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Christian Kitsch: a Preliminary Examination of Christian Materialism Through Theological Aesthetics and Cultural Politics

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Christian Kitsch: a Preliminary Examination of Christian Materialism Through Theological Aesthetics and Cultural Politics Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 6-13-2016 12:00 AM Christian Kitsch: A Preliminary Examination of Christian Materialism through Theological Aesthetics and Cultural Politics Michael A. Bodkin The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Gary Badcock The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Theology A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Arts © Michael A. Bodkin 2016 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Bodkin, Michael A., "Christian Kitsch: A Preliminary Examination of Christian Materialism through Theological Aesthetics and Cultural Politics" (2016). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 3772. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/3772 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract As a massive phenomenon animating the world of cultural politics, kitsch sensibility emerges in Western Christian materialism as a means to easily mediate genuine, if sentimental, expressions of religious devotion. Scorned by others as the manipulation of “bad taste,” reverence through kitsch in contemporary religious art would be better taken to reflect a crisis in modern religious thought. This thesis employs the theological aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar to argue that modern Christian kitsch is the active mistaking of poor theological quality as a source of beauty, which is primarily felt as the sensibility of losing dynamis. Its evolution through late capitalism conveys an irreversible yet inevitable mutation of faith, understood by Slavoj Žižek as the “suspension of belief” in contemporary Christian consumerism and artful practice. Anticipating the restoration of quality is a reorientation of the imitatio Christi for the articulation of a new theological aesthetics. Keywords Balthasar, theological aesthetics, dynamis, kitsch, art, religion and culture, Žižek, theology, quality, bad taste ii Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincerest thanks to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Gary Badcock, whose unwavering support, patience, and wealth of theology has no limits, and to Dr. Darren Marks for introducing me to a wealth of continental aesthetics. I also extend my gratitude to each member of the Faculty of Theology at Huron University College throughout my time as a student, and to my closest colleagues and friends, without whom I would have not have had the spiritual strength, nor as much sushi, to both embark on and finish such a project. I would also like to thank the support from my co-workers on Final 1 B-shift at TMMC and, as the last but most important salutation, to my family for their endless encouragement and love. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv Preface................................................................................................................................ vi Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................. 1 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 A Brief Overture ..................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Kitsch in Christian Media ....................................................................................... 4 1.3 Concerning the approach to taste ............................................................................ 7 Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................... 10 2 Heritage and Methodology ........................................................................................... 10 2.1 Deciphering the Esperanto of “bad taste” ............................................................. 10 2.2 L’art du Bonheur................................................................................................... 13 2.3 Authenticity and Uniqueness ................................................................................ 15 2.4 Incongruous Transpositions .................................................................................. 17 2.4.1 L’art Saint-Sulpice .................................................................................... 20 2.5 Discerning “Ultimate Reality” .............................................................................. 23 2.6 Concerning style.................................................................................................... 26 2.7 The Plastic Religion .............................................................................................. 27 Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................... 30 3 The Emergence of a Theological Aesthetics ................................................................ 30 3.1 Balthasar’s theology as spiritual guidance ............................................................ 30 3.2 The crucial role of aisthesis in theology ............................................................... 32 3.3 The Event of Christ ............................................................................................... 34 iv 3.4 The lex talionis of Quality: An ‘I’ for an ‘Eye’ .................................................... 37 3.4.1 Direction One: theoria .............................................................................. 38 3.4.2 Directions Two and Four: dynamis & Hiddenness and its Misapprehension ....................................................................................... 42 3.4.3 Fragmentary dynamis ................................................................................ 44 3.5 “No More Tears”................................................................................................... 47 3.6 Pneumatophobia .................................................................................................... 51 3.7 Infantilism ............................................................................................................. 55 3.8 The “Collapse” ...................................................................................................... 59 Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................... 63 4 Towards a New Theological Aesthetics ....................................................................... 63 4.1 Reconsidering “Sentimentality”............................................................................ 63 4.2 The Restlessness ................................................................................................... 65 4.3 “The Church Key” ................................................................................................ 67 4.4 “Deep Spirituality” as “Suspended Belief” ........................................................... 72 4.5 The Authentic Gesture of Christianity .................................................................. 76 Chapter 5 ........................................................................................................................... 79 5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 79 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 83 Curriculum Vitae .............................................................................................................. 88 v Preface “Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror,” Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Duino Elegies “The quality is so good you can’t even see it!” A BestBuy Sales Associate on televisions vi 1 Chapter 1 1 Introduction In this abridging, introductory chapter, I contend that kitsch sensibility at large controls the presentation of evangelical Western Christian media, values, and practices. 1.1 A Brief Overture One tacit law in the arena of contemporary culture, as intuited by Ruth Holliday and Tracey Potts, is as follows: “Savages are attracted to kitsch; if you are attracted to kitsch it is because you are savage.”1 Kitsch, more commonly known as ‘bad taste,’ has garnered a unique and nuanced reputation ever since Hermann Broch’s (1886-1951) notorious manifesto in the first half of the twentieth-century. Art associated with the aesthetic is, in his opinion, ethically and morally “evil,”2 and further implicates anyone who is deeply compelled to consume and enjoy kitsch as “a malefactor who profoundly desires evil.”3 Jumping fifty-six years after the publication of Broch’s impulsive essay, Holliday and Potts warn that Western society is right now “on the point of drowning in
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