MISSION STATEMENT: None, since we don’t care much for mission statements. They always seem too formal, longish, & a bit stuffy. Yet, in working on an official flyer/poster for our group, I came up with this to fill up some space near the bottom:
“Giving witness to the Catholic faith through prayerful & critical engagement with art, literature & film.”
Hopefully that’s not overwrought, or stuffy. And while it may not sound much like a formal mission statement, it does capture the spirit of our venture, which is a work in progress.
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“Ecce Homo” by Georges Rouault, 1939-42
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WHAT YOU’LL FIND ON THIS BLOG: There are several pages to view; the links for each are at the top of each page. What follows below is a sample entry from each of those pages to give you some idea of the content you’ll find there.
Note also the links to the left of the page. There are so many sites out there, so many words doing battle with so many other words, that due discretion is necessary. Some sites are pure gold, though, & hopefully you’ll find something helpful in those we linked.
We also try to make the pages visually appealing by inserting photographs & paintings throughout.
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The QUOTES page contains quotes we find interesting & provocative, followed by a bit of commentary:
“Again & again man correlates himself with the world, racked with longing to acquire, & become one with, the ideal which lies outside him, which he apprehends as some kind of intuitively sensed first principle. The unattainability of that becoming one, the inadequacy of his own ‘I’, is the perpetual source of man’s dissatisfaction & pain.” —Andrei Tarkovsky
Yeah, that sounds like something you’ll hear from a director at the next Academy Awards. Tarkovsky made wildly challenging films (go here for a nice website dedicated to his work), & his Sculpting in Time is a challenging, informative read. The above quote is from Chapter 2, “Art—a yearning for the ideal.” It nicely echoes what other writers have said about eros, & sounds a little bit like Luigi Giussani in The Religious Sense. It makes sense that Tarkovsky is considered one of cinema’s greatest directors, even if he made only 7 films. He was a humanist in the truest sense of the word, one who knew that the fundamental orientation of the person is toward that which transcends the material world.
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On the ART page we’ll feature different artists & works of art. Every month or so we’ll look at one particular work, offer some background, & say a few things about the artist responsible for it, along with providing the necessary links for further exploration. We’ll also do features on artists, such as:
Jacques Barbey is one of the co-founders of Emeth Society, & a talented new media artist. He’s also one of the most interesting guys you’ll meet, with about a hundred different ideas flowing through his head at any one time. Talking with Jacques is like running an intellectual marathon, as everything from Tarkovsky to Malick to CS Lewis to Catherine of Siena to Sean Connery is likely to be spilled on the table. Great heart, & a great sense of humor. Included below is a brief artist’s bio, along with a few representative works.
Jacques’ career in photography started in his early twenties. He began as a photojournalist, first as a college intern, and then on the staff of the Phoenix Gazette and the Arizona Republic. His life changed one evening at work when he walked by the graphics department and spied a colleague working with a Mac computer with Adobe Illustrator. Shortly after this he brought his first computer, added photoshop, & began the dabbling that led to the creation of Barbey Photo Arts.
For the past 20 years Jacques has refined his technique, developing his signature style of highly conceptual work in richly detailed settings. Still retaining the attention to craft from his days as a photojournalist, Jacques combines the traditional means of lighting and analog film-based photography with photoshop imaging software. This process has helped him to craft highly stylized and imaginative images that often blur the line between art and advertising. He has earned commissions from national advertising agencies, book publishers, the motion picture industry, & monthly national magazines such as Time, Discover, and Business Week.
Currently Jacques is continuing his award-winning work for the Arizona Opera Company from his studio space in downtown Phoenix (the photos here are from his work with the Opera; check out the mailers they send & you’ll see more), while exploring new avenues in both digital imaging and photographic fine arts. A long-term project in which he will explore different dimensions of religious faith has borne fruit in his Ash Wednesday portrait series. Check out his website at www.jacquesbarbey.com for more examples of his work.
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On the FILMS page we’ll do features on films & directors:
The new Arts & Faith Top 100 Films list for 2011 has been released. Go here to read it, & do check out the links for each film. Each film contains a brief review, along with the always necessary, always helpful link to Amazon should you wish to consider a purchase. Jacques & I gave a presentation to the Xavier faculty last September on the list, focusing on a few of the films from the 2010 list. It’s helpful to compare the 2 lists. There are some new films on the 2011 list, along with a reshuffling of the rankings. Because Jacques & I are members of the A&F community, we got to cast our votes, so I feel a smidgen of pride. ”Hey, I voted for that one.” It’s good to see “Amadeus” on this year’s list; check out our Blog page for an entry on Salieri’s battle with God, the main theme of the play the film is based on. Lots to consider, lots to watch.
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On the BOOKS page we’ll comment on one of the chief reasons God permitted Amazon.com to come into existence:
Nice article by Ralph C. Wood of Baylor University on 2 recent books on Dostoevsky. Title: “Fyodor Dostoevsky on Living the Iconic Life.” This link is for a PDF.
I have next to me Jacques’ copy of the Rowan Williams book discussed by Wood in the article. Whatever else you can say about the Archbishop of Canterbury, he is a perceptive theologian & critic (here’s a link to his site). This is a book that seems like it will take considerable time & effort to digest. It also includes a “Series Introduction.” On the back cover you’ll find “The Making of the Christian Imagination” right above the imprint for Baylor University Press. Here’s what the press website says about this series (go here for the page):
“The Making of the Christian Imagination (MCI) series aims to highlight figures of that great tradition of post-biblical writers and artists who, in very different ages and cultures, have continued the dialogue begun within the pages of the New Testament. Philosophy and theology alike are vital to Christianity – but the greatest of such works rarely transcend their time. What lives from the past is more often imagination than argument, and more often than we sometimes suppose, argument has been shaped by imagination rather than vice versa. The books in this series are written in a jargon-free style and seek to examine the figures in question and their imaginative creations, sympathetically, but not uncritically.”
Wood himself has a book on GKC due out in December titled Chesterton: The Nightmare Goodness of God. Great subject, great title; Wood is an interesting guy, with books on Tolkien & Flannery O’Connor that are well-reviewed. Here’s a link to his page on Amazon.
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On the MISC. (miscellaneous) page put a variety of things that interest us. Poems, notices of this or that, etc.:
If anyone wants to answer this ad, please keep me informed about what happens. I remain skeptical about the possibility of time travel, but this person promises payment of some sort upon return, so why not give it a try? Do keep in mind the safety issues; the request to bring your own weapons suggests possible danger. Good luck.
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The BLOG page has longer pieces on this & that (whatever happens to interest me at the moment). This includes discussions of films, commentary on matters of topical importance, reflections on contemporary writers & controversies, & things of that nature. Entries include (the last few I’ve written, with links to take you to each entry):
“Impressions of Terrence Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life’”
“A More Adequate Anthropology & the Task of Catholic Education“
“Love, Suffering, & the Defeat of Death: Why Voldemort & Peter Singer Understand Nothing“
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“White Crucifixion” by Marc Chagall, 1938
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Part of what motivates us is found in the following quote from the theologian Trevor Hart:
“The God made known in Jesus Christ, we must suppose, is not automatically threatened by human activity in the world, but desires our active participation in his purposes for a world which has not reached its final goal. To this end he calls us to an obedient, Spirit-filled free response & correspondence to his own activity within history (of course not all activity or every expression of human freedom is desirable to him). The creative authority of the Word who becomes flesh is of a sort which, while it certainly sets boundaries to the legitimate & possible expressions of human freedom, none the less creates space for, facilitates, & deliberately seeks the responsible exercise of such freedom in every sphere of human life.”
Maurice Denis (French, 1870-1943) Noli Me Tangere, 1895-96
Nicely said. There are Christians who struggle to understand & appreciate how the human desire to create expresses something of what it means to be created in the image of God, as well as what it means to profess that in Christ God became human. They can be suspicious of human creativity, focusing on all the ways human freedom turns away from God & produces work which is a sign of their rebellion. At times this can paralyze any real effort to show forth God’s glory through the work of their hands. Yet Hart finishes the above quote with the following words, drawing our attention to the mandate to share in God’s creative work:
“Responsible creativity of an artistic sort is thus not only warranted, but may be viewed as an unconditional obligation laid upon us & called forth by God’s gracious speaking to humankind in the life, death & resurrection of his Son. Indeed we may go further, & suggest that it is not only a proper response to, but also an active sharing in (albeit in a distinct & entirely subordinate creaturely mode) God’s own creative activity within the cosmos.”
The arts—literature, poetry, film, drama, music, the fine arts, architecture, dance, etc.—are thus neither merely diversionary activities with little relation to our pursuit of truth, nor a yielding to the temptation to rebel against God. They are meant to be a faithful response to God’s creative & redemptive work, & are one of the ways we participate in his great reclamation project begun with the calling of Abraham & fulfilled in Christ. One of the ways Satan seeks to prevent or corrupt this response is by distorting the creative impulse within us to serve selfish & destructive ends, & to convince believers that participation in the arts is a sinful waste of time. To suggest to most people today that the arts are meant to lead us to a deeper participation in goodness, truth, & beauty is to be met with incomprehension, if not scorn. Such a response indicates the continuing success of the forces arrayed against God & his faithful in keeping people focused on anything but the source & fulfillment of human creativity. By contemplating works of human nobility & genius & encouraging the exercise of the artistic skills of our members, especially in the context of prayerful fellowship, we believe that we can contribute to the success of the rescue movement initiated by God.
Abraham ready to sacrifice his Son; Marc Chagall; 1960-66
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“ALL TRUTH IS GOD’S TRUTH”
A word of explanation regarding our name is in order. “Emeth” is a Hebrew word meaning “true,” “loyal.” Our main inspiration for choosing this name is the Calormene warrior Emeth in The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis, whom Aslan embraces after his death despite his shady past as a devotee of the false god Tash.
Lewis’s reasoning for allowing this says something important not only about the theology of “mere” Christianity, but also about what we hope to highlight as we examine films, texts, etc., namely, that all truth comes from God & that devotion to the truth can take many forms, even surprising ones. For some Christians this is a controversial claim, one that threatens to undermine Christ’s salvific work. Lewis, despite his reputation as a stalwart defender of the true faith, has his detractors who think he lapses into a religious relativism in The Last Battle that implies that God’s revelation in Christ is just one form of the truth, & that even those who serve false idols can be saved because they “meant well” or performed good works. Lewis clearly taught, however, that truth is most clearly & fully revealed in & through Christ, who is himself the Way, the Truth, & the Life, that all other expressions of truth are subordinate to Christ & ultimately point one to him, & that we have no ability to save ourselves by our good deeds. Lewis believed that this allows Christians to be more “liberal” than atheists about religions, as we believe that God is the God of all people & doesn’t hide his truth from them, even if they fall short of what he reveals in Christ. They are saved only through Christ, by the grace of God, & not by whether or not they were “good” people. They will all be judged on the basis of how they responded to the goodness & truth God has revealed to them, even if this is limited to conscience & the moral law, as well as what Lewis calls “good dreams,” which include myths, rituals, & stories about the gods that are the core of religions like the one Emeth follows. See also Till We Have Faces, where the “Ungit religion” of the inhabitants of Glome contains strong, if imperfect, intimations of the fuller truth that both Psyche & Orual discover. According to Lewis, these pagan religious traditions can often fruitfully be seen as a type of praeparatio evangelica, providing people with hints of the fuller revelation that comes through Christ. Emeth meets Aslan after his death & expects judgment, as he has served Tash & fought against Aslan. Yet Aslan tells him that any “good service” done for Tash is actually done for Aslan, while any evil done, even if done in Aslan’s name, ultimately serves Tash:
“For I & he are of such different kinds that that no service which is vile can be done to me, & none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash & keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, & it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though, he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves & by Tash his deed is accepted.”
Along similar lines, Jacques Maritain, in The Responsibility of the Artist, offers this:
“Any man who, in a primary act of freedom deep enough to engage his whole personality, chooses to do the good for the sake of the good, chooses God, knowingly or unknowingly, as his supreme good; he loves God more than himself, even if he has no conceptual knowledge of God.”
Jacques Barbey, “Rigoletto,” commissioned for Arizona Opera
This is one of the implications of the reality of natural law, which Lewis defended throughout his writings, most notably in The Abolition of Man & most succinctly in Book 1 of Mere Christianity & the essay “The Poison of Subjectivism.” It also provides the beginning of an answer to the concerns about the salvation of those who have never heard the gospel. And since Lewis shares the traditional Christian convictions that all truth is God’s truth & all acts of goodness are oriented toward God, even if his identity is imperfectly understood, Emeth can be redeemed by Aslan without any danger of confusing the nature & meaning of redemption or the one who redeems. As the Catholic Church teaches, there is goodness & truth in other religious traditions, though Christ alone is the way, the truth, & the life, & Christianity is the privileged expression of God’s redemptive work through Christ & the normal means by which he saves. This is not a simple matter to think through, & Christians have always struggled to articulate how no one goes to the Father but through Christ &, at the same time, how those who do not know the name of Christ, or who know it imperfectly, can still be saved by him. Emeth serves as a reminder that simplistic formulas about these matters do an injustice to both the mercy & justice of the God who saves. Lewis addressed this issue several times in his writings, including in a letter from 1952 when he wrote:
“I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God & that Christ saves many who do not think they know Him. For He is (dimly) present in the good side of the inferior teachers they follow. In the parable of the Sheep & the Goats . . . those who are saved do not seem to know that they have served Christ.”
“Men of Athens,” St. Paul began in Acts 17, “I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along, & observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” Then he continues with one of the most famous sermons in Christian history, concluding with reference to Christ’s resurrection. What’s notable is that Paul begins with the Athenians’ “religious sense,” their awareness, however dim, that they are beholden to some power, some divinity, & that their lives make sense only in light of this divinity. Paul is there in Athens, as are all believers today wherever we may be, to clarify this awareness & draw attention to how Christ is the fulfillment of all human desires, including the desire to know the truth about ourselves & the world we live in. Members of Emeth Society hope to contribute to this mission through engagement with the arts, always a primary means of human articulation of our deepest longings & perceptions.
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WHO CAME UP WITH THIS? Who really knows where ideas like this come from? In this case, co-founder Anthony DiStefano was having lunch with co- founder Jacques Barbey, discussing the C.S. Lewis course that DiStefano was teaching as part of the Institute of Catholic Theology at St. Thomas the Apostle in the Fall of 2009. Stuff was said, ideas came together, and here we are. Thanks to Jacques for taking the initiative to set up our site & get things rolling.
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If you share our interests, we hope you will join us for conversation & fellowship. Or, if you just want more information or have something to share, feel free to contact us at emethsociety@gmail.com. Cheers.
