Art and Storytelling in a time of ‘Desecration’

Author: John Stonestreet and Dr. Timothy D. Padgett 

In a recent Substack, Rod Dreher described an art exhibit in Austria entitled “You shall make for yourself an image.” As the name suggests, the point of the installation is to blaspheme Christianity, particularly during Advent. 

One photograph in the exhibit, entitled “I am the Mother too,” features a man dressed as Mary holding the baby Jesus. The caption reads, “The allusion to the Virgin Mary is clear. . . . [the artist] addresses the fears and struggles of Bangladesh’s severely oppressed and socially isolated LGBTQI+ community.” In another piece, “latex nubs” are arranged to look like maggots in the shape of a man crucified on a cross. The exhibition’s description for this one says, “[The artist] transforms one of Western culture’s most potent symbols into a tactile, erotically charged object.”  

The most scandalous piece is of Mary holding Jesus after His death. Except in this version, it’s a naked woman in a suggestive pose cradling a “Christ” who died not from crucifixion but from a heroin overdose. In one sense, the exhibit can be dismissed as a childish, boorish attempt to break taboos. It is a particularly crass example of desecration, the growing tendency in Western society to not merely deny but also violate transcendent truth, objective beauty, and goodness. 

The insistent backstory-ing of movie villains is a tamer example of desecration. With sequels, remakes, and “reimaginings,” well-loved stories are retold in a way that encourages the audience to reconsider the good guys and bad guys. The heroes are deeply flawed, and the villains are misunderstood. No one should judge.  

Take, as an example, the new Wicked movie. The whole point of Wicked: for Good, as the title suggests, is to reenvision the story of Oz, making Dorothy a minor character and the Wicked Witch of the West the heroine. Sleeping Beauty received a similar treatment in 2014. The live-action prequel was told from the perspective of the evil sorceress Maleficent. And Netflix just announced a new movie called “Steps,” an updated version of Cinderella where the originally abusive stepsisters are actually “kind and misunderstood.” 

While an occasional movie along these lines would be interesting, the frequency is so commonplace that, as Jonathan Pageau put it in describing the Viennese art show, it’s all “so tedious and boring.” Not to mention, like a Broadway lineup that features theatre versions of mediocre 90’s movies, it also reflects a crisis of creativity. 

Art mostly reflects the worldview and values of a culture. Having rejected a Creator, it’s no wonder that we’ve lost creativity. But we’ve also lost truth, beauty, and goodness. Nothing is admirable to be aspired to, and no standard remains to hold us back from the moral abyss. Eventually, desecration will make sense to those convinced the sacred is nothing but moral imposition. 

In contrast, the Christian vision begins with God as the source of all meaning and goodness. Because the Christ that the Vienna exhibit profanes actually invaded human history at the incarnation, and because He died and rose again, history has meaning and we have hope.   

Years ago, Chuck Colson described the Christian life as “the good life”: 

What does it take to create the good life? A firm sense of right and wrong and a determination to order one’s life accordingly. … When men and women act in accord with their true nature, they feel a sense of harmony, contentment, and joy. This is happiness, the fruit of virtue. 

Despite sin, struggle, and despair, God is sovereign. Creation is still good. Beauty, truth, and morality are not illusions. To recognize these things is to acknowledge reality. Desecration, however, rejects reality.  

Christian art and storytelling are important and effective callings, not merely to provide alternatives to the “deathworks” of desecration. Rather, as Dr. Gary Phillips often said, the artist task is to “paraphrase reality.”  Those who grasp the essentials of reality can remind the world of the Creator and all that is true, good, and beautiful.