8.15.23

This is the transcript for a mini-presentation that was part of Resurrection Anglican’s Arts Night. I am working on expanding it into a more long form essay.

Reflecting the Imago Dei Through a Redeemed Imagination
Rebekah K. Diaddigo

From the very start of recorded history itself, we see God creating. He sets boundaries for light and dark for water and land. He molds mountains from materials of His own making and designs vegetation that is both functional and beautiful. Then He fills the containers of water with crazy creatures made of suction cups, tentacles, and googly eyes. And fills the skies with creatures to sing melodies and defy gravity. Then God places equally amazing creatures on land — some have long noses others have long necks, some hatch from eggs, others are born live, some are soft, others are slimy, and others spiky. But the crown of God’s creation is made from the dust of the ground and animated by the breath of life. It bears God’s fingerprint — the imago Dei, image of God — and is given stewardship of the earth.

This is the dance of creation. The choreography of the cosmos. Our God is a creative God.

Tonight we’ve seen many creative endeavors. A lot of time, resources, and mental energy has been put into the works we’ve experienced. Each one of them was made by an image bearer of God and is an exercise of imagination, organization, and dominion.

Let’s talk about this for a little bit. We’ll start with creativity. Creativity is marked by three things.

First of all, creativity requires imagination.

Malcolm Guite suggests that imagination helps us make sense of the world. He writes, “…it is the imagination which allows us to grasp the whole, the meaning, the pattern in what we perceive…It is by the forming and perceiving power of the imagination that the constant stream of data flowing into us through our senses is shaped into a tree, a mountain, a sunset, the face of our beloved”

In other words, imagination is seeing things differently from their current state, creativity is forming a plan to bring them from one condition to another. 

This leads us to the second aspect of creativity; it brings order to chaos. 

We see this in the creation narrative— the earth is described as “formless” “void” “dark”. I love the little section that mentions the Spirit hovering over the waters because in ancient literature water often represents chaos. God is poised to bring order to chaos.

Thirdly, creativity is an exercise of dominion. It’s an assertion of authority. God speaks creation into existence and commands the physical world to flourish within its appointed boundaries. 

Humankind reflects God in all these areas. We are creative and we have the ability to bring order to chaos with our imagination as we exercise our dominion.

One tangible example of this for me is my kindergarten ballet class. Sixteen five and six year olds all eager to learn to dance but have no structure or framework for how to do so with a codified technique. We start with finding a dot on the floor and practice straight knees and bent knees standing on the dot. — We’re exercising dominion over our bodies and in the immediate space around us. Then we work on traveling across the floor with our flamingo walks; making shapes with our bodies. We’re engaging our imaginations. We wait our turn while or friends are dancing and learn to stand far enough apart that we don’t hit anyone accidentally. We’re bringing order to chaos Eventually, over the years, what was a gaggle of little ones in pink leotards becomes lines of white swans dancing to Tchaikovsky.  

But we don’t always reflect God in our creative pursuits. Ever since the serpent appealed to Eve’s imagination to indulge a lie, we have been caught between order and chaos. 

Here in lies the tension — are we going to steward our creativity, imagination and dominion for good or evil?

Thankfully God’s imagination restores and through His Son, Jesus, we also can be restored both to relationship and to our roles as co-creators with God.

Our imagination is most fully a reflection of our Maker when we join the redemption story. 

So how do we live this out practically?

Ephesians 2:10 says, For we are His workmanship (some translations say masterpiece), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Think about that — you are God’s masterpiece; 2 Corinthians 5:17 describes anyone in Christ as a new creation. Each of us has been uniquely chosen to perform specific tasks on this earth. Let this be an encouragement to you that whether you count yourself an artist or not, your creativity, the way that you bring order to chaos and exercise dominion, is needed in this world. 

1 Corinthians 2:16 even reminds us that we have the mind of Christ. We can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, renew our minds as we’re encouraged to do in Romans 12:2 and Colossians 3:1-2. 

As new creations and ambassadors of Christ, we are called to participate in creative acts of problem solving.

Jeffrey Barbeau puts it this way. “…a theology of imagination not only captures the creativity of the human as bearer of the image of God but also articulates the need to address forms of imagination that are contrary to God’s eschatological vision for the world…Artists, in biblical and theological perspective, have the capacity to act prophetically by naming, engaging, and challenging the brokenness of our lives and pointing to the redemptive grace in Christ that holds the healing of the entire cosmos”

That’s what we’re doing here tonight. We’re connecting our little stories to the greatest story ever told by participating in redemptive art.

May we renew our minds to cultivate a redeemed imagination. Let us ask God to help us view the world through the lens in which He sees it that we might exercise our dominion to bring order to chaos and proclaim the good news of Jesus.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever! Amen. ~Ephesians 3:20-21

Sources: 
Malcolm Guite, Lifting The Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God pg. 13
Jeffrey W. Barbeau, God and Wonder: Theology, Imagination, and The Arts. pg. 27-28