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A Matter of Taste (pt 6)

This is part six in a continuing survey of Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste by Frank Burch Brown. 

Excellence in taste:  First, it is important to note that Brown believes there is excellence in taste.  He does not fall into the postmodern trap that espouses all cultural expressions as being equal.  However, he tries very to hard to strike a balance between developing "astute artistic taste," and appreciating the "value of alien tastes [one] can never hope to enjoy personally." 

We pursue excellence in taste because taste plays a critical role in spiritual development:  1) taste helps us form religious perceptions and identities, 2) taste reinforces religious differences, and 3) taste makes possible a wide variety of moral discernments and religious experiences.  Matters of aesthetics and morality cannot be compartmentalized; they overlap in significant ways.

Although carefully developed aesthetic taste cannot be equated with spiritual maturity ("otherwise all good Christians would have good taste'), it certainly cannot be separated from spiritual maturity.  There are worlds in theological study and aesthetic pursuit only open to those who will engage in developing tastes in difficult and demanding realms. 

On the other hand, those who have disciplined their taste to enjoy complex cultural expressions, should not despise those that are more common.  Indeed, there is complexity and beauty in the ordinary.  We share in the commonality of living our lives in bodies that are remarkably complex machines.  The simplest breath, the most regular heartbeat, is performed most excellently.  So that when a church choir of twelve gather to sing in a rural church in southern Indiana, there is something to be appreciated:  "To be among a group of perfectly average singers giving voice to perfectly average spiritual songs in a moderately reverberant space, to join them in a kind of ordinary singing that becomes genuine prayer and genuine praise--this is to experience how excellently graced our common life can be."

Brown concludes this chapter with a small section entitled "Aftertaste--and Foretaste."  He again makes the case for developing taste.  How are we to grasp the psalms if we do not understand poetry?  How are we to grasp the nuances of Jesus' speech in the parables if we do not know about paradox and irony?  Though love demands we enjoy another's enjoyment, an uncritical acceptance of all cultural forms is actually lacking in love, and not a picture of a more developed Christian life--even an ecumenical and inclusive taste must be discerning.  Brown makes a plea for the union of charity and criticism:  "Such charitable yet discerning taste appears to be one virtue increasingly needed by churches as they consider various aesthetic forms and styles through which faith can live anew."

A Matter of Taste (pt 4)

While Joel and his host of compadres debate the reality of beauty, and while I bow and pay homage to the idea that meaning precedes taste (thank you Whitherbridges), we'll keep marching through the issues of taste as presented by Frank Burch Brown in Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste.  Today, we'll take on two of the three elements of taste:  1) taste as aesthetic perception, and 2) taste as aesthetic enjoyment.

Taste as aesthetic perception: This is simply the task of recognizing the aesthetic qualities of something.  We all do this differently because our abilities to sense these elements are culturally shaped.  For example, in listening to a piece by Bach, someone who has studied Bach will hear it quite differently than one who has never been exposed to classical music.  Even the trained ear will hear it differently than one of Bach's contemporaries, because styles of performance, quality of instruments, and knowledge of particulars have evolved over the centuries since Bach composed.

But this reveals a common problem, we tend to be bound by our own experience...our taste has been shaped by our culture.  Brown details the reactions of a typical undergraduate class to a Bach contata, Wachet Auf (Sleepers, Wake).  Most students describe the opening as "peaceful," while Bach enthusiasts understand it to be an "exalted wake-up call."  Why the difference?  The students, who are born and bred in a culture of rap and rock, think all classical music is peaceful and serene, even boring.  The college audience, unless trained to understand Bach's work, are incapable of perceiving what he wrote.  Brown notes that with just a few minutes of instruction, the young listeners are able to listen to Bach in an entirely new way.

In a church context, this means "we must learn to transmit and share the languages of differing tastes."  We must engage in a teaching and learning process through the life-cycles of the congregation.  Instead of trying to watch a cricket game without learning the rules, we must take the time to understand the game.  Here Brown argues that some "popular" forms of music are not accessible to those with classical training because they are "uneducated in various forms of popular culture" and hear only "boring, noisy, or confusing patterns."   The sword cuts both ways.

Brown illustrates his point with the music video One of Us by Joan Osborne, lyrics by Eric Bazilian.  He argues for a complex level of meaning and imagery in a work that is "uniquely artistic and artfully theological" in a way very different than Michelangelo; however, to those with elite taste the song may be nothing more than kitsch.  He notes that while some in the CCM community embraced One of Us, others regarded it as "sheer blasphemy."  In an interesting observation, Brown notes that Osborne herself, knowing that identification with Christianity would be the "kiss of death for her sort of musical ambitions," began performing the song in ways that were described by one German reviewer as "most excellently lewd." Brown concludes, "To be unable to hear either the unsettling implications of some of the questions in One of Us or the serious religious inquisitiveness behind its questions is surely to lack a perceptive faculty important to having a taste for it."

Taste as aesthetic enjoyment (appreciation or the lack thereof):   Brown notes that Augustine reached a point in his life where he expressed satisfaction with the fact that he was no longer moved to tears by the singing of hymns.  He valued the songs for the truth in the words; he did not appreciate (his taste was corrupted) the truth as expressed in the music itself.  The embodiment of truth in music, and the corresponding ability to appreciate it (a taste well developed), can produce tangible results in the Christian community.

We are led to appreciate or reject a given piece of art by the work itself, its genre, and its context. "When there is dissonance between the perceived style of an artwork and the purpose it is meant to serve, a work that might otherwise please can actually disturb or disappoint."  Brown illustrates this point by referring to a Puerto Rican arrangement of A Mighty Fortress is Our God.  While a listener might appreciate the rhythms and beat of the Caribbean genre, the auditory cues give a sense of lightness to a theologically heavy text.  He says, "It was therefore by no means easy for us to enjoy this setting as Christian music, let alone as a musical setting of a text depicting God's capacity to defeat the greatest imaginable evils.  The incongruity between form and purported content seemed too great." He says later, "Is the kind of enjoyment called for by the medium actually undercutting the message?"  And even argues "that there is a sense in which no such rendition of A Mighty Fortress can adequately substitute for versions rooted more firmly in the tradition of the German chorale."

This does not mean that all religious truth should be limited to the style of traditional chorale music.  There are aspects of the faith that cannot be expressed in this genre.  All of this means that clergy, artists, and congregants must determine over time what kinds of expressions best fit religious purposes for optimum enjoyment.

Tomorrow:  Taste as Aesthetic Judgment.

FBB on Elitism

You have to love the internet!  I emailed Frank Burch Brown regarding a definition for "elitism," and he was kind enough to shoot back a quick reply, as well as refer me to a later section in Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste.  Here is his definition, and then I will quote at length from the text:

Thanks for your query, and I look forward to visiting your blog site.  In my TASTES book, on p. 158, second full paragraph, I explain rather fully my conception of what it means for someone to be an elitist in a negative sense, in matters of taste.  I would just emphasize that loving sophisticated and highly cultivated forms of art is not in itself elitist, in my view.  What makes one elitist is thinking that only those arts are truly commendable, aesthetically, and that the best art is inevitably found in the so-called "high arts."  That judgment is usually accompanied by a social bias as well, which reinforces the elitism.  My notion of ecumenical taste, and the rather complex chapter in which I discuss that, is intended to provide a fuller discussion of how one can be both inclusive and discerning without falling into the opposite traps of fiberless relativism (anything goes) or a special privileging of the tastes of one group (sometimes a socially elite). 

Elitism, as the term is typically used, is normally associated with "high-class" tastes; elitism in that sense has its counterpart in a populism that refuses to see value in anything other than popular arts.

I hope those thoughts are of some use!

Yours truly,

Frank BB

From the text:

Has my insistence on the importance of questions of quality and taste made my approach elitist, despite my disclaimers?  Not as I understand the concept "elitist." It is not elitist to believe that some aesthetic choices are better than others.  Every artist makes that assumption simply in choosing to make a given work, or how to make it better.  Nor is it elitist to believe that some artistic goals are more rewarding in kind and duration than others, however diverse those goals may be, and however conditioned by special communal interests and tastes.  Every kind of art, even the most popular, has its relative "classics," and every community also singles out particular kinds of art as the most admirable and enduring.  It is not even elitist to believe that some aesthetic styles are more promising than others for purposes of religious expression and exploration....What is truly elitist (and cynical besides) is to believe that popular arts are not concerned with questions of quality, or that they are strictly for the "masses," or that they must always be mere kitsch.  It is also truly elitist to think that "elite" and formal arts are always cheapened whenever they become popular and accessible.

Do we have any elitists among us?

A Matter of Taste (pt 3)

Well, I am not going to try and finish chapter one today, there is just a bit too much to chew on, and this book might take quite some time.  I am sure there are sections to take in great sweeps, but these initial pages require due diligence.  The section today is entitled:  Preparing to Pursue Taste Theologically. 

Brown begins by encouraging us to think seriously about taste as a religious and theological issue.  We should not ignore the aesthetics of religious practice, nor should we "uncritically celebrate the spiritual assets of tackiness," though the church will survive tackiness.  He mentions the adage: De gustibus non disputandum est, but concludes that disputations about taste are inevitable and ultimately profitable.

He notes that matters of taste strike deep in our hearts.  We sense an immediate bond and sense of joy when we recognize our tastes are shared and affirmed.  However, there is alienation and a sense of misunderstanding when our tastes are not appreciated by others.  This may even lead to an inability to worship in the same church, or he says prophetically, "It may even strain the notion that we belong to the same church in a larger sense."  These tastes extend beyond the individual to our communities, and to spheres beyond our communities.  This will require us to be sensitive to tastes different than our own; however, Brown argues that love must not compel us to "happily tolerate, let alone promote, aesthetic carelessness or mediocrity."  The "worship wars" raging in our churches today reflect confusion about matters of taste, and tell us that we can no longer ignore aesthetics.

Continuing to argue for the necessity of serious thinking about taste, Brown notes that Jesus was a good storyteller of good stories, that the Roman Catholic Church has benefited from monks singing in tune for centuries, that Wesley was right to collect hymns free of "doggeral" and  "patched rhymes," and that many churches are architecturally beautiful.  He says, "Is it not...the case that these efforts of artistry, requiring discipline and taste, generally enhance Christian life?  And that diverse kinds of artistic excellence and beauty are part of the bounty of the religious life, not merely negligible products of human frailty that a gracious church must condescend to accept?"

Now here's the point, and I must quote Brown, "More pointedly: the evidence of scripture, tradition, and experience all suggest that art can sometimes mediate not only a sense of life but also a sense of grace and of the mystery that we call God.  And since art cannot mediate without the aid of aesthetic imagination, response, and judgment--without taste, in short--we must consider the perhaps surprising possibility that taste at its most encompassing is no less crucial to religious life and faith than is intellectual understanding and moral commitment." 

Before fleshing out in detail the three elements of taste, Brown asks his readers to consider cultivation of an "ecumenical taste," able (1) "to recognize and indeed relish certain aesthetic and religious differences without regarding them as inevitably and permanently alienating; (2) to learn to discern, as an act of love, what others find delightful and meaningful in art that has little appeal to oneself or one's group; and (3) to notice, both more precisely and more generally, points in life and worship where aesthetic aims and religious aspirations (or aversions) are wedded to one another, and thus to see how spiritual growth can have a properly artistic and aesthetic dimension subject to criticism, cultivation, and education."  This is how he counters elitism, and I think this may be where some stumble.

A Matter of Taste (pt 2)

Chapter One:  Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste

These chapters are long and thorough, so I will probably have to break them up a bit.  Let me give you the subtitles through the first chapter so you can grasp Brown's train of thought:

I.  The Religious Problem with Questions of Taste

        -Taste perceived as irrelevant to religion
        -Artistic taste seen as theologically suspect
        -Taste regarded as prejudice and elitist
        -"Taste" irretrievable?

II.  Preparing to Pursue Taste Theologically

III.  Features of Taste for Theological Reflection

        -Taste as aesthetic perception
        -Taste as aesthetic enjoyment
        -Taste as aesthetic judgment
        -Excellence in taste

IV.  Aftertaste--and Foretaste

Brown begins by noting how believers tend to trivialize matters of taste compared to matters of theology and morality.  Jesus didn't drive people out of the temple because they had done a poor job of interior decorating; he didn't teach his disciples how to sing in four-part harmony.  Nothing is gained spiritually by being a connoisseur of religious art, so why be concerned about matters that only cause embarrassment and divide?

He does a quick survey of church history to demonstrate that many theologians disregard beauty entirely, or place it only on a lower level of spirituality "due to its entanglements with the senses, materiality, and worldly imagination."  Ever since the Renaissance patronage for the arts has gotten increasingly secular as art and artists retreated from the church (Kandinsky, Eliot, and Schoenberg being notable 20th c. exceptions).   

However, there is a stream of Protestant thought that values some aspects of the arts:  Bach as the "fifth evangelist;" Luther using music as a means of proclamation; and the arts as a revealer of man's depravity: art glimpses Canaan from a distance, even it is not able to dry our tears in the griefs of life (Bavinck).

Of course the onslaught of postmodernism has all but destroyed art as supplying any meaningful "text" for spiritual contemplation and appreciation.  Art is anti-theological; deconstructed, it contains no metaphysical authority, power, or truth.  Aesthetic judgments are political: "prejudiced signs and tools of status, class, and entitlement."

This leads to the criticism that matters of taste are hopelessly discussed because they inevitably boil down to a theologically and morally unacceptable elitism.  Brown contrasts two views by recommending two authors and their works:  White Soul: Country Music, the Church and Working Americans by Tex Sample, and Why Catholics Can't Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste by Thomas Day. Day argues that bad taste is bad for spiritual life and advocates a view building on Brown's:  a nonelitist analysis of taste.  This tells you where we are going.

Brown concludes this first section in chapter one by emphasizing the importance of matters of taste to religious life despite the fact there is little in Christian habits or theological training to encourage it.  He says: "Religious life and thought are nevertheless far more conditioned...by matters related to taste than has commonly been acknowledged....no other term [taste] so readily combines a concern for aesthetic delight with a concern for imaginative discernment...that...can be good for life, morally and spiritually, and communally as well as individually....We are in search of a concept and theology of taste that is both spiritually challenging and nonelitist.  It is my own judgment that, in an era in which imagination, sensory experience, and embodiment have become more theologically respectable, reconsiderations of taste might well contribute to new theological understandings of faith, community, and spiritual growth."

I should be able to finish chapter one tomorrow.

A Matter of Taste (pt 1)

Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life by Frank Burch Brown is a book I have been working through.  I picked this volume up some time ago and set in on the shelf for later.  Our recent talk on the Christian and culture caused me to take up and read. I'll just give a brief synopsis of each chapter's content with a few comments.  Here is an introduction.

The Author: Frank Burch Brown is the Director of the Master of Arts in Church Music program and the Frederick Doyle Kershner Professor of Religion and the Arts at Christian Theological Seminary. His professional achievements include composing several commissioned works and serving as a visiting fellow and scholar for the faculty of divinity at Cambridge University.  He earned his PhD in religion and literature from the University of Chicago.  Here is an article on recent trends in church music by Brown.  Here is a lecture he gave on the differences between sacred and secular music.  Here is an interesting reading list on the broader topic of theology and the arts.

Prologue (Religious Taste):  Burch begins the prologue with the obvious, though in our day controversial premise, that taste is intimately tied to matters of morality and religion.  Taste enables us to experience the sublime or the terrible; it makes religious experience tangible, whether we are considering a painting of the Transfiguration or reading Dante's Inferno. Though philosophers have tended to limit taste to the ability to make judgments about whether something is beautiful (Kant), Burch sees essentially three aspects to taste:  1) perceiving (apperception), 2) enjoying (appreciation), and 3) judging (appraisal).  So taste "has to do with the various elements of aesthetic discernment and response."  Though we immerse ourselves in the first two activities (especially as Americans), we tend to ignore the third.

We think of aesthetics in terms of experiencing something for the pure enjoyment.  It is rewarding to study the intricate design and detail of a snowflake.  We take delight in the harmony, order, geometry and fragility without associating it with religion or morality.  However, when the organist on Sunday chooses to play a slow version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” instead of a piece by Bach during communion, we become aware that aesthetics goes beyond experience and enjoyment.  In a narrower realm, aesthetics requires a taste that is morally and religiously (even liturgically) informed.  So aesthetic response comes in varying degrees of complexity.

Burch argues for an aesthetic taste that is neither elitist nor indiscriminately relativistic; however, he acknowledges there is such a thing as bad taste.  And since aesthetic taste has such a critical bearing on matters of corporate religion and personal spirituality, contributing to much of what unites and divides Christian communities, he pursues a critical pluralism that nurtures an aesthetic taste that is diverse and discriminating.   It is essential for a believer to develop this taste since it “can contribute to spiritual and moral virtues central to Christian life, including the capacity to love the neighbor, to enjoy God, and to love and worship imaginatively.” 

Here are some of the questions Burch attempts to address in the book:  What, if anything, makes one style of art secular, another sacred?  What are the values and limitations of popular styles as compared with classical or traditional, whether in church or in secular culture?  What is wrong (or right?) with importing into a house of worship various kinds of music and media that are “worldly” in origin?  By what criteria can one make a judgment?  How can conflicting values—religious, moral, and aesthetic—be addressed by churches in a pluralistic context?  Are certain kinds of spirituality, and of spiritual taste, more mature than others?  Does the mature Christian need to have mature taste?  Etc. 

Here are the chapter headings:  Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste; Art in Christian Traditions; From the Love of Religion to the Love of Art; The Taste for Art and the Thirst for God; Kitsch, Sacred, and Profane: The Question of Quality; Ecumenical Taste: The Case for Music; Making Sacred Places, and Making Places Sacred; Styles and Stages of Faith.

9.5 Theses on Worship

Certianly you know of Luther's 95 Theses posted on the doors of Wittenberg, and perhaps you have heard of the 107 theses written by Steve Camp as part of a call for a reformation in the Contemporary Christian Music Industry.  Now a second author, Gary Parret, has added to that corpus of literature.  Gary is an assistant professor of education at Gordon-Conwell Seminary.  His 9.5 Theses on worship is a must read in our own ongoing review on the topic of worship. 

Here are the main points, but you really must read the commentary with each one.

1.  Our heavenly Father wills that the whole life of believers should be worship.

2.  The word worship, when applied to public gatherings of the saints, must not be reduced to a synonym for singing praises to God.

3.  Worship involves a rhythm of revelation and response: God graciously reveals himself to us, and we faithfully respond—all the elements must help worshipers
participate in this rhythm.

4.  Those who lead the congregation in song must be theologically equipped for this important task.

5.  Faithful response to God involves more than praise—we need a much broader range of songs available for congregations.

6.  The body of Christ in worship is more than an assembly of individual worshipers—we need more we songs.

7.  The body of Christ is far bigger than what we see in the gathered community—and our songs should reflect this.

8.  Those who lead the church in song are called to assist the congregation in its
singing, not to replace it—technologies such as amplification must be used with
theological and pastoral sensitivity.

9.  The Seeker that we must serve in our worship services is, first and foremost, God himself.

9.5  In its services of public worship, the church must obey such Scriptures as Philippians 2:3-4: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

Hat tip:  Mere Comments.

Eminen is Right

Earlier, I referenced a new book by Mary Eberstadt entitled Home Alone America.  She explores the implications of sending moms into the work force.  One of the unintended results is that kids are left at home to choose their own entertainment...entertainment that reflects the kid's anger at being abandoned by their parents.  Here is an excerpt from her book dealing with the music of today's youth.  It is not the rock-and-roll of your parent's generation.  Before you dismiss it as mindless noise, pay attention to the themes:  it is the expression of angry children at their parent's total abandonment of any responsible role in their lives. 

Here she comments on Eminen:  Yet Eminem also repeatedly centers his songs on the crypto-traditional notion that children need parents and that not having them has made all hell break loose. In the song “8 Mile” from the movie soundtrack, for example, the narrator studies his little sister as she colors one picture after another of an imagined nuclear family, failing to understand that “mommas got a new man.” “Wish I could be the daddy that neither one of us had,” he comments. Such wistful lyrics juxtapose oddly and regularly with Eminem’s violent other lines. Even in one of his most infamous songs, “Cleaning Out My Closet (Mama, I’m Sorry),” what drives the vulgar narrative is the insistence on seeing abandonment from a child’s point of view. “My faggot father must  have had his panties up in a bunch / ’Cause he split. I wonder if he even kissed me good-bye.”

She continues:  If some parents still don’t get it — even as their teenagers elbow up for every new Eminem cd and memorize his lyrics with psalmist devotion — at least some critics observing the music scene have thought to comment on the ironies of all this. In discussing The Marshall Mathers lp in 2001 for Music Box, a daily online newsletter about music, reviewer John Metzger argued, “Instead of spewing the hate that he is so often criticized of doing, Eminem offers a cautionary tale that speaks to our civilization’s growing depravity. Ironically, it’s his teenage fans who understand this, and their all-knowing parents that miss the point.” Metzger further specified “the utter lack of parenting due to the spendthrift necessity of the two-income family.”

Read it all.  Hat tip to the Touchstone blog.

The Power of Music

A good read by Michael Card.  Here is an excerpt, but read the whole thing--really:

"Music can cause us to drop our best guard; it can unlock a door into our soul and it can transport us to another place; it can rob of us the ability to listen to the words. Music also has the power of shaping our lives and value systems. By this I mean music can be so powerful and consuming a force that we can give our lives to it. This I've seen too many times in my experience as a musician. A person’s language, dress, style of living and values, all dictated by a style of music.....But what does it mean to say that we are to bring the power of music into submission to Christ? Essentially it means that we are determining to make music, like every other area of our lives, subservient to Him. That we will not allow this area of our lives to detract or in any other way take away from the purpose of the gospel. At the same time we are also committing to the notion that music can be, indeed must be, made to serve Christ, His kingdom and His people."