Why God Commands You to Plunder Pagan Art
Art is a dangerous thing.
As Henry Van Til famously quipped: “Culture is religion externalized”. If that is true, then it could also be said that art is the culture externalized. Art is the impregnation of ideas. Paint vitalizes. Drama impresses. Language solidifies. The human mind and heart, which is permeated with sin and at natural enmity with God, has the ability to create something from the very depths of its depraved being. That is very powerful. And, as we all know, power corrupts. In other words, power is a useful servant and a terrible master.
Because of this, many Christians seem very apprehensive when approaching art, and understandably so. Philippians 4:8 commands that we dwell on that which is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. But while many Christians use this verse to pursue a sort of isolation from the secular culture (“see, we aren’t supposed to dwell on the things of the world”) perhaps we should instead be using it is a catalyst from which we can engage the culture.
The Command to Engage
The truth is, there are many non-Christians who have proclaimed things that are true, honorable, excellent, and so on, and many Christians who have proclaimed things that are false, base, and absurd. There’s a ditch on both sides of the road. The best route is neither blindly evading or blindly swallowing – the Christian, of all people, must never be blind (in fact, we’re the only ones who can honestly claim that advantage). Instead, everything, whether Christian or secular, must be understood through the inerrant truth of Scripture, from which we can discern the diamonds and discard the trash.
Christians should have an intense interest in the liberal arts. Christians should read pagan authors, secular authors, and atheist authors. Christians should understand the falsities of worldly ideas and sinful ideologies.
Now, please understand that I am not saying that as Christians, we should indulge in filling our hearts and minds with immorality under the guise of “understanding” a secular worldview. And I am not saying that these things should make up all or even most of our intellectual diet. We must first have a solid foundation in our own beliefs. We must understand what we believe and why we believe it. We should be in constant study of the Scripture, spiritual understanding, and in pursuit of righteousness. We should constantly be feeding ourselves the beauty and verity of the Christian worldview and doctrine. But, it is possible to receive truths from non-Christians also, and in purging out the falsehoods of other beliefs, we better understand the strength of our own.
I just finished reading two books. One of them was Paradise Lost by John Milton. The other was On Christian Doctrine by Augustine, both of which are beautiful examples of solid, Christ-seeking, God-glorifying Christians, who appreciate the arts not only as something to be enjoyed, but employed as a vehicle for truth.
The Command to Employ
Before the invention of the novel, Milton employed the powerful marriage of story and truth to sketch a tale through poetry that has captivated the hearts and imagination of people ever since. Far from an apathetic peddler of his art, Milton employs himself with vigor, flourishing a writing style scholars have considered next to Shakespeare.
He took the first three chapters of Genesis and molds a story from them – a literary epic of 12 books and 10,565 lines. Far from distancing himself from the art and genius of the world and imagination, Milton used both as a catalyst to project a distinctly Christian history and worldview. He writes a story from a story, imagining what could have happened in between the lines. And that is part of the beauty of this work. Milton adds depth and character to people we barely know. Satan becomes a vibrant being boiling with vengeance and pride. Into Adam is breathed the breath of poetry. Demons impose a villain to be conquered, with a future of hope pointing to the hero of Christ.
Milton was not writing a doctrinal stance on Creation, or a dissertation on the Gospel. He was writing a story. A beautiful story. A Christian story. A story that tells Biblical truth and holds imagination and beauty.
Other Christian authors have done the same, including later authors such as Dostoevsky, Daniel Defoe, John Bunyan, C.S. Lewis – any Christian who realizes the power of stories and imagination.
Stories are powerful. And when Christians create stories, they are powerfully righteous.
The Command to Pillage
In Paradise Lost, Milton found the gem in the arts of his time – the art of storytelling – and he took that gem and used it to create a Christian treasure. In On Christian Doctrine, Augustine explains how that same gem, can be discovered even in a worldly mine.
In his book, Augustine calls gleaning from pagan literature “pillaging the Egyptians”. In this very poignant illustration, Augustine is referring to Exodus 12, when God commands the Israelites to take the silver, gold, and clothing of their masters as they flee the pagan land. Verse 36 continues, “And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.” Being possessed by idolaters and pagans did not render this gold useless, profane, or “unchristian”. It was still a good and wholesome treasure that God commanded His people to use.
According to Augustine, the Christian can look upon truth in the same way. Pagan books, philosophy, art , etc. can be used to help us understand truth, our world, our culture, and sometimes even the Bible (such as when Paul uses the pagan poets in Acts 17 to instruct and illustrate a truth of Scripture.) Simply because it was a truth professed by a pagan (or to our modern ears, a non-Christian, an atheist, etc.) does not make it false. It is still a good and useful treasure that we would be right to learn from and even love, and would be wrong to curse or disdain simply because of who previously possessed it.
The Command to Defend
All truth is God’s truth. A truth used by sinful people, in a sinful way, does not make that truth a falsehood. (If that were the case, then us fallen Christians wouldn’t be capable of discovering truth either.)
We are wrong when we reject truth from an unbeliever, just as we are wrong when we believe falsehood from a Christian. Wisdom demands intellectual engagement with ideas that oppose our own. The call to be set apart from the world does not point to the field we fight on, but the banner we fight under.
Christian author Douglas Wilson writes:
“G.K. Chesterton said somewhere that if a book does not have a wicked character in it, then it is a wicked book. One of the most pernicious errors that has gotten abroad in the Christian community is…the view that evil is to be evaded, rather than the more robust Christian view that evil is to be conquered. The Christian believes that evil is there to be fought, the dragon is there to be slain. The sentimentalist believes that evil is to be resented…It is not possible to live in this world faithfully without coming into conflict with those who have no desire to live faithfully…True protection equips. We do not want to build a fortress…to hide in; we want…a shield to carry – along with a sword.”
When we read the works of non-Christians, and even those opposed to Christianity, we not only are able to glean from the truths of great (though misled) minds, but we are also able to better understand the strength of our own position, and work toward a Christian response.
Douglas Wilson later explains that those who do this “are grateful that Christ came into this dark world, and they know why they are grateful.”
John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost, was physically blind. Yet God enabled Him to not only see truth clearly, but to lead others to see it also. As he, and Augustine, and C.S. Lewis, and Douglas Wilson and countless others strive to pillage the Egyptians, we will not find our foundation weakened, but reaffirmed. When we understand our faith and engage the faith of others, we pass this proper worldview on to the next person, the next mind, the next imagination. It spreads truth – the pure truth of Scripture, as well as the treasures we have received from pillaging the Egyptians.
Soli Deo Gloria,
