Topic Question Essay 3: Faith and Belief

Essay #7a
Faith and Belief

Figure 1 Source Link - Statue of the Good Shepherd -- Marble, Unknown Artist, c. 300 CE

QUESTION: Is Art in any way, an intrinsic part of, or a primary factor in religion or religious expression and if so, how did it specifically play a part in the development of Christianity?


PART ONE

SUMMARY: This question was difficult to attempt. There was a lot of ground to cover and it is difficult to narrow the scope enough on response about religion that isn't rife with organizational errors. I focused on the communal aspect of religion and tried as best as I could to wade through all the information I took in, as not to stray off topic while answering this intriguing question.

REASON: The reason this question was asked is to force the responder to carefully examine the link between art and religion, which can not be taken for granted as it is an integral part of countless pieces studied throughout this course.

PURPOSE: This question is intended to allow the responder to put art in the context of the society and religion surrounding it and vice versa.

DIRECTION: There are so many aspects of art and religion that are interrelated, that it was hard to decide what angle to approach this paper from. I decided to examine the strength in community both art and religion uniquely provide, because both are an important part of my own life.

IMPRESSIONS: This question felt nearly impossible to answer. Religious belief is rather nebulous and many people are unable to examine its structure without any sort of personal bias. I was surprised to realize that I myself had overlooked the functional purpose of art in a religion and I feel more enlightened through my research.


PART TWO

Art and religion are human inventions. Like so many inventions, these two are linked by a common thread: their propensity to allow us to communicate with each other on a basic, human level. Notice the word communicate. One word that most closely resembles communication is community. A community can be summed up as a group of people who share similar beliefs and experiences. It seems that human beings need to feel a certain level of commonality with each other in order to function peacefully in an organized society. In fact, belonging and finding your place in society is so important to human beings that it appears on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. (http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/conation/maslow.html)  This desire to relate to our fellow man may indeed be the basis for many religions.

The presence of community, or more specifically the lack thereof, can lead to the human mind turning in on itself. This was the case in one of the most brutal events in American history: the 36-hour New Mexico State Penitentiary riot of February 1980. This riot stands out for two loosely related reasons. The first is that the crimes committed against inmates and guards by other inmates were something for a horror movie. Men were brutally murdered with blowtorches among other actions that would seem almost inhuman. (http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/blog-2534-36-hours-30-years-later-one-national-guardswomans-account-of-the-1980-prison-riot.html) The environment became so dangerous in the hours before the National Guard finally moved in and reinstated order that frightened inmates gathered together in the yard, seeking refuge. (http://www.abqjournal.com/cgi-bin/print_it.pl?page=/2000/nm/future/9fut09-19-99.htm) The second reason this riot stands out in history is much more difficult to understand in context of the immediate picture. Guard testimonies over their observations made on prison conditions beforehand reported that the administration had been warned repeatedly that a riot was imminent. (The Devil's Butcher Shop, Roger Morris, UNM Press, 1983, p. 17) Additionally, in later analyses of the incident, the dissolution of educational programs, increasing use of solitary confinement, and coercion of inmates by guards were all cited as major factors that contributed to the animosity between inmates and the sheer chaos during the riot itself. (http://www.lineofduty.com/the-blotter/110121-nm-prison-riot-30-yrs-ago-we-went-to-hell) How could these things have possibly contributed to the riot in any significant or immediate way? The answer is that the prison was overcrowded and uncomfortable and worse, devoid of any sort of communal atmosphere. In such a setting, people were not able to coexist in harmony. Some articles refer to the murderers and victims as "fellow inmates." (http://www.abqjournal.com/cgi-bin/print_it.pl?page=/2000/nm/future/9fut09-19-99.htm) However, in this environment prisoners were isolated from one another, sometimes physically and sometimes only in spirit; there was no fellowship among men in this prison. The communal atmosphere the social programs had in part created had suffocated and the satisfaction of their basic need to belong vanished. The men were not able to share in their burdens together and help each other through their rough times. With no way to connect on a human level with those around them, they seized an opportunity to manifest their building inner desire for destruction externally, committing some of the worst atrocities against one another.

Humans do not like chaos. This idea can be clearly understood through the principles of design, which reveal incredible effect unity or disunity can have on our mood when we view an aesthetic work. One of our biggest lines of defense against chaos in life is a sense of belonging and community. (Foundations of Art and Design, Lois Fichner-Rathus, Cengage Learning, 2011, p 190) One way to define community would be the unity of peoples through shared experiences. Without these elements in our lives, we would all be individual atoms floating in space, rather than a unified, functioning social body. The former was the state of the New Mexico State Penitentiary in the few years leading up to the riot. Christianity, much like Judaism, spread in a society of clashing cultural ideas and relative instability. By the time it began to take hold in the Roman Empire, the Empire itself was in limbo. (The Making of the West Volume 1 2nd Ed, Lynn Hunt et al., Bedford/St Martins, 2007, p 205) Perhaps the fervor for which many felt towards the newfound religion was a combination of a deep longing to breathe new life into the concept of a community and safeguard this new community from the factors that were causing the one it was replacing to buckle. This fits in with the preachings of Jesus, which are friendly to all who were willing to accept God's love, prince and pauper alike. (Art History Volume 1 4th Ed, Marilyn Stokstad et al., Prentice Hall, 2010, p 222) "Collectively, societies are better off when their members cooperate with each other to achieve common goals." ("Individual-Level Evidence for the Causes and Consequences of Social Capital," American Journal of Political Science, John Brehm and Wendy Rahn, July 1997, p. 999) Keeping this in mind, the timing of Christianity's formation is may merely be evidence of an desperate attempt to harmonize society a society falling into disunity.

The role art plays in religious participation is a vital one. Art allows people the chance for self expression, which in turn leads to the development of strong beliefs and identity. In this case, religious identity is cultivated. Artistic expression is a journey which allows those who create it and those who experience it to relate to one another on a common level, sharing and shaping the beliefs which unify them. Additionally, art allows us to manifest our more abstract beliefs in tangible reality and this is especially important to remember with regards to religion. (Art History Volume 1 4th Ed, Marilyn Stokstad et al., Prentice Hall, 2010, p 224) Without art, many aspects of religion would likely be too nebulous for many to understand because there would be external side to compliment the internal impression. (http://www.italianfuturism.org/manifestos/art-and-religion/)

In the world of the Roman Empire, a world where art was valued and found its way from one distant land to another with relative ease, art played a crucial role in reinforcing the shared beliefs of Christianity. In fact, surviving works of the budding religion suggest that artists were already re-purposing the imagery of Roman and Jewish art to demonstrate their most important concepts. (Art History Volume 1 4th Ed, Marilyn Stokstad et al., Prentice Hall, 2010, p 222) The Good Shepherd statue seen in Figure 1 is a prime example of the type of imagery Christians would borrow. (http://gbgm-umc.org/UMW/Bible/jcart.stm) This practice of assimilating the imagery of one tradition to another is called syncretism. (Art History Volume 1 4th Ed, Marilyn Stokstad et al., Prentice Hall, 2010, p 222) The Christians were already consciously and unconsciously playing to the commonalities they already shared, such as living in a Roman world and sometimes a Jewish setting. Through both their art and their religion (particularly the teachings of the bible,) Christians formed a common iconography to which they could relate to on a religious level, thus bounding them together and solidifying their community, while still allowing the artwork to exist independently to integrate them with their non-Christian neighbors. (Art History Volume 1 4th Ed, Marilyn Stokstad et al., Prentice Hall, 2010, p 224) There is no way to know how this religion might have suffered from the absence of art. Without art, Christians would neither have been able to effectively harmonize with the world they lived in nor relate to one another. Without these elements, it is unlikely that many religions could gain the level of popularity seen in Christianity.