As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
Note: This article was written in response to Fundamentalists and Theater: Act Three, Say What? by Dr. Kevin Bauder. It is not intended as a general response to all of Dr. Bauder’s theater articles to date.
As another year comes to a close, we are again faced with how we, as believers, should view the changing of the years. The Chinese may have started this practice with special dishes symbolic of good luck and prosperity along with fireworks to attract the attention of benevolent gods and to frighten away evil spirits. Today there is a celebration of the close of another year, and we welcome the prospect of a better year with noise, bubbly, and New Year resolutions. But what should believers wish each other for the New Year?
On the threshold of the Promised Land, disaster strikes. Hardened with unbelief and the fear of the Canaanites, the Israelites refuse to go on. Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb, who try to persuade the people of God’s faithfulness, face a lynching.
Aaron Copland was a composer, not an aesthetician or theologian. But as the honorary “Dean of American Composers,” he was often called upon to discuss musical meaning, and his thoughts on the matter were well-informed, both by his study and experience. In the view of this writer (also an American composer, but of a much smaller order!), Copland’s ideas have great value for Christians who make aesthetic judgments in accordance with Scriptural revelation. In a 1951 speech at Harvard, Copland said,
They say that confession is good for the soul. Well, here’s my confession.
I love the theater.
I fell in love during my junior year in high school. On a whim I tried out for a school play and somehow ended up with a lead role. That was a turning point in my life. Acting was the first thing I discovered that I could do really well.
A few years ago, I gave sewing lessons to two different teenage girls. The first girl was eager to learn, and she was a joy to teach. When her first sewing project was finished, she presented me with a $20 gift card to a fabric store. The second girl did not like sewing very much and was always trying to weasel me into ironing her project or finishing the edges for her. While she sewed, we would talk about her struggles at home and school. I was not sure she was learning very much about sewing, but I knew that the time I was spending with her was making a difference in her life.
My parents came to Christ when I was about three or four years old. They responded to the witness of a home missionary who was planting a fundamental Baptist church in their small Michigan town. After they were baptized and joined that church, they brought up their children under the sound of its teaching.
Note: This article was originally posted November 21, 2005.
by Pastor David Deets
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