Would a non-religious person experience a work of Christian art in the same way that a Christian would?
David Efird & Daniel Gustafsson
Research Summary
This is a philosophical discussion about the nature of Christian art, and whether a non-religious person would be able to experience a work of Christian art in the same way as a Christian would, for instance, by imagining that he or she is a religious believer, or imagining that he or she believes that what Christianity says is true. The authors argue that it is not possible for a non-religious person to experience a work of Christian art in the same way as a Christian would, because works of Christian art are iconic: Christian works of art offer direct experience of God and dialogue with God; these are matters beyond the experiences of non-religious people, who cannot project into them from their own secular visions of the world. The article is relevant to RE in a series of ways. It poses serious problems for RE at the level of purposes, since if only ‘insiders’ can understand their own traditions, the rationale for the subject is damaged. At the level of pedagogy, however, it indirectly suggests some ways forward for RE teachers, that emphasise the importance of rigorous, imaginative dialogue.
Researchers
David Efird & Daniel Gustafsson
Research Institution
University of York
What was done?
This is a philosophical essay about the nature of Christian art and possible problems of communication between Christians and non-religious people.
Main findings and outputs
- Some people have argued that a non-religious person can experience a work of Christian art in the same way as can a Christian, by imagining himself or herself as a religious believer or imagining that what Christianity is true. For the authors, this is untrue, as for a Christian, an experience of Christian art is an experience of God.
- They give an analogy, to back up the point that the experience of a non-religious person cannot give a basis for imaginatively entering into the experience of a Christian. Mary, a brilliant scientist, has spent all of her life in a black and white room alone, engaging with the world via a black and white TV. She has become an expert on vision, light and colour, but nothing prepares her for the experience of leaving the room and actually encountering the colour red.
- The experience transforms the way in which Mary sees the world. Other experiences are similarly transformative, including having a child and becoming a Christian.
- The point of Christian works of art – the authors discuss the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky and the poems of William Blake – is to call upon readers to see the world in a new way, with God ever-present and caring. God is working through the artist.
- But a non-religious person cannot approach or see a Christian work of art in this way. For him or her, God may be presented through the work, but is not present.
Relevance to RE
When teaching about religious art, or using religious art-works to teach about religion, teachers can stretch pupils’ understanding and critical skills by asking them to think about how people of different backgrounds might respond to the art-works. The article underlines how different people will respond in fundamentally different ways, and therefore, in terms of thinking about RE as a whole, the article makes some potentially very serious challenges: can one person really understand the religion or world-view of another? Without a ‘yes’ answer to that question, RE is in grave difficulty, but pedagogically, the response might be for teachers to push pupils on the question of what religious objects or rituals mean to believers, trying to find plenty of opportunities for dialogue between those on the ‘inside’ and those on the ‘outside’ of this question (e.g., if Christian sacred art is under study, between Christians and non-Christians). Moreover, perhaps there are different ways for pupils to understand religions, in terms that members of those religions would recognise: see the report of Karen Walshe’s and Geoff Teece’s work that we have reported separately, under the title: Religious understanding. What is it? How do you help pupils to get it?
Generalisability and potential limitations
The strength of the article is in provoking interesting questions. As has been suggested above, these are certainly questions for RE teachers and other professionals to consider carefully, despite the authors’ tendency to imply that throughout Christianity, people will respond to works of Christian art in the same kind of way (when obviously over history this issue has been fraught); or that ‘secular’ people form a homogenous group (when, for example, an atheist raised as an atheist might have a different emotional response to an icon from a lapsed Catholic). The conclusions of the article may not be generalisable in view of these limitations, but this is something for teachers to explore.
Find out more
Experiencing Christian art Religious Studies 51.3 pages 431-439 (published online on 14 August 2015)