Interview with Brewing Culture's Erik Lokkesmoe

(Excerpted from Infuze Magazine)

Looking for a way to expand your horizons and challenge your thinking? Sitting down with Erik Lokkesmoe is a good way to start. Erik is founder of Brewing Culture, a non-profit organization that is leading the front lines of bridging the cultural gap between the church and culture. Erik speaks with Senior Editor Matt Conner in one of our most insightful interviews we've ever published.

Matt: To start things off, you list the vision for Brewing Culture as: A creative renaissance that illumines the good, the true, and the beautiful through excellence and artistry for the glory of the Master Artist, the service of neighbor, and the renewal of culture. What exactly does this mean and how does this become tangible?

A Note from Erik: "At Brewing Culture, we are a Washington, D.C.-based organization that creates, commissions, and celebrates transcendent art and media. In collaboration with partners, such as Steve Garber and The Washington Institute, we create space -- physical and spiritual -- for astonishing creativity and authentic conversation." Brewing Culture Visit Brewing Culture's website

Erik: If you and I were to walk down a busy city street and ask fifty people to tell us where we could find the most creative people on the planet, what do you think they would say? Disney? MIT? Virgin? Paramount Studios? MTV? Hallmark?

I am haunted by this question. Imagination rules the world, boasted Napoleon. He was right. There is a quiet power to the creative spheres, the ability to shape the moral imagination, the beliefs and behaviors of a culture -- all through songs and stories, architecture and advertising, film and fashion. And the creative class, as defined by Dr. Richard Florida in his book The Rise of the Creative Class, is now the most dominant social force in America today -- 30 million people who are ushering in the Creative Age. They are the new ruling class -- although disorganized and directionless -- the merchants of cool, rebels armed with iMacs and Final Cut Pro 5.

The Gilded Age expanded population and territory and wealth. The Information Age increased our ability to communicate, to connect with each other and the world. The Creative Age, I believe, will be known for realigning power and influence as people look to the creative spheres for definition of what it means to be human.

That means we need people who, as G.K. Chesterton said, affirm the higher aspirations of the soul in art and media. Our creative pursuits must be connected to more noble and compelling vision than one that strives to fill seats or bank accounts. The Trinity of the well-lived life -- goodness, truth, and beauty -- is also the Trinity of creative genius and godliness. Brewing Culture says, yes, let your imagination soar beyond the stars, a line used by Francis Schaeffer, but let your imagination also be moored to a greater calling -- one that serves neighbor, honors God, and renews culture.

Brewing Culture is providing flesh and muscle to the skeleton doctrine of common grace. By skeleton I mean that, for a myriad of reasons, it is lifeless in the Church. For the artist, common grace is this profound reality that God, as Creator, echoes throughout His creation. His beauty, His love, His excellence, His artistry, His use of form and color and texture are everywhere for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Moreover, common grace enables us to appreciate art from those who do not share our faith -- they are simple re-creators, whether they acknowledge God or not -- of the Master Artist.

It frees us up to applaud and embrace the work of, dare I say it, a liberal artist who rejects the Gospel. The reality is that the best work of art, the richest most thoughtful and truthful art today is not coming from the Church; it is coming from those outside -- those who are grappling with the big questions. That is exciting.

Brewing Culture makes this vision tangible by centering our work on three areas: creativity, community, and conversation. We are building creative and creating communities in the ten most creative cities in America. In those cities we are making space in coffee shops and pubs for the authentic exploration and expression of art and media. It is likely the only place in America where people from all walks of life --racially, politically, culturally, spiritually -- come together to experience a real dialogue about life's deepest, most defining questions.

And finally, we are recruiting 10,000 patrons to give the price of a movie ticket a month toward the redemptive artist. I dare to say that if we gave away 100,000 a month to artists who reflect the good, the true, and the beautiful in their work, we would see, by God's grace, a renaissance in the arts within a year.

I really like what you're saying, although I want to make sure we are comprehending it all. Let's discuss this trinity that you were talking about. Why do you break this down to art/creativity that is good, art that is true, and art that is beautiful? How do we arrive at those and why are those the dominant values to uphold?

That's a great question. The good, the true, and the beautiful is the life well-lived, as defined by Plato and the ancient philosophers. It is also the essence of Christ. These words are dangerous. Goodness is never trite. Truth is rarely safe. And beauty is far from tame. And yet, the art that earns our applause tends to be safe, easy, on-the-nose... the kind of art that allows you to stare for a few moments and then move on. Brewing Culture is interested in the kind of art that haunts the soul long after the credits roll, the gallery closes, the page turns, or the lights go up. Many people are attracted to prescriptive art -- in other words, art that fixes the world. That is fine at times.

But we also need descriptive art -- art that diagnoses the world. Billy Graham, known for his oratory not his artistic genius, said, and I paraphrase, that every great painter uses both shadow and light in their work. Too often Christians in the arts forget the shadows, the bent and broken world in which we live and struggle and cling to grace. We are people of the cross -- the most evil act in history, and we are people of the empty tomb -- the most glorious and holy act in history. Our story has both darkness and light, horror and hope. For me, that is a hall pass for the artist to describe the world, and along the way give the audience a glimpse of "a world that should have been otherwise," as author Os Guinness says.

There is this fantastic quote by a missionary named C.T. Studd... now that is a cool last name. He said, again I paraphrase, that some want to serve within the sound of church and chapel bell; I want to run a rescue-shop within a yard of hell. I think the artist is always working at that distance.

Great artists do so with fear and trembling, and in and through their work "build soil" for a culture of disbelief. The good, the true, and beautiful, properly defined and practiced, contain everything that I want in art and creativity. What other words could be added? Excellence? Maybe. Substance? Possibly. But those words, to me, are already woven deep into the richness of goodness, truth, and beauty. Nothing else is needed. My prayer is that artists study those words, brood over them, wrestle them like Jacob.

What does that look like for the artist to wrestle with this? Because that definitely sounds good and is inspiring, but what must take place in the mind, heart and hands of the artist to truly wrestle with such things?  And what keeps us from being willing to wrestle to this degree? Why has current Christian artistry accepted the low ceiling they are currently working under? Because it would seem that artists, by nature, would fight against the current and would long for freedom to create. Yet today, we obviously see such safe and secure artistry.

In part, you answered your own question, and it is the most important question facing individual artists and the Church. I think it is deeply connected, at least for the redemptive artist, to loving our God with all our hearts and with all our soul and with all our strength and with all our minds. Heart. Soul. Strength. Mind. A considerable number of artists today have a lot of heart. Strength? Mind? Even less. You can tell when you encounter an artist that weaves the four elements into their work, into their faith. It is seamless. They cannot help but create work that serves God and neighbor; it is simply overflowing into their work.

The hard reality is this: too many people call themselves artists. A quote attributed to St. Francis says, "He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist." Again, it is this total integration of one's life and work.

Just because you paint watercolors or strum a guitar doesn't make you an artist; the word has lost its meaning, and that is something we should protect. Moreover, just because you sell millions of records or earn an Oscar that doesn't neccessarily make you an artist either. You may be creative. You may be famous. That doesn't automatically make you an artist.

And let me be clear, I can say that because I am not an artist. I write. I draw. I used to paint. I've taken art classes. I can play a pathetic Richard Marx song on the piano. I have certain creative gifts, but I am not an artist. We should be careful with how we use that word. That is why I prefer to talk about creativity -- it is a much larger concept that invites more people into the conversation.

We are all creative in one way or another. I am always amazed when I walk the streets of Capitol Hill or drive the neighborhoods of suburban Virginia. Most of the folks that live there are government workers, stuck in a gray world of cubicles, monotony, and low expectations. And yet their homes are glorious with beautiful gardens and elaborate decore. Why is that? Because everyone needs a place to exercise their creativity. It is part of what it means to be human, and to be an echo of the Creator. We all need sources for recreation, and more importantly, re-creation.

This really gets to your second question about the low-ceiling in the arts, a great way to put it, and why safe and secure art seems to contradict an artists' daring and free spirit. For many decades the Church has viewed the arts as a tool, and really anything that falls under the umbrella of "communication" had the same problem. It was a tool for evangelism. Books, television shows, music, magazines, movies -- really anything that involved mass audiences -- were expected to give explicit defense of the faith or to win souls. The result, as we know, was disasterous for the arts and the artist. It not only produced shallow artistic works, but it also produced a thin theology.

Art and theology go hand in hand, the same as vocation and theology or urban-living and theology. To me, and to many others I meet, this notion of personal Christianity that is only focused on individual holiness and evangelism -- saving yourself and saving others -- is not enough. It misses out on God's on-going story of redemption and role in the work, how we are called to be stewards of the culture, to be redeeming all areas of creation. Things are changing, rather quickly it seems to me. A new generation of artists are rethinking what it means to be an artist in this time and in this culture.

The street-level questions for the Church are: does God delight in a well-designed, well-built skyscraper? Are God's attributes reflected in the sculptures and paintings at the Modern Museum of Art? Should we applaud a film like Crash that gives us insights into the brokeness of man, and his need for restoration? Can we spring to our feet to applaud a dancer, even if his lifestyle or politics doesn't match our own choices? Do we encourage our children to be photographers, rock stars, fashion models?

These are not intellectual exercises; they are profoundly theological questions that have direct consequences with how view life and faith.

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