How does art serve the church?

David Taylor brings Christians together to find out

By Jenny Western  |  Special to ChristianWeek

I first heard David Taylor speak at an Urbana Missions Conference where he led a seminar called "A Theology of Art: Or Why It's OK to Paint a Nude."

As a young art history student adrift among the throngs of soon-to-be overseas missionaries, David's words caught my attention. I began to follow his work with Hope Chapel in Austin, Texas through his blog Diary of An Arts Pastor and drew much inspiration from his online writings.

This past year saw the publication of For The Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts, a series of essays edited by Taylor and generated by the "Transforming Culture" symposium he organized in 2008.

I recently caught up with David to hear more about his life, the new book and his thoughts on art and the church.

JW: Who is David Taylor? How does he spend his time?

DT: At the moment I am a doctoral student at Duke Divinity school studying theology and liturgy and seeking a connection between the two in relation to the arts. As I talk to Christians in different churches everybody's wrestling with this question of what place does art serve in the life of the church at large?

JW: On your blog you call yourself "an arts pastor who never wanted to be a pastor and never thought he could be an artist." How did that happen?

DT: My parents were missionaries, and although my older sister felt called to missions, I did not. And never did I consciously think I wanted to be an artist—partly because I grew up in a very conservative evangelical world that didn't have a place theoretically or theologically, let alone practically, for the arts as a vocation.

But in college I read Lord of the Rings and that turned a key inside my imagination. Then I read Chaim Potok's novel I Am Asher Lev. Whereas Tolkein's trilogy woke my imagination, Potok's novel woke up my heart.

After reading that I felt this increasing ache to be an artist. In the summer of 1996 I did my first of four internships at Hope Chapel, where I explored what it might look like for the arts to be a part of the life of a church. Eventually Hope Chapel asked me to become a full-time pastor. Once I got used to the title I realized God had called me to be a shepherd, and I found a very deep sense of joy in being a pastor.

JW: How did For The Beauty of the Church come into being?

DT: In 2000 I had the idea for a conference that would bring together theologians, educators, pastors and artists. Eight years later that conference happened, but it obviously shifted more in the direction of pastors and artists. It came out of years of experience seeing these two constituencies having a difficult time talking to each other.

I thought that if I could get these two constituencies in the same room, the church could only be better off regardless of whatever happened during the course of that time.

JW: Did you know that the book would be an outcome of the symposium?

DT: Yes. I knew we would have some great material coming out of the plenary speakers. I had conceived all six of the talks as if it was a single book. And honestly, I could not find another book that was answering the questions that I and many others were asking.

JW: Why did you write your chapter about the dangers of art-making in the church?

DT: I think it's important because there have been dangers for 2,000 years. Like I say in my chapter, "We have no excuse seeking to be humble about our task and to be wise in our task." And that involves a clearheaded recognition of the dangers. We as church leaders and we as artists need to be thinking about those, because what we do is shaping people's lives for better or for worse.

JW: What have you learned through the process of creating this book?

DT: I have learned that things are much simpler than I imagined and much more complicated than I imagined. I've discovered a lot of people out there who are doing similar work who I didn't know were out there. I've discovered a lot of people that I want to learn from. In talking to people, I have learned how lonely and separated many Christians and artists and churches feel from people who might be kindred to them. I think part of my calling is to try to bring people from across the body of Christ together in this common work on behalf of the arts.

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