Ivan Ilyin has a lot to say about creating culture. Here are some quotes and commentary on art and participating in the Kingdom of God.
Blessed is the one … whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.
Psalm 1: 1-3
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.
Ivan Ilyin, remains a contentious figure today steeped in political controversy. Nevertheless, for those who are artists and writers, it’s important to note that while Ilyin was writing on politics and economics, he also worked out a kind of theology for creating Christian culture.
After writing the first post, I went back to Foundations of Christian Culture and found a number of other quotes that I really wanted to add. So here is part 2 in Ivan Ilyin and Foundations of Christian Culture.
[We must] accept the world as a consequence of accepting Christ, and to build a Christian culture on top of that edifice. Thus, flowing from the Spirit of Christ, we may bless the world, not condemning its external forms and laws, not to debilitate its spiritual power, but to overcome it all, transfigure it, and beautifully give it form through love, will, thought, labour, creativity, and inspiration.
Foundations, 35.
The creation of Christian culture is for everyone. It is a way to offer the world back to God and “give it form through love.” This is a way we can fulfill our role as priests (even if we’re laypeople): to offer the world back to God in our prayers, in our labour, and our creativity.
Here’s another quote …
This task cannot be finished by any single age, any single people, any generation, for every age and generation must strive to accomplish this task in their own way, even if that means that they fail in their own way. To become imbued with the spirit of Christ’s teaching and to pour out that spirit into your life and into the physical world–this is our task, and it reveals an immense inner freedom and magnificent creative expanse before us.
Foundations, 37.
And what about the place of art and thought in the world that is not necessarily Christian, but points to the True and the Beautiful?
[Everything] pure, profound, noble, and beautiful that has ever appeared on earth is considered by us Christians as familiar in spirit to us, even if it wasn’t created by a Christian. Such beauty is truly great and precious, for it was inspired by the power of the Lord in whom we believe, even though He had not yet revealed Himself to that artist’s consciousness, but mystically worked on the human heart.
Foundations, 38.
There is so much beauty and truth in those who wrote and painted and created before Christ.
This is such an open way of understanding culture. It seeks Truth and Beauty and Goodness in all things, even those things that are not ‘Christian’. In such an orientation to art and culture, we follow the maxim that the Christian is one who in everything sees Christ. It doesn’t mean we condone everything or don’t call evil evil, but it is being open to the Good, the True, the Beautiful in this world, and to the way the Spirit of Christ is moving in all aspects of human life.
This is why we value Confucius, Lao-Tse, the Buddha, Zoroaster, Amenhotep IV, Heraclitus, Socrates and Plato, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, Greek and Egyptian art, even the self-sacrificial patriotism of the Inca or the Japanese. Everywhere where people lived in creative love or gave their lives for another or prayed to God with groaning that cannot be uttered–here we sense with our spirit the Spirit of our Teacher and we see the universal brotherhood possible only in Christ.
Foundations, 38.
St. Seraphim of Sarov says something similar when he talks about how “the presence of the Spirit of God also acted in the pagans who did not know the true God. … Such for instance were the virgin prophetesses call Sibyls. … And the pagan philosophers [who] also wandered in the darkness ignorant of God, yet they sought the Truth which is beloved by God; and on account of this God-pleasing seeking, they could partake of the Spirit of God …” They saw through a glass darkly, prior to God revealed to the world through Jesus Christ.
This is how I imagine today’s Christian culture to be created–the hearts of people that have already been shaken to their core by the current and coming calamities that have arisen thanks to atheism and anti-Christianity, will begin freely to return to the contemplation of Christ and to the bringing of the gifts of His Spirit back to life and culture.
Foundations, 39.
This is our hope as writers and publishers and artists: that we can bring the message of Christ’s everlasting love and comfort to as many readers as possible; to be light to the world, and to help establish the Kingdom of God on earth.
We can do that through loving others, through offering the world up to God in our prayers; and we can do it through creating art.
