| "Art" AS HERE discussed refers to the visual arts used by the church architecture, sculpture, painting and liturgical craftsmanship. Music and oratory, also arts with Christian uses, require quite a different understanding. The distinctions between "Christian," "religious" and "secular" arts, though not as easy to define, exist and are important. Here we discuss the art of Christianity within the wider ecumenical field of art. "Missionary art," a common term some thirty years ago, denotes the art produced and used in what was then called "the mission field." The recent transfer of ecclesiastical control from missionary societies to indigenous churches has resulted in an avoidance of the phrase, but leaves us with no reasonable, compact substitute. Its present usage must acknowledge this changed meaning. Since this article describes the use of art in mission, it is. largely irrelevant whether this mission is directed by expatriates and Western mission boards or by autonomous, indigenous Christian churches. Protestant is used here to contrast with Roman Catholic. For simplification, we will ignore the contrast Orthodox Church, since for historical reasons that church has long been quiescent in missionary matters. We will also ignore the claims of the Anglican group of churches to be "catholic." Although in these ecumenical days, it might appear unseemly to set Catholic and Protestant in contrast, we do this without a spirit of competition. As a Methodist, I owe a great debt to the Catholic tradition and have no desire to encourage sectarian wrangling. However, if there is a marked difference between Catholicism and Protestantism as regards missionary art, it may serve as well to acknowledge this difference before either defending it or removing it. Historically there has been some good, even pioneering, Protestant missionary art. For example, in the heyday of 19th century imperialism in politics and missions, there was not only the great Catholic cathedral built in pure Indo-Chinese style by the priest-viceroy Don Luc Tran at Phat-Diem, but also the Anglican All Saints' Memorial Church at Peshawar in the likeness of a north Indian mosque. However, the balance has been heavily on the Catholic side (Butler 1979). Reasons for Neglect This comparative neglect in Protestantism can be assigned some basic reasons actually to the credit of Protestantism. Protestant churches, though often too closely entangled with secular imperialisms, never became part of the "establishment" of imperialists as flamboyant as those of Spain and Portugal, and thus were spared from the extremes of triumphalist or monumentalist extravagance of building and decoration. Protestantism has not normally indulged in mass conversions with some element of coercion as was the policy of Spain particularly in the Americas. Such a policy led to huge numbers of simple neophytes who needed vast buildings and were impressed by great richness in them. Another reason, an accident of history so neither creditable nor blameworthy, is that Protestant northern Europe, although bequeathed a goodly store of fine Christian art from the medieval undivided church, was not at the fountainhead of that art in Italy, but. rather was cut off from this strong influence. Further reasons are debatable as to their moral significance. Rightly or wrongly, Protestantism has tended to be more verbal than Catholicism, centering its worship on the heard Word rather than on the seen action of the Mass, hence it has concentrated on what has been called the "ear-gate" rather than "eye-gate." Thus its main art has not been visual but musical. In modern times a new type of Puritanism, based on a concern for gospel humility and care for the deprived, has called for a halt to costly Christian art. This movement is as strong within Catholicism as within Protestantism and is arguably beneficial, but if Protestantism has an artistic gap to close, this Puritanism would inhibit any redress of the situation. Someone who disagreed with this view was the great Indian Bishop Azariah who built the sumptuous Anglican. cathedral at Dornakal not in spite of but because of the extreme poverty of the diocese. The bishop felt that his despised and starving Harijan flock, living as they did in little tiny mud-and-thatch huts and worshiping at the parish level in huts little better than their houses, needed and ought to have a cathedral which could give them a little grandeur of their own. Not only would this provide some relief from the dullness of grinding poverty, but also provide self-respect to a group long conditioned to accept inferiority. The remaining reasons are much to Protestantism's discredit. It made a wickedly slow start in overseas missions: the Catholic countries had two centuries of distinguished post-Reformation mission work before the reformed churches made any real missionary overtures. Furthermore, the classical type of Puritanism, in whose shadow most Protestant missions grew up, was in varying measure iconoclastic in stupid ways, and was culpably ignorant and coarse as regards its doctrine of idolatry (both papal and pagan). More recently, its suspicions of indigenization erred greatly through overcaution. Recommendations for Rectification The time has come for Protestants to make strong efforts to escape from its past errors. Change will not be easy. Pioneers who have urged it, like Professors D. J. Fleming and Arno Lehmann, have been respected more than they have been followed. Nevertheless, there is a very practical consideration the sheer quantity of scarce money which is spent on the large amount of indifferent missionary art which we actually do produce demands this. Even if buildings and their decorations are drastically simplified, whether because of Gospel humility or because of sheer insufficient giving, they still cost a great deal of money. Perhaps Western influence still dictates too much triumphalism, and lays on the local church a burden of the maintenance of costly projects which is too heavy for it to bear. Even so, much money will continue to be spent on art, if only on the art of architecture. Surely this is reason enough to closely examine what this stewardship will entail. It is undeniable that buildings do affect the message. These buildings beautiful, ugly, foreign, indigenous, boastful, simple say something to the multitudes who see them at least from the outside, even though they might never hear Christian preaching. They also affect local Christians who think in images rather than abstractly, whose approach to truth is by eye-gate rather than by ear-gate. How will they perceive the divine majesty, indwelling, energy, pain and glory, through the buildings and adornments of their churches? Can we afford to neglect our sacred duty to local cultures? What sort of a church would that be which leaves its neighborhood looking completely pagan whether pagan in local historical modes or in the modes of recent technology? Furthermore, what is our duty to the local Christian artists? Are we to expect them to starve, or to continue indefinitely to earn their food by work that cannot express their deepest feelings?
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