Theological Presuppositions
Wild Grace publishes tools which offer the celebration of grace as experienced by human beings, and which are designed to encourage congregational participation in the arts as worship.
A Brief History and Justification for the Arts as Worship
Considering the fact that humankind's most ancient interface with the Creator was through the arts, we had best not try fill this space and test our reader's attention with the detail of the journey that brought us all to this place. But an abbreviated version finds that art as participatory worship precedes the more modern and more familiar justifications for art -- like art of art sake, or art for income, or art for fame etc. Even the ancient biblical story of the casting of Aaron's golden bull in the story of the Exodus defines art as object rather than as the creative experience.
However, sleeping deeply in the heaving and sighing of the common era lies a particular perspective on the experience of arts as worship which needs to be mentioned. Mark's simple statement, "Jesus was a carpenter" is a glipse of this. Of course Jesus was a carpenter, because carpentry was Joseph's trade, and we know that oldest sons learned the work of their fathers. The other gospels say, Joseph was a carpenter. Why would that which was believed the first of the synoptics say, "Jesus was a carpenter" when it is not even in a passage about his father? Why mention it? Why remember it for two thousand years of measuring and translating each word?
To be a carpenter in a land of rocks and sand, where olive trees grow for 1000 years, and large fast crops of yellow pine were unknown, would be to work with precious material with detail, and fine lines and finishes. Perhaps a carpenter would build a boat, or chariot, but in the period of Jesus' employment the building frenzy was about providing each village and town with a synagogue. The hands of Jesus, then, which we may picture as pierced with nails, were hands that held the tools to bring the carvings of the faith story, and the creative beauty beyond the Jerusalem Temple, to the people living in the outlying lands, like Galilee, for example.So beneath the surface of the stories and parables is an artist's experience, but not an artist's collection of work.
And then the words that are collected as Jesus' teachings follow this same pattern. Jesus gifted us with stories that become more meaningful as we play the parts in them, and as we experience them into our lives.
Underlying the entire series of gospels and epistles we call the New Testament is a participatory artistic style. We are invited to retell the stories, to become the father welcoming home to prodigal, to arrange the platter with grapes and bread as a symbol, a moment of recollection through the artistic experience.
The Christian history includes the 2000 years of history of the arts. Most often, in Christian history, the arts are treated as objects rather than experience. In some periods the arts were objects for the wealthy, and were purchased with unsavory means like the sale of indulgences for example. In other periods the arts were objectified and classified as evils, and even the music and poetry of faith went underground.
Art as Worship
It is the position of this publisher that the creative experience through participation in the arts is an intimate experience with the Creator, and is thus, worship. If that produces a wood carving, a musical masterpiece, a great play, or whatever, that outcome is simply a by-product of the creative worship experience. The end product is not the theological reason for doing art.
Because God's grace is pervasive, and well beyond human manipulation, it turns out that this by-product of one person's experiential worship can become inspirational for other worshippers. So, through the arts we are networked together, sharing a common experience of worship. The beautiful solo lifts both the singer and the hearer. But, from the viewpoint of this publisher, the intention of worship was by the singer.
So what difference does that make? The materials that are available through Wild Grace are tools for the actors and the director, the artists and musicians to use in their own experiences of worship. It is our hope and expectation that directors and committees producing these works realize the value in doing the project, and do look just to the end performance for an audience response.
This theology of participation is complete at each rehearsal, and does not need an audience for justification. If worship is experienced in the performance, it is simply a gracious gift from God, and not the product of a playwright or an acting troupe.
