible. And that's Romans 1:19 and 20. It's through the physical things that are symbolic, iconic to us that allows our mind's eye to perceive the invisible reality. 

Kasey Olander: 

Right. 

Neil Coulter: 

Yeah. I think that's one of the big challenges of AI is that's the question. Are we anything more than just a consciousness that happens to ride around in a body, but the body's not important? So AI would say, there are tech companies working on AI who really believe we can make the brain, we can make an AI brain, and the body was never that important. If you have a brain that's technological, it will never die. So we've overcome death. So they would say. And I think that's one of the big questions for us as Christians, is how can we fight against that and push against that and say, "No, we were created body and soul, the mind, heart, and God wants us to use all of that." So obviously, as with everything in creation, you can use and misuse things, but the body is extraordinarily important. 

And the artistry allows us to do things only because our physical bodies can do things. So there's an ethnomusicologist I like, Charles Kyle, who comes at this not from a Christian theological point of view, but he feels that what we enjoy in music is actually the small imperfections when we play music together. So he says, "We have this ideal that we want to be perfect in time, in sync, all lined up." And he believes, and I agree with him, that what makes music, and maybe other arts really engaging for us, is that it's not ever quite perfect, but that's what generates the energy. So visual art maybe is the same way. The painting is not perfect, whatever that means, but it's the way the paint dripped, and you didn't control that. But now it's part of it, and it's the way you sing in a choir and it's good. But it's the energy of the imperfections, tiny imperfections. And that's the physical getting involved that we can't do it perfect. But that's actually where the joy comes from in a lot of ways. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yup. I totally agree. Yeah. I think the discussions of AI is pushing some of these questions to the surface, and I don't know if it's yet really being asked in terms of what does it mean to be human? So when we're considering art, beauty, and creativity, well, it's part of being human. And for us to make things, even if we make it a hundred times slower than an AI generator, but it's part of being human, us interacting with the physical, us generating ideas and wrestling with how do we put this together to create an expression that comes from our souls in order to engage in conversation with others. But we also live in a culture that wants to be fast-paced. It's about final product and money and what's quickest and most efficient, where this is where pragmatism, the danger, it takes over. And there's a dehumanization that I think that we ought to be careful about. 

It's not just about the efficiency and the final outcome. It is about what does it mean to validate us as being human and the way we engage with each other as humans. If I create an art piece, I can either keep it in my closet or when I show it's with the intention that you will see it, and I'd love to hear from you about it. You know what I mean? 

And as part of the process, the conversation, what was your inspiration behind creating this? How did you make it? And in my engagement with the materials and the emotional process, I went through, all the hours put into creating an art piece. That's all part of being human. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. So what then is the relationship, because you highlighted expression, and I think there's a lot of value in self-expression, and then also you talked about art being witnessed by people. You have an exhibit, you want people to come and engage with you. So what is the relationship between those two, I guess, is one or the other more important as you're creating art? 

 Brian Chan: 

Between a relationship between people- 

Kasey Olander: 

Expression and witnessing? So are you like- 

 Brian Chan: 

Oh, I see. 

Kasey Olander: 

I'm sure that you created some things, it's just for your self-expression and probably nobody sees it, that kind of thing. But then also there's some pieces that you want other people to witness and engage with. 

 Brian Chan: 

Well, that is a really interesting question, and there are a lot of discussions on this and theories, it's a spectrum, a spectrum of do you create art to communicate something to the audience? Almost like for audience sake or the other extreme of the spectrum, do you create art purely as self-expression, without much regard for how the audience may or may not perceive it? And I think that, having spoken with a lot of other fellow artists as well too, sometimes we go to the other side of audience sake because, well, you need money. You need to sell it. 

Kasey Olander: 

Pragmatic. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah, it's very pragmatic. But you see a lot of fine art where it's artists that create art as self-expression, and they die very poor, and it doesn't become popular until after they're postmortem. And I find for myself, I think that I create mostly out of my own contemplation of whatever it is I'm contemplating on and self-expression. And there's a part of it where it's because I don't have to sell art as a means for livelihood. But the one thing I keep in mind is context. So I think most artists keep in mind the context they're in, but a lot of artists also keep in mind the context they're in, but choose to create art on the fringe of social conventions. Does that make sense? 

Kasey Olander: 

Like Kind of edgy? 

 Brian Chan: 

Edgy, avant-garde, because if you're trying to speak into society, but maybe you're trying to speak into in a way that is not a popular message. It is not the mainstream of what everyone thinks and sees, but so you want your art to provoke in that way. And for myself though, a lot of it is really just my own journey, where I'm at and how the Holy Spirit leads me and how I'm inspired in the word. And it seems to work out pretty well that way just for me operating in that way as an artist. 

Kasey Olander: 

Sure. So for you, it depends, piece to piece, as to whether it's just for your own self-expression or if it's for other people to see, also. 

 Brian Chan: 

And all of my work that I create, inevitably, I think 99% of it is exhibited. There's very little that would never be exhibited. So it's all exhibited. There's a theory that says when an artist exhibits a body of work, you're getting to know the worldview and the heart of that artist. And that's how I come at it. Not necessarily to sell the piece as much as here's my world, you're welcome to step into it. 

Kasey Olander: 

And especially for you as a believer, I think that that's huge. How has that been? What has your experience been with that as you, as a Christian, are in these artistic spaces, like engaging with non-believers? 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah. Most of my artist friends are not Christian and I love them dearly, very talented people. And generally, I'm perceived as, my work is perceived as spiritual, and there's always a spiritual element, which they seem to love and appreciate because they see and feel the depth that's in it, and it creates conversation. And oftentimes, it's not one piece that communicates, it's the body of work. It's like what Francis Schaeffer's son says. "You get to know an artist's heart and his world or her world through the body of work, a lifetime of work." And so when they've seen enough of my pieces exhibit after exhibit, it begins to build a story, a narrative, for them about me and vice versa. I get to know them too through their artwork, and the conversation is very fruitful and wonderful in that way. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. That reminds me of how we get to know God. We get to know him through His revelation, whether His word through Christ and through obviously the creation that He's made. 

Neil Coulter: 

And I love, it's the relationship again. So people are getting to know your heart through seeing your art over the years, but every time they come to one of your paintings, they're also processing it based, bringing all of their background to this. And so you're getting to know yourself as you look at another artist that you're getting to know. So it's all this, it's not just a person staring at a painting. It's all this communication and community happening. 

 Brian Chan: 

Yeah, yeah. So I enjoy that part of it. Artists talk about authenticity of a piece where it is genuine and it's authentic. And I think for the most part, an audience loves authenticity. They want to see not you creating what they want to see or hear, but you creating something that's dear and true to your own soul. 

Kasey Olander: 

Which goes back to the truth that you were talking about earlier. Nobody's seeking for lies. People really value truth and genuine connection. 

 Brian Chan: 

Exactly. The authenticity. And Steve Turner says, "To answer the question of how do Christians create Christian art, so to speak, it's well, when you are walking with Jesus enough and your faith is very incarnational, you can't really separate the art from the faith." So I don't really think much about how do I make my piece a witness. If I'm genuine, authentic, in my own faith and in my creations, then it would be naturally a witness. 

Kasey Olander: 

Which is really helpful, too, because it's taking down this sacred secular divide, like my church life is separate from the rest of my life or something like that. You're an integrated person, your body and soul, you're a whole person who follows Jesus. And so that makes sense that your art is just the same way. That it overflows. Anything to add to that, Neil? 

Neil Coulter: 

Oh, no. That's great. I'm loving listening to Brian talk. 

Kasey Olander: 

I know. 

 Brian Chan: 

Likewise. 

Kasey Olander: 

So what would y'all say? What role can art and beauty have in our spiritual formation? 

Neil Coulter: 

I think a lot of what we've said leading up to this, it provides an intentional space that we don't have to take, but we can take the time and the space to really contemplate our beliefs, how we see the world, how we see God at work in the world. Artwork just creates this extra space in life that is not work. And it's not all the things you have to do at the house. It's not all of those things every day. It's this little space maybe on the commute when you're listening to a song or maybe when you stop in at the museum and look at the gallery and look at some paintings. But I think it has a lot to do with forcing us to look at ourselves and how we encounter the world. And therefore, what kind of a God are we thinking of as we relate to Him, and how does He want to speak to us through these little moments of one film or an album or whatever it is. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. So it's not this passive engagement, but it's growing in self-awareness and God awareness as we are engaging with this, whatever the piece may be. 

Neil Coulter: 

Oh, I think, ideally, working with artwork and engaging with artwork is always active. It's never just something that's coming into my eyes or into my ears, and that's as far as it goes. But it's that back and forth, even when it's a sculpture or a painting that doesn't talk back to me. But there is, I'm part of a community of people thinking about it, asking those questions, looking at answers, and it draws me in to a contemplation and hopefully a prayer of what am I doing in the world? Who am I and what is God speaking to me? 

 Brian Chan: 

I would probably just, my response will be a compliment to what Neil just shared there. I'll probably just boil my answer to one word for each. Art and beauty. Art I think can help with our spiritual formation because it's a way of knowing. 

Kasey Olander: 

Knowing. 

 Brian Chan: 

And that's one of the understandings of iconography. It's a way of knowing whether it's knowing something that's invisible or awareness. As Dr. Coulter mentioned and enlightenment. For one example, I had curated an art event in Burbank a couple years ago, and it was to address depression. And I brought in 12 artists. The first five artists only created works to exhibit depression addressing the depression. The other seven artists addressed hope, but the first five could not deal with anything with hope. 

And so when the audience start to come in, we had 260 people that attended this exhibit. And when they came in, they would first engage the first five artists, and they would spend so much time standing in front of this looking at it contemplative space for them. And in conversation with them, they would say, it put language that were not words to what it meant to be depressed, how they felt or how they knew a loved one felt. What space, what state of mind they were in because I remember this one artist, she's a comic artist, so she did these graphic comic artworks, and they were just fantastic. It portrayed isolation. But because it did that, it opened them up the audience to progress on towards what does it mean to now to receive hope. They identified first, the pain, the brokenness, gave words and language. So it's a way of knowing. 

For beauty, I may sum it up just to what Augustine and Jonathan Edwards writes, "That if there's one effect that beauty can have upon us is to evoke in us love." And that is the greatest drive for any spiritual formation, because what you will do for someone you love, the change that you're willing to make in your life, the restraint you're willing to, and self-control you're willing to implement in yourself because of someone you love, the pursuits you have and the choices you make revolve around love. 

Jonathan Edwards says, "People are driven by something. It could be anger, it could be hate, it could be selfishness, jealousy. But the greatest drive ever is love." And I think that's seen in marriage, I think is seen from a parent to a child, what we would not normally do unless we were doing it for a child or doing it for a spouse. And to think if we discovered the beauty of God, what we would do for God, the greatest spiritual formation motivation ever is the first and greatest commandment. To love your Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. 

And if we perceive God's beauty that may be communicated to us through His works and creations through people, even through aspects of culture, and we get glimpses of His beauty, and we are able to grasp that, how much that may inspire our hearts, woo us, convict us to give up that sin, to stop that habit, to love your wife better, to be a better man, because you love God so much to make that sacrifice. 

Kasey Olander: 

Which is like Neil was talking about earlier, that we're being transformed into better people. 

Neil Coulter: 

Art can break your heart. It can thrill your heart. It can convict your heart. If you enter that space and say, I'm willing to take a hard look at myself and the world around me, the artist who did this for me, the community of people that are thinking about it, all those relationships can just really be transforming. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. And as we talk about the fact that we're embodied humans, obviously we can't forget the incarnation that Jesus himself came and would've had these tastes and smells and visuals and things that he would've experienced, too. And as you're talking about that, art and beauty can build love and empathy and help us to connect with the artists, but also to connect with other people around us and transform us into better people. So Christians care about art and beauty because it helps us to more fully realize who we are as humans, and also to connect with God in a way that is rich and meaningful and stirs our affections for Him. And we're not just brains on a stick, but we're embodied souls who are able to, I think that's a quote from James K. Smith. 

 Brian Chan: 

That's pretty clever. 

Kasey Olander: 

It wasn't me. 

Neil Coulter: 

Well, it's like Brian pointed out, when God created where we read in Genesis, he was delightful. He was delighted. And do we go through our days sometimes in just everyday drudgery and not looking around at colors and fragrances and the way people look. And art maybe could motivate us to really just delight and be excited about the creation as God is. 

Kasey Olander: 

Right. And all of these things are evidence of God's grace to us. Everyone can enjoy this, and hopefully it draws our hearts back to Him as we think about art and beauty more and more. So I hope that for you listening, that you've gotten a chance to think a little more deeply about art and beauty and that you're able to reflect on it and to engage with art and beauty whenever you encounter it in your life. 

So Brian and Neil, thank you all so much for joining us today. 

 Brian Chan: 

Thank you. 

Neil Coulter: 

Thank you, Kasey. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah, it's been an excellent conversation. Really appreciate you guys and your wisdom. And I also want to thank you guys for listening, too. If you haven't already done so, we ask that you, if you like our show, leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast app. And thanks for joining us. We hope that you tune in next time when we discuss issues of God and culture.