the wisdom of the Holy Spirit

i'm stealing ideas for this entry directly from a different (but certainly related) discussion on gideon strauss' blog because it applies to my cornerstone post from earlier in the week.

calvin seerveld, in his book rainbows for the fallen world (which, i'm somewhat ashamed to admit, i have not read fully--yet), gives five directives to christian artists.

the first is as follows:

First, for those who want to be christian artists, that is, musicians, painters, poets, novelists, graphic designers, dramatists, cinematographers, distinguished in their artistry by the holy spirit of compassionate judgment proclaiming the Rule of Jesus Christ: (1) Become filled with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. Unless one's vision is full-orbed and one's discernment of what God wants done is sure, one will be weak in artistic leadership and uncertain in testing the spirit of the art facing you and your neighbour. One's roots have to be deep in Jesus Christ and one's sensitivity to creation has to be uncommonly rich, if you mean to be vitally redemptive in doing anything with christian identity in this secular age. Christian artistry cannot be done by formula - choose these topics, refrain from that, add a prayer, and give a double tithe of the proceeds - no! It will take a prayer and fasting habit to exorcise secularism from our artistic deed (cf. Matthew 17: 14-21); so, like making a vow, one has to decide whether to suffer such a level of commitment (cf. Ecclesiastes 5: 1-7, Philippians 1: 27-30), and then plead with the Lord to use oneself for establishing his Rule. Without the working presence of the Holy Spirit in the product of our hands, mouth, feet or body, the "christian art" will be a sham, in vain. Unless the river bed of our consciousness is as deep as the living Spirit of God, no matter how fast the water flows or sparkling it seems, it is christianly shallow.

i think i'll be spending some more time with seerveld's work over the next six months; he has spent more time than most working with the responsibilities of christian artists and i'm sure his insights would be helpful when critiquing an event like cornerstone. in fact, grant (of OVERHANG fame) was bringing up seerveld throughout the festival.

gideon will be working his way through seerveld's other four directives on his blog over the next several days, so stay tuned.