Thinking with readers: Why artists tend to be liberals

Conservative America is wired, predestined even, to be practical and quite literal

I have been sitting on this think piece for quite some time now.

Why? I know that what’s ahead for readers (I’m sending this to the whole Rational Sheep list) is complicated and some will call it simplistic. But there are crucial questions here linked to ongoing struggles with Christianity and the arts — especially in American Protestantism. I have seen some of these debates up close (and personal) while teaching mass-media classes in Christian (as in evangelical Protestant) colleges and universities.

Where to start? In one of my mass communication survey courses, in the film unit, I used to ask students to name great Hollywood filmmakers who were (or are) Roman Catholics, to one degree or another. We would end up with a list that included, for starters, John Ford, Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and others.

Then I would ask them to list the great Hollywood filmmakers who were (or are) Protestants, especially evangelicals. After a long silence, students would usually say Mel Gibson (in the age of “Braveheart” or “The Passion of the Christ”). No, I would explain, Gibson is another struggling Catholic. Every now and then, a student would say “Who created VeggieTales?” Today, a few would mention Dallas Jenkins and the complex team behind “The Chosen.”

OK, readers, who would you add to that list? Yes, I know that the great Cecil B. DeMille was a church-going Episcopalian, which lands him in Via Media land.

One more thing: When I would ask students to name their favorite Christian writers, students would always start with J.R.R. Tolkien (Catholic), C.S. Lewis (Anglican) and maybe Flannery O’Connor (Catholic).

How did Rational Sheep readers get into this discussion? Think back to this headline:

Try to imagine a faith-friendly Saturday Night Live

If you want to understand cultural clout, start with the artists who define comedy

Here is a crucial passage from that post, which I think readers will see is linked to the filmmaker questions I mentioned earlier.

Name three or more religious believers who have made an impact on the mainstream culture of American humor over the past few decades. Let me stress that we are not talking about the world of “Christian” comedy. We may, of course, be talking about comedians and humor writers who have chosen to compete in the world of “clean humor.”

That’s fine. The late, very great Bob Newhart did quite well, as a Roman Catholic believer, while “limiting” himself of clean humor. Did anyone get the impression, when listening to that comedic genius (click here for his Mark Twain Prize acceptance speech), that he was working with chains on his wit?

How about [Jeff] Foxworthy? Has his faith and shewed approach to life prevented him from being one of the most successful artists of his generation? How about his ability to spot other blue-collar talents and lift them up for others to see? …

So I will ask: If “cultural conservatives” want to create an SNL-model incubator in the wild, wild, world of online streaming mass media, to whom would they hand the reins? We need someone, let’s say, under the age of 40.

Somehow, I forgot to mention the late, great Norm Macdonald, whose complex faith displayed elements of Protestant theology, as well as the Russian literature that he loved. Hold that thought.

That discussion of Christians working in mainstream humor led to a follow-up Rational Sheep post with this headline:

Once again, concerning a "faith-friendly" SNL

If believers want to do real comedy, they can't settle for preaching to the choir

That post quoted from an essay at The Monadnock Review by the large-O Orthodox scribe Michael Stefan: “Prospects Of A Faith-Friendly Saturday Night Live — Responding to Marcus Pittman and Terry Mattingly.”

What would conservative, “Christian” humor look like in the modern marketplace? Stefan noted (and I added a hearty “Amen”) that:

Few things would give me as much agony as the advertisement of a “faith-friendly SNL” that turns out to be nothing more than 90-minutes of obsessive rumination on “praise Jesus and own the libs”. The show has to be run by people who value humor, laughter, satire, wordplay, nonsense, etc. as ends in themselves in God’s creation, not for any utilitarian purpose.

Hang in there! We are getting closer to moving forward in this important conversation.

The next step was a Rational Sheep post with this headline:

Pop test: Name some pro-faith “rom coms”

Freya India says conservatives tend to forget "feelings." Does that include stories and images?

The subhead in that piece referred to a Freya India essay in which she argues that “The Right Has Forgotten Feeling,” which makes it harder for cultural conservatives to respond to some of the current fears and anxieties of young women.

This passage was crucial to understanding her point of view:

Most young women I know think of ­Christianity as controlling and patriarchal, if they think of it at all. They see conservatism as outdated and oppressive. For the first time in history, young women are now less religious than young men, and less likely to attend church. Many are moving far to the political left, much more so than previous generations of women.

I think I know why. The right has forgotten feeling.

When I listen to conservative commentators today—columnists, podcasters, media personalities, some older than I am but many my own age—I notice an overreliance on intellect and argument, on numbers and logic.

That led Stefan to wade back into these arguments, with a post at The Monadnock Review entitled, “Why are artists almost always liberal?”

This is where things get complicated, because all discussions of John Calvin and Reformed Protestant theology are complicated. But, to cut to the chase, Stefan argues that American culture — especially the core beliefs of conservatives — has been heavily influenced by Calvinism and low-church Protestantism.

In self-defense, I will stress that I am quite familiar with the work of the great Calvinist thinker Abraham Kuyper and his thoughts on culture and the arts. Can you say “Cultural Mandate”? Let me raise my hand high.

Kuyper liked to quote Calvin saying: “All the arts come from God and are to be respected as Divine inventions.” If you want more materials on Kuyper, Calvin and the arts, dig into this online-search file.

That reference to the cultural style of “low-church Protestantism” is crucial, because the religious marketplace in modern America includes legions of Protestant believers who are not, to say the least, Calvinist. The important point, in terms of the arts, is that the vast majority of these Protestants are not, to say the least, fond of liturgical forms of worship.

This leads Stefan to offer this blunt summary of the “personality traits” that researchers tend to find in the hearts and minds of artists. This is long, but I did a few edits to help:

* Sensitivity. I think we can all agree that the best art is usually made by people who are sensitive, feel things deeply and reflect carefully on the world.

* Intellectually gifted. There are many areas in life where intellectual aptitude is unnecessary for greatness. … I think we can also agree that the best art is made by people whose personalities can be described as: “Smart, Interesting and Unusual”.

* Idealism. On the Pragmatism-Idealism spectrum, the artist is usually far on the Idealistic side. Many cliches and jokes about artists come from their strong sense of Idealism.

* Feelings Matter. People speaking about their favourite artwork will often tell you these works speak directly to the human heart, inspiring it in a way that impersonal, dry logic cannot.

Now, are there Reformed believers who fit into all of these categories?

Of course there are and I have been blessed to know quite a few, including some who have changed my life. But, well, lots of those folks have been known to frequent art galleries and concert halls, while also soaking up the beauty of ancient forms of Christian life, worship and the arts.

At this point, Stefan — yes, an Eastern Orthodox convert from Protestantism — leaps to the artistic importance of the sacred arts, especially iconography, in the beliefs, worship and worldview of ancient forms of Christianity. Once again, I have made a few edits:

Christianity has traditionally viewed Veneration of Icons, painted images of Christ and His Saints, as a necessary way to worship God. Yet, John Calvin and his followers insisted that Icon Veneration was actually “idolatry”, a violation of the Commandment against “graven images”, and they removed Icons from parishes. Even the least iconoclastic Protestants seem to think Icon Veneration is unnecessary. And these attitudes came to America during its Colonial period, creating a national consensus that the visual arts had no place in religion. As far as I can tell, the reduction in the demand for religious art arising from iconoclasm, is the single biggest factor behind the “starving artist” phenomenon. Artists often struggle to be pragmatic. …

As for feeling things deeply, a nation founded on Reformed Theology will tend to view Systematic Thinking as superior to other thinking styles, and to choose Systematics as its leaders and role models. … All political ideologies have their slogans, and it’s no surprise that the slogan: “facts don’t care about your feelings” is associated with staunch conservatives in America, not with liberals.

Once again, do all low-church Protestants believe that the “visual arts” have “no place in religion”? All of them? And is Systematic Theology avoided in the ancient faiths? Of course not.

Let me interject a personal note about music. I have frequently said, in all sincerity, that my road to ancient Christianity began with years of singing sacred choral music — both Western (think the motets of Anton Bruckner) and Eastern (liturgical music, for example, by Alexander Gretchaninov). By the way, note the details about that performance of “Holy Radiant Light” by Gretchaninov, performed by a wonderful choir from a Protestant college in a very symbolic location.

Speaking of Grand Rapids, this next Stefan take on evangelical culture is so blunt, and many would say offensive, that it could have been uttered by speakers at arts conferences at Calvin University. Long ago, when I was still a Protestant, I would have been one of those speakers, to tell you the truth.

… Because the Evangelical movement explicitly aims to appeal to people of average-to-low intelligence and learning, worshippers at these churches rarely have the aptitude to produce an abundance of cutting-edge, timeless music. Intellectually and/or artistically gifted people raised in Evangelicalism often feel neglected and discontent, leaving these churches once they reach a certain age. Contemporary Christian Music, the preferred worship music of the Non-Denominational Church, is frequently denounced (see: South Park and King Of The Hill) as emasculated, saccharine and banal. This is also why many “faith-based” films seem so cringeworthy.

This brings us, finally, to what I would consider the Stefan thesis statement on why so many liberals — including people raised as religious conservatives — play strategic roles in the fine arts and mainstream popular culture.

Brace yourself for this one:

The life histories of artistic people in America are often filled with misfortune: mocked by other people for their personality style, utterly neglected by some churches, and having valuable work opportunities as an adult denied to them because of the theology of other churches, being viewed by the entire society as insufficiently practical, and so on. The ranks of leftists are filled with people who’ve been made to feel inferior, marginalized, defective, like second class citizens. The artist is not the sort of person who the American village has likely embraced, and the child who isn’t embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warm embers.

American conservatives who call for “more conservative artists” have to be willing to modify details of the traditional national culture to achieve this goal. If they’re not willing to concede anything, nothing will change, and I will deafen my ears to their complaints. They cannot have it both ways.

Again, there is no great art found in conservative cultures?

That’s crazy talk. For starters, it’s easy to find lasting beauty in the Scotch-Irish roots of American folk music and sldo in Gospel hymnody (both African-American and white Protestant). However, a key element of true “folk” culture is that it develops over time and transcends the emotions and choices of an individual generation or the “contemporary” worship marketplace. You will not find copies of the classic Broadman Hymnal in many megachurch folding chairs.

As you would expect, Stefan eventually dives into Orthodoxy, as an example of a theologically conservative culture that also values sacred art. Need some examples?How about — moving through centuries of work — Andrei Rublev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mily Balakirev (“The Angel Cried”), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Tarkovsky? The latter offered his take on filmmaking and art:

“The true artistic symbol is not a puzzle to be solved, but a doorway through which one can access eternal truths that cannot be reached otherwise.”

That leads to this Stefan punch line: “There is no American Evangelical equivalent to Tarkovsky.”

I’ll end with another caveat, writing as someone whose house is full of bookshelves, racks of movies, several acoustic guitars and countless digital discs of classical, jazz, Gospel, rock, folk, Celtic and movie-soundtrack music. I’m sure I left other niches out of that list.

We live in strange times. Drive through most American cities and you will see ugly, even brutalist Protestant and Catholic sanctuaries. The famous 1992 book “Why Catholics Can't Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste” was written for a reason. The riches of Russian history didn’t stop the Soviets from building some of the world’s ugliest buildings — ever. And if you frequent two-lane roads in rural America and you will find country churches that are far more beautiful, in a folk tradition sort of way, than their suburban megachurch counterparts.

Every now and then, ancient traditions can even overlap with relatively newer forms of culture. Consider this setting of “Christ is Risen” written by a modern Orthodox composer, combining elements of ancient chant (I hear Irish influence, too) with simple harmonies found (I’m guessing here) in sacred harp, shape-note singing found in the Great Smoky Mountains and elsewhere. Please click that YouTube link.

For those who made it all the way through this post: Let me apologize to those who were offended and considered some of these ideas off target. I will admit that I do not agree with every point Stefan made in his “Why are artists almost always liberal?” essay.

But there is much here to think about and I know many Christian artists and educators — evangelical, mainline, Reformed, Catholic and Orthodox — who have wrestled with these puzzles in American culture. The question is: What can we do to improve this situation?

As C.S. Lewis would say, we are all travelling “Under the Mercy.”