Monday, April 3, 2023

It is the 3rd of April 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org, I’m Dan van Voorhis.

A very happy Monday to you- Monday in Holy Week for much of the church. If you observe, I hope it is a blessed one. Also, if you haven’t or your church doesn’t observe things like Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services, I’ve sometimes enjoyed visiting churches- it is ok- we’re all siblings. Churches tend to like visitors (note: I deleted a Lutheran joke here).  

All right, speaking of Lutherans, what about a mailbag question from a Lutheran pastor and friend of the show- Ryan in Bloomington, Minnesota- a graduate of Concordia University in Irvine in 04? We were schoolmates there for a year. Ryan wrote:

“I was just reading MacCulloch’s Christianity and stopped to look up a painting by William Holman Hunt. I saw that his birthday is April 2, which is Jule’s and my anniversary. I’m intrigued by the pre-Raphaelite movement and, more broadly, by how art can arise as opposition. Not sure I have a solid question for the mailbag, but they strike me as a bit of a rebellion against the lazy sellouts!”

So- first, happy anniversary- and on account of that and it being Holman’s birthday yesterday, I thought I would tackle this question. Bloomington, of course, is home to Mall of America- and you know what I find odd? It’s the largest mall in America, but only the 11th largest in the world- and America has only 3 of the biggest malls in the top 50, onto Holman Hunt.

He was an English painter- his dates are important- 1827 to 1910. So right in the thick of Victorian England- he’d be around for the revolutions of 1848 and the Industrial Revolution. On his mother's side, he came from the wealthy Hobman family- his name was misspelled Holman, so he ran with that (his dad was William Hunt). But the wealth allowed him to pursue the arts. He attended the Royal Academy and studied Art- in that fateful year of 1848, he formed the “Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood” with his college mates Dante Rossetti (that’s Christina’s brother) and John Everett Millais. Who was the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood? You’d need to know something about Raphael and what came before him. Raphael is a famous Renaissance painter, particularly of the “High Renaissance,” with his ninja turtle pals, Leonardo and Michelangelo. This was the peak of meticulous, mathematical, “harmonious, and serene.” Lines are straight, perspective is spot on, and rationality is praised (Raphael is perhaps most famous for his “School of Athens” painting). So, the “Pre-Raphaelites” said what many punk rockers say- “let’s go back to when it wasn’t so complicated” and “let’s pay less attention to the rules and more to the spirit of the thing.” So, Ryan- I think this is what you were asking about how art can arise as opposition. The painting you are referring to is “Christ as Light of the World”- a dark, messy painting of Jesus standing at a door in the middle of a dark forest at the door covered with overgrown green stuff. Jesus is holding a lantern which illuminates the center of the picture. The imagery is that of Revelation 3 “Behold I stand at the door and knock” and, as MacCulloch points out, was mocked by many when it was first produced.  

The call from this painting, Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelites was parallel to the political revolts of 1848 and beyond- the excessive legalism they believed had stifled the spirit. So we will break your laws and see what you do about it. And at first, that’s dangerous. Hunt was mocked. But, as you read in MacCulloch, the work would eventually “its triumphant tour of the British Empire on exhibition in 1905 confirmed it as a global rival to any of the classic icons of Orthodox or Latin Christianity”.

Of course, later Realists, Impressionists, and Cubists would react in their own ways to the naturalism of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the cycle continues today. Maybe we can see this all as the way of a fallen world- perfection isn’t possible, and so we careen from extreme to excess, we react and overreact. I think this is helpful for our understanding of the past and ourselves- ask characters, “what are they responding to?” Where are they trying to correct what they see as a calcified rule or overreaction? I think it works for art and the past but also for the present, especially when I cross at someone or some idea. Thanks for the question, Ryan- you can send me your mailbag questions at Danv@1517.org

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary- for Holy Monday from Hebrews 9:

9:11 But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation),

9:12 he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.

9:13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified,

9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!

9:15 For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant. 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 3rd of April 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who knows that Malls are for Sbarro and Auntie Anne’s- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who spent many a ditched math class at the Cinnabon at Fashion Island. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.