Next week I will be speaking at Millar College of the Bible on Art and Culture, as you may know if you read my last blog post! I spent today finishing up my notes and refining my keynote presentation, and am feeling a pleasant sense of anticipation for the time I'll get to spend with the students there.
The main thrust of my class will be on how art is a tool that you can use to understand culture, and serve your culture. You can learn a lot about what the culture of a family, city, business, or ethnic people group is by seeing what they prioritize in their arts. What preoccupies them? What fascinates them? What isn't expressed? What is kept silent? Art expresses culture and influences culture at the same time.
We will be doing an exercise together where we try to learn about a chosen culture by drawing a metaphorical garden to describe it. What metaphorical plants grow in said culture? What are the gardeners (leaders) like? What fruit is produced? What are the pruning needs? Etc. I drew a very basic example in preparation for the class on my own Mennonite culture, trying to identify not only the fruits but the roots of what it means to be Mennonite. I'll admit, it's a pretty incomplete picture! But here it is. Forgive me for what I missed, and any additions you think are uncalled for!
The idea is that within a culture, there are intrinsic truths that are the foundation for all other aspects of life, ending in the visible stuff we do. I wish I had more time to really delve into it, but for now, I'm satisfied with my quick sketch of my perspective on Mennonite culture.
My cultural heritage
While I was swimming through these thoughts about art and culture, I couldn't help but thinking about a recent Mennonite history lecture I had the pleasure of attending. I was curious about the event, as I do not feel a particularly strong connection to my Mennonite heritage (Eg, if I don't speak plautdietsch, and I am not already a mother of five, what kind of Mennonite am I???), and wanted to get a better feel of where I came from and what kind of people we are.
Kyla's brief Mennonite History:
Here's the gist of it, as seen by me, a Christian, mostly-Canadian-now, Mennonite gal. Feel free to correct me if I got some details wrong. I'm liable to get details wrong. :D
Mennonites were a small group that emerged from the Anabaptist movement. In an effort to be faithful to scripture rather than Catholic tradition, the anabaptists wanted to be baptized as adults as an expression of faith, instead of as infants. And the Mennonites, in addition to this, were pacifists. Thus they became hated by both church and state, and were driven from place to place because of their faith, and their refusal to participate in war. Eventually some of them began making their way to Canada (the first ones coming in the 1870s), a promising place where there was a lot of empty prairie for them to practice their faith in peace, work the land, and be free. Some went to South America, and some to Mexico for the same reason, where colonies still exist to this day.
The Mennonites prospered in Canada, because they were already hard working, sturdy farming types and fit well into the settlement plans of the government. They prioritized simplicity, had well-defined societal roles within their community, a strong suspicion of the world and its evils, and a stubborn insistence on keeping their lives and their faith the way it was. As time went on, this stubbornness inevitably caused splits whenever someone would suggest it could be another way! (apparently almost all new Mennonite churches emerged from church splits. Not great, in my opinion!) Though elements of these original values remain today, you can see the now-wide dichotomy between those who stick to the old ways and those who are more progressive: "Mennonite" can either mean you live in an isolated colony like the Amish, trying to stay as un-changed as possible, or it could mean you're a progressive liberal, championing popular secular causes.
I am Mennonite. see my art
I found myself wondering where I fit into the Mennonite spectrum. I consider myself to be fairly liberal compared to a lot of Mennonites I've met in my life, due to my love of the arts and my experience living in Asia, serving with YWAM. However, I would feel extremely uncomfortable among the progressive liberal Mennonites I've met, since I feel that they have largely abandoned their Christian faith and have taken up the values and faith of secular Canada. I felt this keenly when I was listening to my favourite lectures: the ones on art and literature. I was excited to hear about the artistic heritage of the Mennonites (things created before 1930, where things stopped being made and started being bought) - the artifacts created within the community to bolster the community: gifts between family members, furniture, floor painting, and illuminated verse. Though simple, austere and functional, the things Mennonites created were a means to strengthen the connections of community and family, and I thought that revealed a beautiful aspect of art. I wish that Mennonites had felt more comfortable using their creativity to celebrate their faith - but their heritage of suspicion towards Catholicism seemed to inspire a commitment to suppress anything that might err towards iconography or decadence.
I remember when my family visited the Mennonite Heritage Museum, and I saw the church my grandma went to as a girl. It seemed to be designed specifically to prevent spiritual awe, rather than inspire it. Bare boards, hard benches, no decoration. No instruments, and no harmonies! Nobody could ever be accused of manipulating a person's emotions, that's for sure! Any worship that happened in that space would surely be authentic, because it would have no facilitation other than the recited words of the pastor, and the a cappella hymns. (Though, I should note that not all Mennonite communities forbade harmonies in their singing, and that for a large part Mennonites seem to have been known for their beautiful choirs! Like I said, there's a spectrum!)
So, bringing it back to the lecture hall: I felt excited to hear Mennonite people talking about art, poetry and literature. However, my excitement was dampened when it seemed that the "creative types" exhibited evidence that they had perhaps exchanged their faith for creative expression. Or, perhaps a better way to describe it is that their love of the arts shone forth much brighter than their love for Jesus. You might think, "what does Jesus have to do with culture?" But my culture was based heavily on preserving faith in Jesus. It's described as an "ethno-religious" people group. So if you take Jesus out of the cultural equation, it matters!
Where I fit on the spectrum
I'm happy that in my family we are not in the traditional, conservative Mennonite group, holding on to non-biblical cultural rules (like "no instruments!" for example). I'm also grateful we have not swung to the other extreme of faithless liberal Mennonite culture. I feel that there is a large portion of Mennonites that have followed a good path of faith without slipping from the path. I'm proud of the general shape of what it means to be Mennonite. I love that my ancestors considered being driven from place to place an acceptable price to pay for obedience to God's word. I love that they were known as productive, hardworking, peaceful Christian people. I'm so grateful for every one of them who truly found Jesus and introduced him to the next generation, eventually leading to the environment of faith and love of Christ that I had the privilege to grow up in. But I saw many things that made me sad, too. I saw how people elevated tradition over Christ, suppressing the freedom of the Spirit and creating environments of control, offence, and schism. This misrepresentation of Christ has led to many people "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" as they discarded their culture in favour of the freedom of the secular world, tragically losing God along the way. I wonder, when people here the word "Mennonite," what images that word might conjure up?
I remember conversations in my past, where people would ask what culture I come from.
"I'm a Mennonite!" I would say.
"Oh, but you don't look like a Mennonite. Do you live in a colony?"
"No, no. I'm not that kind of Mennonite. I'm more like... just a Canadian, I guess."
This world is not my home, I'm just a-passin' through...
Somehow these words, "Canadian," and "Mennonite," both aren't quite right. I think it's because they fail to prioritize what I believe is the most important label I have. "Christian," though itself a title fraught with potential misunderstanding - is a much more apt description of who I am, because my goal in life is to put every part of myself under the supremacy of Christ. For example, if Christ says, "you know, Kyla. It may be normal for a Mennonite to retreat from the world and its evils. But that is not my way. Will you follow me?" then follow him I must and cast aside my ancestral label of "the quiet in the land." (Full disclosure: This would be harder for me to do now than it used to be. Young Kyla was a lot more adventuresome. Now I just like to stay put and do art, it seems!)
Christ's impact on culture
Which brings me back to my class on art and culture that I will be sharing with the students at Millar. What's the objective of teaching on this topic? Ultimately I, and Millar, want to spread the gospel of Christ. We think that's worth doing. But to communicate Christ well, you should know who you are talking to and speak to them with understanding and care. So delving into ideas of worldview and values and beliefs... it's worth it! The more you know about someone, and the more you understand the gospel yourself, the more natural connection points you can find to witness to the relevant, beautiful, good news of Jesus. I hope that by the time we are finished our class, the students will be sparked with a curiosity for people, art, and how to speak into people's lives. I trust that if they are faithful to witness to Jesus' transforming work in their own hearts and cultures, the people they speak with will encounter the person of Jesus themselves, and through the Holy Spirit's sanctifying work, repeat the process all over again.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Matthew 5:14-16
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