Art and Faith: A Theology of Making by Makoto Fujimura (review)

Reviewed by: Art and Faith: A Theology of Making by Makoto Fujimura Nathan Didlake (bio) Art and Faith: A Theology of Making. By Makoto Fujimura. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020. 184 pp. $26.00 hdbk. Art and Faith by Makoto Fujimura is an applied theology that dares to ask Christians how Jesus's Kingdom impacts their work to create. Its pacing breathes like a guided contemplation with Fujimura—at a coffee shop, on a plane, or in between brushstrokes at his studio. If God is the Creator who gratuitously gives love to all of creation, how must Christians act? This book is a call to action: Christians must reflect the Eternal God and create. The world should be filled with new generative work that lives the reality that all things are being made new. Many of these works espousing a "vision for the arts" call artistic endeavors into alignment with some prescribed functional theology. Here, the arts explore truth, but they exist deferentially to theologies and dogma. In this vision, systematicians become prophets—and artists their illustrators. Fujimura argues the opposite. Artists are modern prophets, society's border stalkers possessing a unique calling. They see the world from the fringes and uniquely see the unseen and share the unshared. They are meant to reflect the Maker by making and, as such, participate in God's generative, effusive love. To Fujimura, generative expression reveals God and heals a broken world. He reasons that joining God's generative work reflects God and cares for culture, since we believe the resurrected Jesus sent the Holy Spirit into the world. If Jesus has done these things, if this is actually true, then the arts must do this double work of making God manifest and nurturing culture. Fujimura calls the latter task "culture care": [C]ulture care is the vision to manifest the "Spirit-filled life" into the heart of culture. … What I offer as culture care is a consideration of the work of the Spirit in culture. In other words, we ask not just how you or I may be doing as a follower of Christ; we also ask audaciously, "How is our culture doing?" (23) Do Christians look at their cultures to "see how they're doing?" How well are we planting the fruit of the Spirit in the public square? This is a profound question, but it leads us to ask: Can the Kingdom of God be here and for the public good? Fujimura believes as much, and he addresses the arts as one of the primary ways to bring God's generative good to the world. How does the artist perform this generative work? One can describe darkness with words; or one can mold, sculpt, sing, rhyme, and paint in a way that reaches into the darkness, calls it out, and pulls people out of it. The artist is uniquely called (and gifted) to do this. Artists have a unique ability to see truth and to express it in a way that subverts and redeems culture. Fujimura's illustration of the ancient Japanese Kintsugi method illustrates this well. In the Kintsugi tradition, broken teacups are studied and repaired into a glory that exceeds the original. The warlord Hideyoshi saw only a broken cup, while Hosokawa saw a recreation. In both, the aesthetic of repair creates greater value and surpassing beauty through [End Page 350] restoration and redemption, breathing new life into broken things through time, contemplation, and expression. Is this vision exaggerated? Perhaps we concede that art is good and has a place. Perhaps Fujimura predictably elevated himself and his fellows to a dominant role and reads his theology backward with the conclusion in mind. Besides, has anyone seen how absurd modern art is? I held this belief. Those who know me might gawk that I am reviewing a book on art … a man who has penned a few songs for church settings and who can hardly draw a stick figure. I am an exegete by training and a pastor by vocation (both of which mean I cannot afford a ticket into an art gallery, but I should be quiet inside). Fujimura has given me the boldest theological vision...