Theological Thoughts for Thursday

Vincent Van Gogh didn’t have much to say for his faith in his thirties. It is clear that he never outright recanted his faith in Jesus Christ. It is also clear that he couldn’t define his faith. The young man who started sketching the poor he was sent to as a missionary, ended up taking his own life at 37. No art history class skips the significance of his contribution to the art world, no theology class would dare to dwell on his contribution to Christian thought.

“That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such — be it so; but I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live, and then, if we live, there is something mysterious in that. Now call that God, or human nature or whatever you like, but there is something which I cannot define systematically, though it is very much alive and very real, and see, that is God, or as good as God. To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one, who with irresistible force urges us toward aimer encore; that is my opinion.”

Vincent didn’t quite fit in as a missionary. In an era in which missionaries lived in compounds on high hills and ministered to the wretched down below, Van Gogh slept on straw in a closet behind the local bakery. He cried himself to sleep some nights. He fell in love with the people. His superiors accused him of “undermining the dignity of the priesthood” and he was dismissed.

“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

Faith is a fragile thing. The God of our childhood doesn’t always last through awkward teen years. The God of our zits, braces, and bad year book photos usually doesn’t make it through 4 years in college. The God who protected us through keggers and bad decisions evolves into the God who watches over our children, and then our grandchildren. Faith is a fragile thing.

We as followers of Jesus must constantly be in a position to reevaluate our faith. We must be willing to see what aspects of God we have invented (hint: if God hates the same people as you …) and what parts are true to Christ and his life and ministry.

Vincent Van Gogh struggled with mental illness and sickness for the rest of his life after his failed attempt at being a missionary. He also painted some of history’s most stunning and well-known paintings. He incorporated the spiritual into many of his paintings – even as he struggled defining his own faith journey, he knew that it was important that the world see God in his artwork.