Pr. McCain blogs about how Lutheran churches are not iconoclastic in The Less Decoration in Our Churches, the Better: This is Most Certainly NOT True.

I’ve been meaning to post this for about a YEAR now. You must check out this website, Hymns in My Heart, featuring calligraphed hymn verses, made into cards. Lutheran lady Liz Nitardy sells them. I don’t know about you, but I think they look fantastic and I nearly want to buy one of each!

About the artist, from her father:

Recently I’ve been taking a closer look at some children’s book illustrations from the “golden age.” I just stumbled upon a children’s book called “Through the Church Door” that was originally published in the mid-20s. It contains a number of black and white line drawings of children experiencing the life of the church (Anglican), as well as other childhood scenes that serve as a kind of life application of the faith.

Ignoring the text, which is largely very bad, I found the drawings to be very interesting. I’ve been planning out a similar kind of project myself, including a very similar style and subject matter– though with a completely different sort of text. What’s interesting for Lutherans is that quite a lot of the images focus on liturgical church life in a way that would be equally accessible to our tradition. Consider especially the images of the child examining the baptismal font, giving an offering, kneeling in church; or the way the dress of the ministers is depicted, for example.

Do these images appeal to your inner child, or does their idyllic/idealistic/stylized nature seem more consistent with the heavily pietistic text in the book? Personally I can’t help but be drawn to them. I find the style very charming, more attractive than cartoony kids’ drawings.

…is from St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in New Hamburg, Ontario. Things that are particularly interesting to me include:

• -The dual stained glass windows up front depicting the crucified and the resurrected Christ
• -The altarpiece, in a very typically Lutheran “subtly ornate” idiom. Love the statue! Also a very common image of Christ to see in altar statuary in Lutheran churches, with palms outstretched.
• -All the trefoils and quatrefoils carved into the wood. Carved wood in general; check out the altar rail, the paneling, the font, the pews…
• -If you look behind the pulpit, you can see a wooden plaque of St. Peter, including the keys and the inverted cross (presumably a reference to the name of the church). I have to say, the pulpit is a very fitting spot for such an image.
• That’s a cool pulpit too; I’ve never seen one before that has that kind of open metalwork.
• Here’s a detailed photo of the Holy Spirit window.

Read Pastor Peters’ recent blog post about Christian art, especially as it’s used in the home. A quote:

“The point is this — don’t go the way of Christian music which is eminently forgettable and even shallow. Art is meant for the long haul so it should speak well over time and not just for the moment.”

Pr. McCain posted about a book he’s ordered from Germany that features paintings of the Lutheran Divine Service. Sounds fascinating! He posts some images as well.

This Luther Rose on a round canvas was a commission from our circuit for Pr. Al Borchardt, in honor of 50 years in the ministry.

Sorry for the lack of posts here. I’ll try to do better, but I’ve got two crazy babies now! I thought I’d start by choosing a church art photo for posting. Here’s this week’s picture, from Elephant Child’s church. I’m not sure how or why so many Lutheran churches ended up doing so much white and gilt in their sanctuary art, but it’s a nice combination.

To make up for my unimpressive blogging lately, I promise to post the work-in-progress of my latest painting: a Luther rose on a round canvas, based on an old woodcut of the emblem. It’s an ordination anniversary gift for a pastor in our circuit. The almost-finished product looks more like the woodcut, with lots of black lines, but the work-in-progress is interesting… without the black outline, the rose ended up looking kind of floaty and “O’Keefe”!

It’s the card gallery that’s updated, so I guess that’s not as exciting as it could be, but hey– I’m a pregnant mother of a toddler– do I have time to make much other than cards these days?    Actually I do have a few other pieces that I really should update, but that involves bugging my husband, and I don’t like to bug him too much.  Kelly needs to learn how to use computers more efficiently.

Anyway, here are the links to the most recent cards:

• A Baptism card with a shell bead and Holy Spirit charm
• A card suitable for a first communion or confirmation.  This one uses lots of gold Dresdens, as well as that nice flocked patterned paper, and a gold-printed vellum insert.  Super-fancy.
• “Gloria” Christmas card.  This uses a similar sort of flocked patterned paper as the above card, but different color and pattern.
• Exodus 15:2 card
• “Door” card with Jesus and children.  The window was created with a painted chipboard “window” frame.  The card opens up so you see the full picture of Jesus with the children on the inside of the card, along with a printed verse (1 John 3:1).
• Velvet, felt, and crocheted flower Luther Rose card.  The only thing I sewed on the card was the cross on the felt heart, which I think was a dollar store acquisition.  The red and blue backgrounds are ritzy Velvet Paper.
• “Shepherd” 1
• “Shepherd” 2
• “Shepherd” 3.  These shepherd cards were specially made for a woman in Holland, MB who apparently likes to give her priest “Good Shepherd”-themed stuff.  I think she also purchased that first Baptism card I posted here.

Eric from On the Wittenberg Trail has been writing a series of good posts that deal with issues relating to the vocation of the Christian in the arts.  Here’s an excerpt from some comments he has on Michael Horton’s book, Putting Amazing Back Into Grace.

Dr. Horton then addresses the subject of Christian vocation more specifically. He writes: “Each Christian, whatever his or her calling, serves God, and that person’s calling… is a ministry to the community on God’s behalf“ (emphasis added). He then addresses artistic vocations, concluding with these thoughts. “Painting, singing, playing an instrument, composing, writing, directing, acting, sculpting — these activities are callings which require no evangelistic justification“(emphasis added).

It is all too easy to see that doctors and nurses, firemen and policemen, even sanitation workers and milkmaids (one of Martin Luther’s favorite examples) minister to the community on God’s behalf — not by “evangelizing their workplaces,” but by simply serving others in their secular roles. We have more trouble with this concept when the vocation is artistic. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we recognize art as a medium for communication, and if what the artist communicates is not “explicitly Christian,” what good is his work for the kingdom of God? Yet, according to Dr. Horton, the effect of the Reformation was precisely the opposite. At a time when artists relied almost exclusively on ecclesiastical commissions for their daily bread, the Reformation invited artists to give expression to more universal themes and ideals.

Christians sometimes seem to be averse in principle to entertainment, and the arts can have a diversionary quality. We sometimes feel guilty spending time and money for no other purpose than to share a laugh with friends or a roomful of movie-watchers or enjoy a ball game. There are certainly times when an artist does nothing but entertain, and that does not mean he has failed in his vocation — on the contrary, in doing so he he has fulfilled it.

If the person called to a secular (non-ecclesiastical) vocation must do his work in a manner that is somehow “explicitly Christian” in order to bring glory to God in his work, then the Reformation doctrine of Christian vocation is dead. If we affirm this truth, but then make exceptions for authors, painters, musicians, and movie producers (among others), then we are all still slaves to what the Reformers called “monkery.”

In another post, Another note on SAICFF, Eric talks about Christians making films and trying to find their “evangelistic justification” for their films’ existence by taking a political issue and twisting it into a theological one.  As he rightly observes:  “This is not merely a good way to make bad movies.  It is a boring way to present perverse theology.”  Read the whole thing!

So remember, folks:  This blog may deal with liturgical and ecclesiastical arts in specific, which has a particular function in the life of the church– but let it never be said that a Christian must deal in “preachy” art only, especially for the sake of attempting to justify their vocation!