If it isn’t apparent by now that I’m convinced of the essential role of the imagination in our lives, then we have a serious failure of communication. Today’s blog post describes the kind of healthy imagination that will effectively make a difference in the world. So let’s cut to the chase.
A Christian imagination is bent on glorifying Jesus Christ and building his kingdom.
One way for the Christian imagination to do so is by affirming the world’s physical beauty and the underlying order with which it was created by God. God is not in the business of dealing only with spiritual things. Perhaps it might be more appropriate, though possibly confusing, to say that God has spiritualized all things in the Incarnation: all physical things have significance to God and we bring Him delight when we play physically in this physical world in a way that is morally good. It is my humble opinion that many of us are too afraid of being happy or being pleasured by the physical. We are afraid of worshiping the creation rather that the Creator, but the wilds of Montana, the flickering lights of downtown, and the old potatoes in the cellar are worth loving if only because God loves them.
Another way for the Christian imagination to glorify Christ and build his kingdom is by losing sight of one’s self. The modern Christian finds himself perpetually pressured toward self-actualization even though his only essential job is to love God and love others. Thus, the Christian imagination is stymied by a vision so narrow in focus, that there is only the self within its visual walls and we consume ourselves with self-reflection. We are like the Israelites of old who refused to look at the golden snake for fear of the real snakes at their feet. Those who looked to the snake, a type of Christ, were preserved by their unwavering attention upon something other than their own self-preservation. Likewise, Christians must look to Christ, they must delight in him, and such devotion promises good fruit. When God is at the center of our vision, we see all things by his light and we present all things by his light.
As Piper stated, “the ultimate end of creation is neither being nor seeing, but delighting and displaying. Delighting in and displaying ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (II Corinthians 4:6). …The display of God’s glory will be both internal and external. It will be both spiritual and physical. We will display the glory of God by the Christ-exalting joy of our heart and by the Christ-exalting deeds of our resurrection bodies” (Contending for our All, p. 73).
Our imagination needs pictures of Christ-exalting deeds and Christ-exalting joys.
A properly attuned imagination also serves a priestly function as it draws us into closer communion with Christ. The role, then, of the Christian writer is to draw others into a closer communion with Christ, not through the preaching of the word, but by remaining true to the art as art, that the reader or observer may glimpse Christ subtly as the art requires-less by proposition and more by painting subtle images in the mind. Langan is correct when she writes that “the public too, still thirsts for the Beloved’s face…it is the Christian imagination’s role to keep this thirst intense, by recalling that face, re-presenting it over and over again.”
Let us, therefore, diligently feed our imaginations as an act of obedience so that we might glorify Christ and better build his kingdom.
