I love to doodle. When I was younger, my notebooks and church bulletins were covered with drawings of people in front of me—lots of teachers and preachers—but also the backs of other students or worshipers. It’s not that I was bored. I would stop frequently in the middle of a drawing to jot some notes relevant to the lecture or sermon. I always thought drawing helped me pay more attention to what was being said. (In the one class that actually did bore me, I learned to write backwards so that I had to read my notes in a mirror to study for the final).
Because of my doodling, I signed up for Drawing 101 at Northwestern College. While many art classes were designed to enhance creativity, this drawing class mostly helped us learn to draw realistically and accurately. I enjoyed this extended period of drawing, but I also learned something valuable about my faith, for that class has become for me an extended metaphor for doing theology.
SKILLS AND PERSPECTIVES
In class, students were arranged in a circle around the subject we were about to draw. We began with fruit, perhaps because oranges, apples, and clusters of grapes were easy to draw, and besides fruit holds still. Although we were all drawing the same thing, if you walked around the circle to observe the various drawings, each picture would be markedly different. Part of this was due to our various levels of skill. But what also caused each picture to differ so much were our unique perspectives of the fruit bowl. In my picture, the apple is to the right of the banana, but it was just the opposite for the person across from me in the circle. My picture might not have included the little plum because if was hiding behind the pineapple, but it was a main attraction for others who had a different view of the scene. It was the same bowl of fruit, but our perspective affected what we drew. There was little sense arguing about whose picture was right. A lot of it depended on our angle and we learned to appreciate what others were drawing.
The same thing happens doing theology. Our efforts, of course, are affected by our skill level. We might be beginners in the theological enterprise and quickly resort to clichés and stereotypes (just like a beginning artist who makes all eyes look like almonds without noticing the subtle nuances of each actual human eye). But even more, our theologies will vary because we approach our subject from different perspectives, influenced by our personal experiences, ethnic heritage, books we’ve read, gender, race, social status, etc. We may not want to be influenced by these matters and try to overcome them in our efforts to portray God as accurately as we can, but nonetheless our perspective will shape our theology. This may be something we regret; our limited perspective might cause us to miss or misshape some important aspect of who God is. But our perspective is also something to celebrate, for God has placed us in a position to offer a unique angle, which can be a gift to those around us.
It’s this appreciation for the perspectives of others that has made me not only an intensely evangelical Christian, but an ecumenical Christian. I need the perspectives of kingdom-minded Methodists, charismatic Lutherans, feminist Pentecostals, and social activist Roman Catholics to see aspects of God I do not see from my own limited viewpoint.
A LIVE MODEL
After a while, we did not just draw fruit, we had people come in as models. This taxed our skills even more, for a human being is a much more complex subject. Although they tried to pose as still as possible, there’s always some movement. Their eyes scan the room; they shift their weight; they raise their chin. We were not just drawing a photograph, but attempting to draw a living person. Of course, if we didn’t finish our picture in the allotted time, then at the next session—even though the model tried to get into the same position as before—there would be even more changes. We might have to revise our first picture to accommodate these later perspectives.
Likewise, when we attempt to draw a theological picture of God, we have to be aware that God is not just an idea or a concept, but alive and active. Perhaps God might sit still for a while as we attempt to portray divine attributes and actions, but more likely the Lord will keep on moving in new ways, and we will have a hard time keeping up. God is still the same God throughout this process, but our feeble attempts to capture what we see and experience will be thwarted by the fact that the Lord keeps moving. Our theological understanding will expand as God keeps moving through time and in our lives (and even by looking at what other students are drawing).
NOT A NUDE MODEL
I know that in some college art classes, a nude model will be brought in to help the students understand better how the human form is put together. That was not my experience at Northwestern College. Our human models were always clothed. We could see much of the person before us, but there were some aspects of their bodies that remained a mystery. Some might read that and think, “It’s too bad that a conservative Christian institution did not give its art students a better understanding of how to draw the human form.”
I’ll leave that debate to others. It’s actually helpful for my theological metaphor that our models were clothed, because we can only know as much about God as the Lord has revealed. Much remains a mystery. In a sense, the Lord “dwells [or is clothed] in unapproachable darkness” (1 Kings 8:12), and in another sense, the Lord “dwells in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16). Whether hidden by darkness or light, the fullness of the Deity will be unknown to us. But yet, there is much that God has revealed to us, for Jesus is the fullness of deity in bodily form (Colossians 2:9).
THE MODEL AS FRIEND
In art class, a complete stranger is brought in to serve as the model. Perhaps that is so our drawings will not be influenced by preconceived ideas we have about the person. Or maybe so that the model will not feel badly if we botch our drawings and make them look odd. Some might think that we learn to draw best if we are emotionally detached from the model. I don’t know what art professors think about this, but I wonder if there is an advantage in knowing and even being best friends with the model. With a stranger as our model, we might sloppily throw a drawing together, but with a friend we would want to honor them by doing our best. In addition, when we draw a stranger, our drawing might look a little more generic, like a million other people look. But when we’re drawing a friend, we’d be more acquainted with all the subtle expressions that reveal their character. Of course, there is also the problem that we might want to improve on their looks, perhaps making them look a little thinner than they really are or smoothing out their wrinkles. Still, I think drawing a good friend would yield better results than drawing a stranger.
The same also applies to our theological sketches of God. If the Lord is unknown to us, we are more likely to portray a more generic God, figuring whatever we came up with was good enough. But when we know and love the Lord, we will be better equipped to draw with more accuracy. Yes, it might be tempting to try to give our portrayal of God a little makeover, so it fits better with contemporary ideas of what’s good and beautiful. (Maybe we’ll want to smooth out all those texts about God’s wrath.) Nonetheless, our love and admiration for God will make us better equipped to draw a truthful picture.
OUTSIDE THE STUDIO
If the person modelling for your drawing class is your friend, then you know what happens after class is over. They leave the center of the circle, you put away your drawing tools, and then together you go do something else. Maybe something relaxing, or maybe something meaningful. Either way, your friendship is not confined to the drawing class, but extends into everyday life.
The same is true of the theological enterprise. Just having an academic knowledge of God is not the goal. It’s extremely helpful, but it’s not the end. In fact, if your knowledge of God never breaks out of the box of head-knowledge, even what you know will not be what it could be. The prophet Jeremiah once said something very stunning in this regard concerning King Josiah: “He judged the cause of the poor and needy…Is not this to know me? declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 22:16). Josiah not only could draw an accurate picture of God, he was able to be active with the Lord outside the study and the sanctuary. Josiah’s son Shallum, however, failed miserably in this. If we don’t live out our relationship with God in ways that demonstrate the kingdom, it’s questionable whether we really know what God looks like, no matter how skilled we are in theological artistry.
MISSING THE MARK
You might think that students in a drawing class can do no wrong. If a picture is deficient, a student can simply say they have a different perspective than the other students, or they’re still working on their skills. Yes, there’s a lot of grace to make allowance for those factors. But maybe they drew the model with six fingers or three arms. Maybe what’s on their drawing paper is a picture of another art student instead of the model. Maybe it’s a bird that was perched on a nearby window sill. Perhaps it’s just something conjured from their imagination. Maybe there was a mirror across the room, and they drew a self-portrait instead. Drawing other things is fine, but a student cannot claim that it’s a picture of the model.
Perhaps you can see where I am going with this. It’s wonderful to appreciate how the perspective of other Christians affects the way they conceive of God and interpret scripture. Appreciating this keeps us from becoming rigid in our understanding, assuming that we alone have a corner on the truth. But we also have to keep in mind that some who claim to be describing God are actually portraying a false god. Their descriptions of God are so strikingly different from scripture that we can’t just chalk it up to differences of perspective. We have to conclude that they’re talking about a completely different god. What we have are not just two different perspectives on the one God, but two different gods altogether, one true and one false. If one person says God is a Trinity of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while the other person insists God is an impersonal force that suffuses us with divinity, they can’t both be right. If one person says God sent His Son to become a human being and die for a sinful race, but the other person says that God is sending alien space ships to transfer those who meditate into another dimension, then somebody is looking at the wrong model when drawing conclusions about God.
It’s difficult to discern when the line has been crossed from an accurate portrait to a false portrait, but the line is there. Nearly every book of the New Testament warns about false teachers, false prophets, and false gospels. In the interest of promoting love and peace in the body of Christ, we dare not ignore these warnings. Some of the false teaching is unintentional. Some are trying to be faithful to the Lord, but make mistakes. But others are very intentionally sowing evil ideas to confuse the people of God. Many times false teachers just want to portray God as they want God to be, rather than as found in God’s revelation. They want a God who is merely a larger, more perfect version of themselves.
In my drawing class, the best way to tell if someone’s drawing was wrong was not by comparing their drawing with my drawing (because maybe it’s my drawing that was wrong). Rather, I needed to compare their drawing (and mine) with the model. The standard of what the person looks like is not found in our drawings, but in the model. In the same way, the standard about God is not located in my theological ideas or your theological ideas. The truth about God is located in God, and God’s self-revelation to us. All of our formulations of that truth are relative to that one great Truth.
I’m sure you can stretch this metaphor into all kinds of allegorical directions—some of which I might not even agree with. But suffice it to say, keep drawing with your eyes on the model. As the psalmist said, “My eyes are ever on the Lord” (Psalm 25: 15).
