Performance Art and Worship

Interview: Performance art & worship

What is performance art?
Performance art is a means of artistic expression which is not easily defined. One component most people agree on is that performance art is executed before a live audience by the artist him/herself. The emphasis of performance art is on the act, rather than on the creation of an art object, such as a painting or sculpture. The aim is gut level expression and direct connection with the audience. It differs from conventional theatre in that it may not be scripted or rehearsed, and may or may not be performed in a conventional theatre setting.

You perform mostly in churches. Do you find this limiting?
I like performing in churches for a number of reasons. It’s true that there are certain limitations in a church which would not exist in a secular setting, but what I’m doing is different from what most performance artists are doing in the secular arena. My intent is different, and my relationship to the audience is different. I am a part of the “body of Christ”, and so as an artist I am sympathetic to the rest of the body, whereas the majority of performance artists would be enthusiastically antagonistic to the audience in my situation.
I like the fact that most of the people who see my work have probably never set foot in an art gallery, and are considered art Philistines by the art world. Part of my desire is to bring something creative, authentic, and God-worthy to an audience that may have been fed a steady diet of weak and cheesy artistic expression. Evangelical church culture has largely become an aesthetic wasteland, or even worse, a festival of nostalgia. I suppose this has happened in part because many serious artists have left the church. I never left, and I live in the art world as well.

Why do you say your intent is different?
My intent is different because of the spirit behind my work. There is a spirit of nihilism* which pervades the art world, and with which I don’t agree. I am not post-modern. I don’t believe that life is meaningless. I think some things are sacred. I believe there is objective truth. I believe God has made Himself knowable, and I believe that I know Him, at least in part. I believe the message demonstrated by Jesus – the arrival of the Kingdom of God – is as relevant today as ever. Art can be prophetic. Art can lead people into worship. Ultimately that is my intent – to lead people into the reciprocal presence of God and to reveal the mysteries of the Kingdom again.

Do you see your role then, as that of a priest?
A priest? I don’t know. Maybe. If I can be a passionate priest who has a wife and five kids and who likes to play with paint and go dumpster diving. I think my role is more like that of a wilderness guide. There’s a jungle of distractions out there, both secular and religious, that can keep us from reaching the destination – the destination being companionship with God.

How does worship fit into what you’re doing as a performance artist?
For me, worship is the goal. My desire is to see our Creator voluntarily, passionately worshipped in spirit and in truth, and my hope is that my art would be a catalyst for that. Rather than have an audience sit passively and watch a performance or listen to a song, the potential is there, especially in a church, for the audience to become actively engaged in the ultimate reality – worship of our Creator. It’s not a bad thing to see a performance about God, but in a roomful of believers, how much better it is for everyone to express their hearts to God in worship. My favorite performance art events have included Mollie leading the audience in congregational dance as an act of corporate worship.

How do you define worship?
That’s one of my favorite questions! We all frequently hear the word “worship”, but I wonder if the American understanding of worship is not as Biblical as it could be. Currently, my favorite definition of worship is this: “Worship is a physical expression of your love for God.” (Randall Bane – David’s House) I like this definition because it says “physical expression”. Worship must be expressed as a physical act. In the same way that love is worthless without acts of love, in the same way that faith is dead without acts of faith, and mercy is meaningless without acts of mercy, so worship is completed by acts of worship. In scripture you see worship linked to physical acts such as falling prostrate, bowing, kneeling, shouting, lifting hands, dancing in a variety of ways, and of course, everyone’s favorite, singing and playing instruments. It would be difficult to support from scripture the idea that worship simply means to think reverent thoughts toward God. Our western minds are very “Greek” in their thinking – the Greek approach to knowledge being internal, intellectual, and compartmental. I’m striving to be more Hebrew in my thinking – the Hebrew approach to knowledge being external, experiential, expressive, and whole-person.
The apostle Paul said that marriage between a man and a woman is a mystery that refers to Christ and the church. This is helpful in understanding worship. To me worship is like the expressing of romantic love within marriage, the essence of which is focussed attention on one’s lover. If my wife were to tell me every week that she loved me, or even if she were to sing love songs about me every week, but never touched me, never kissed me, never made love to me, her expression of love for me would be incomplete. But that is what the church does to her lover.

What are your thoughts on “worship as a lifestyle”?
This is not something the church should divide over, but another perspective wouldn’t hurt either: I don’t see how worship as scripture describes it can be a lifestyle, because worship is not merely internal. To be conscious of God throughout the day is an excellent thing, but it’s not worship – it’s being conscious of God throughout the day. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call such practice “prayer as a lifestyle”, thus we can “pray without ceasing”. Words mean things. When I’m at the grocery store, I’m not worshipping, I’m shopping! I’m thinking about other things. Worship is about focus. Worship is intentional. Once early in my marriage, Mollie indicated that she wanted to spend some time with me. I had stuff to do, so I pointed out that we had just finished running errands together. Wrong Answer. She was looking for focussed attention. In the same way, I believe God seeks our focussed attention. Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the Father seeks worshippers. We can run errands, or mow the lawn with God, but my point is that we also have set aside times of personal and corporate worship, lest we water down the worship that God deserves.
It seems that most people use Romans 12:1 as a basis for the “worship as a lifestyle” idea: “…present your bodies as a living sacrifice…which is your spiritual worship”. I’m no Greek scholar, but I notice that the word translated as “worship” in Romans 12:1 is used only four other times in the New Testament. The word means “service”, sometimes translated as “ritual duties” or “temple service”. In contrast, the other references to “worship” in the New Testament, (and there are many), use a different word. These references include Jesus’ discourse with the Samaritan woman, (“…those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”), as well as every instance of someone worshipping Jesus from His birth to His appearance in the Revelation. Interestingly, that word literally means “to kiss toward”. (proskuneo: pros, “towards,” and kuneo, “to kiss”).
The book of Romans was written to gentiles, who had not been given the law, the patriarchs, the covenants, the “temple service”(worship), and so forth (Romans 9:4,5). In the passage immediately preceding Romans 12:1, Paul describes the gentiles as “wild olive shoots” grafted into Israel, the “cultivated tree” (Romans 11). So perhaps in 12:1 Paul is saying to the Roman gentiles, since they have no temple, or more accurately, since their bodies have become “a temple of the Holy Spirit”, that the presenting of their bodies to God as a living sacrifice is now their “temple service”. Again, an excellent thing, but not worship in the usual sense. Worship is expressed in reverential, intentional acts directed toward our Creator. “Worship is a physical expression of your love for God”.

*Nihilism; 1a : a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless. b : a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and esp. of moral truths.