Makoto Fujimura on art, paganism, and worship

Makoto Fujimura on art, paganism, and worship

My former student and current. . . tech guru Stewart Lundy has a fascinating interview with via Makoto Fujimura, the acclaimed Japanese-American abstract artist who is also a devout Christian. Read the whole interview. What struck me the most was what he said about paganism and about worship:

There is spiritual danger in Paganism, and as Origen stated (and recently quoted by Pope Benedict) Paganism is defined by “Lacking feeling and reason, they are transformed into stones and wood.”  In other words, Paganism flattens our perception, makes all experience virtual, dumbing down our senses. Paganism, as in the Matrix movie, is virtual, manageable, flat reality, whereas the red pill takes you down into the harsh reality of pain and suffering. Christianity opens our perception and our understanding of Reality. . . . .

Proper worship is central to our understanding of reality, the arts, and it affects everyone, Christians and non Christians.  Culture is affected by how we worship God. . . .

By “proper worship,” I mean a distinctively Christological way of looking at God, the world and ourselves that is driven by understanding and experiencing God’s grace.

Do you get what he’s saying? What’s the connection between worship as he defines it and our understanding of reality, the arts, and culture?

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