Christy Tennant continues her conversation with Makoto Fujimura about the third language…

CT: Tim Keller’s latest book, Reason For God, deals with addressing hard questions that all people grapple with. For example, he delves into the theology of suffering, and all the hard questions that arise simply because “good people” suffer tremendous evil, while “evil people” seem to get off scot free. How does the issue of suffering inform your art?

MF: Tim’s book is apologetical – it’s a resource aimed at defending our faith. But he’s been doing this since the ‘90’s – this book is not just because of “new atheism;” it’s not a response, as much as it is an addressing of genuine questions bubbling in culture for a long time.

Suffering is difficult topic to wrestle with.

CT: Was the issue of suffering a hindrance in your own journey to faith?

MF: No – the biggest hindrance for me was the hypocrisy I saw in the church. I have been spared from deep trauma, so that was not a hard issue for me. But I find that the theological answer for suffering is not really an answer at all. Rather, the Bible is about looking at evil square in the face and calling it “evil.”

CT: Do any of your paintings reflect this confrontation with evil?

MF: All of my work inevitably comes to the questions of wrestling with the question of evil and hope. Of the different ways to address the problem, I think the most effective approach is through the arts, because the question itself is not, fundamentally, a rational question. You need the world of imagination – the language of art – in order to be convincing in wrestling with it.

Lamentations is a path to understanding this issue. We in the West don’t know how to lament.

Theologian Calvin Seerveld posed this issue to my friend Michael Card after 9/11. He said, “see Michael, we don’t have songs to sing now.” So Michael began writing lamentations, which he became his album “Life Under the Sun” (2006).

In a sense, I’m doing the same thing with my art. I’m not necessarily creating “sad” paintings, but rather wrestling with this question: how can I create something, standing in the pit of Ground Zero, and still choose to look up? It’s painting through tears, and it’s a big part of my journey as an artist.

I see my art as part of the river of God, made up of God’s tears, which I have in common with a broken world. Rather than offering an idealized landscape for people to look to as an escape from reality, I paint in the ashes. Out of the ashes. From the ashes. And I’m not offering false hope, nor am I offering a nihilistic spiral of despair. Rather, I’m interpreting a longing that is deeply hopefully and real.