Fun Friday: Creativity vs Escapism

Why write about this topic? The Christian community has become devoid of creativity and imagination within the last 50 years and the common culprit that pastors and theologians point to is escapism. As a result, the church has treated almost all forms of creative content as taboo. From the stories (or experiences) of churches that discourage their congregations from watching movies/TV or playing video games, to even Christian publishing companies refusing to publish Christian fiction books, Western Christianity has done its best to destroy almost every form of creative innovation. (Have you ever wondered why the only Christian fiction genre that gets published is romance fiction?) Though many churches have finally slowed down their overly aggressive barriers against creative content, the Christian entertainment industry is still suffering from its after effects.
This is sad because in the past, Christians used to be the most creative people on the planet. People like Tolkien, Lewis, Bach, Handel, and Gogh would be inspired by their Creator to be creative in their works. Dr. Dayton Hartman talks about how the church should not stifle creativity but the creative arts should be encouraged by the church as a way to give glory to God. Here’s a quote from his great book Church History for Modern Ministries: “We must produce good art because our biblical worldview uniquely allows us to celebrate beauty. Further, we can demonstrate our ability for meaningful, uplifting, artistic expression grounded in the fact that we are created in the image of an artistic God. Because we bear the image of God, we naturally desire to reflect His artistry.” Christians need to learn and embrace what it truly means to be creative.
This begs the question: what’s the difference between creativity and escapism? To start with the negative position, escapism is ‘the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy’ (Oxford Language/Google). Merriam-Webster defines escapism this way: ‘habitual diversion of the mind to purely imaginative activity or entertainment as an escape from reality or routine.’ There are two key themes in both of these definitions. The first is that escapism is based on a person that wants to run away from reality. Now this isn’t inherently bad since all types of recreation or entertainment is, in one way or another, a form of escapism. Even God made the Sabbath as a good day of rest before the Lord according to verses like Exodus 20:11 and Mark 2:27. However, this can obviously have very negative effects as things like sex/pornography, drugs, alcohol, laziness, food, and other addictions have been used as coping mechanisms to escape reality.
This leads to the second key theme of the definition: escapism is based on habit. Again, this isn’t inherently bad since it’s a habit to celebrate the Sabbath once a week. However, a habit can easily become excessive and turn into an addiction if we’re not careful. Drinking a glass of wine or opening up a can of beer to unwind is completely different from being a drunkard. Even though escapism is typically used in a negative sense, it’s not necessarily bad.
However, I don’t want to strawman the issue. It’s understandable that church and Christian leaders are apprehensive with the idea of Christian entertainment and are practically hostile to many forms of Christian fiction (mainly sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative fiction). The biggest reason is because it can be easily manipulated to cause us to stumble, especially into sexual sin. Jesus is crystal clear on this topic in Matthew 5:28-29 (CSB): “But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” Personally, being previously addicted to pornography, escapism into entertainment and sci-fi/fantasy was a fuel to that sinful fire and I would often find myself being distracted into sin. I even preached recently about how this world is being designed to distract us to hell. Taking verse 29 in consideration, many pastors have thought to just get rid of the avenue altogether to be safe. I want to be fair in saying that I can understand why Christian leaders are apprehensive to the idea of Christian fiction and creativity because it can be abused and cause someone to stumble into sin.
Nevertheless, this is not a verse that prohibits creativity and the Bible actually promotes creativity as a form of art and glory to God. There are many verses that promote creativity such as Genesis 1:27 (being made in the image of God), Romans 12, Exodus 31, Proverbs 22:29, but one of my favorites is Exodus 35:30-35. “Moses then said to the Israelites, “Look, the Lord has appointed by name Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. He has filled him with God’s Spirit, with wisdom, understanding, and ability in every kind of craft to design artistic works in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut gemstones for mounting, and to carve wood for work in every kind of artistic craft. He has also given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. He has filled them with skill to do all the work of a gem cutter; a designer; an embroiderer in blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine linen; and a weaver. They can do every kind of craft and design artistic designs.”
I didn’t make this up. This is Scripture! The Bible is saying that God was the one who gifted Bezalel and Oholiab the ability to create artistic design for the Tabernacle. The ability to create, design, and be artistic comes from God as a gift. Period. Even when we look at the book of Psalms, each one was co-created and co-authored by God and man and they are incredibly unique, beautiful, and creative in their own right. Now how we use the gift of creativity to glorify God or glorify sinful man is up to us. Nevertheless, it doesn’t take away the fact that God is the One who gave us the gift of creativity: to craft, design, and be artistic.
This leads me to the definition: what is creativity? Creativity is ‘the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work’ (Oxford Language/Google). That’s it. We use creativity in everything we do: work, church, sermons, family, play, problem-solving, etc. Everything that is innovated today (medicine, transportation, technology, health, architecture, agriculture, entrepreneurship, etc) are all affected by people who are exercising their gifts to be creative. Why do we treat entertainment such as books, films, and video games so differently from other forms of entertainment such as visual art or music? I don’t see it in Scripture and if you do, I would love to know where I can find it. Man is the one who has decided that certain forms of entertainment shouldn’t be affected by Christian creativity, not God.
This is detrimental to the Christian community because we need more wholesome content that can counteract the craziness of the culture. Many church leaders complain about the sexual and inappropriate content on TV which is certainly wrong but here’s my question: why can’t Christians create their own entertainment that’s just as good(or even better) but clean and wholesome? Even Dr. John Stott, the famous Christian theologian said this in his book Between Two Worlds: “Christians should seek to penetrate the world of the mass media and equip themselves as television script writers, producers, and performers(actors). We can hardly complain of the low standard of many current programs if we take no constructive initiatives to provide alternatives which are not only technically equal if not better, but more wholesome as well.” He said this in 1982! Stott is being clear that we should stop complaining about the state of the sinful entertainment industry, and start doing something to counteract it with equally good if not better alternatives.
Angel Studios has done a great job with this but especially with DryBar Comedy. People were tired of getting the raunchy, explicit stand up acts of mainstream comedians and Angel Studios started the Dry Bar Comedy as a response. It’s a clean stand up comedy platform with top notch comedians that the whole family can enjoy and guess what? It’s actually funny. Not corny but funny! It’s high quality content, production, and comedians and now they almost have 3 million subscribers on YouTube because they’re just as good as the other mainstream channels like Comedy Central. What’s really ironic about it is that we are taking so long to act that the mainstream media are taking Christian content and making it their own. Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, and Chronicles of Narnia are some of the biggest movie franchises to date. These are blatantly Christian books that were turned into films but when you look up the most popular Christian films on Google, they don’t even show up!
The world is trying to take our Christian creativity and make it their own and they are succeeding! We need more platforms and avenues like DryBar Comedy to rise up and the only way that can happen is through the reactivation of Christian creativity that doesn’t fall into sinful escapism. Therefore, I really want to encourage you as a fellow Christian to exercise your God-given creativity. Whether it’s writing, painting, film, music, video game production, or even poetry, don’t limit the creative ideas that God has placed within you. Christ gave us a powerful mind with the ability to create… so create!

I pray that this was beneficial for you!
 
Bibliography
Hartman, Dayton. Church History for Modern Ministers: Why Our Past Matters for Everything We Do. Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2016.
Stott, John. Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.