Bridging the Divide between Culture and the Church

As Catholics, we have failed our culture. The Catholic Church, for the last seventy years at least, has neglected the cultural education of its members, and the world. In fear, it has shrunk further and further away from the development of art, and allowed that development to take place without guidance and without the infusion of truth.

When members of the church first looked upon the wide and diverse new art forms emerging in the 20th century, it was seen as safe, even pious, to claim: “This new art form is wholly of satan.” But they did more harm than good. They proclaimed this because they recognized the distortion of the art, but failed to enter into the conversation that our wounded world was starting.

The distortion was plain. Rap music, hip hop, heavy metal, and even open worship of satan, came into the forefront of our civilization in the late 1900’s. These art forms arose out of anger against pain, neglect, confusion, and loss. Yet, even in the midst of all this hate, there was, underneath, a cry for help. An attempt by those deeply wounded by evil to express themselves, to understand themselves, and to find some kind of truth that would help them make sense of life.

Music (all art, really) is a great releaser from pressure. It opens parts of our mind and heart we otherwise do not engage with on a day to day basis. It offers a freedom we otherwise do not feel. This is a very good thing. It’s the great thing, in fact, of art. Yet, because it is not the ultimate truth, iit can become an evil when we treat it as the only good. Our culture has made this freedom into a god itself.

Without guidance, these youth unwittingly and confusedly chose the pure expression of art as their god.

Because they chose for themselves only one good - namely, pure expression - they progressively proclaimed that marriage, love, sex, religion, God, happiness, education, and more are all in themselves evil, because they seek to limit pure expression.

It is not wrong to rebel against a poor family structure… it is human. It is not wrong to acknowledge love is lacking in a chronically broken home… it is awareness. But it must not stop there. Humanity and awareness are not enough: they must be met with Godliness and healing.

What began as an outcry against evil has become an evil itself. The thing that ought to bring us together and knit us across cultural divides - beauty itself - has become the very barrier that keeps us apart.

Here is where we, as Catholics, must hear the cries for help and answer them in their own language. This is the tower of babel, and just as the original babel was a monument of art erected to the heavens, thus do we find babel in our own 21st century culture and art.

But how do we overcome the cultural divide, you ask? The answer is easier than you think, for the divide no longer exists. These art forms are in our own homes, our schools, our bar down the street. The problem has become so chronic, that there are Catholics already inundated in these art forms. Break dancing, hip hop, coming of age novels, rap, grinding, modern art, contemporary art, and erotic novels are only examples of this chronic problem. In small doses, in doses blended with works of hope, beauty, and form, they become part of a spectrum of the human experience. They can become like words in a language, to form full sentences.

Right now, the culture uses a language with only these words:

• Alone

• Deprived

• Misunderstood

• Wretched

• Hopeless

• In pain

• Tortured

• Lost

Such a society cannot understand - on its own - concepts of hope, healing, rebirth, parental care, freedom… for it has no words to speak them.

We must teach them those words. In their own language, we will acknowledge their pain, spend time in that area of the human experience, but then gently, so gently, show the fullness of the human experience, exposing them to a language they do not know, which they cannot learn on their own.

For an example of how this can be done, please check out the work of my friend, Mandala. *There is some explicit language in his work, so please use caution around children. Mandala used his own background of depression and pain, and his return to the God of his childhood, as a way to rap about loss, pain, redemption, and salvation. https://mandalaraps.com/

The modern culture wants to redefine language, but we must salvage it. For they are seeking to change words they do not understand into language they do, but if we let them change language, we will lose the true conceptions of hope, love, joy, faith, and freedom. Rather, we must continue to live out these concepts, and show by our actions and our creations that we know and live a reality they cannot fathom, but which will bring them great peace and happiness.