Yelling "Fire" in a Crowded Art Gallery

Are there no limits to artistic freedom of expression?

In the last year we have witnessed a spate of public controversy regarding the freedom of artistic expression.

• Congress has debated whether or not to fund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) because of its support for art that many feel is morally objectionable.

• Several members of the rap group 2 Live Crew have been arrested for performing their songs, which contain lyrics depicting violently misogynistic sexual activity; one of their albums has been declared legally obscene by a Florida judge.

• The director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cincinnati has been indicted for displaying the homoerotic photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe.

• Rock lyrics are the subject of court suits and legislative proposals.

All indications are that controversies of this nature will continue. And there is indeed much here that is profoundly troubling to the thoughtful Christian. One of the works partially funded by the NEA is entitled Piss Christ, which is a photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine. Four artists who were refused funds this year by the NEA, to the outrage of much of the artistic community, have been described by a sympathetic observer as using “nudity, religious imagery, bodily fluids and references to sex and violence” in their work.

2 Live Crew’s album, As Nasty as They Wanna Be, features, according to a New York Times article, “Sex in the bedroom, sex in the kitchen, sex with girlfriends, sex with prostitutes, sex with a homeroom teacher.” It goes on to say that “a good part of its lyrics are graphic, largely unprintable here, and often misogynistic, treating all women … as more or less willing orifices.”

How should the Christian community react when vulgarity, sacrilege, and violence, masquerading as art or entertainment, are glorified? Clearly these works are offensive to our Lord. They are evil, and Christians are called to oppose evil. The conclusion appears inescapable: Christians should use all means at their disposal to put persons out of business who traffic in vulgarity, sacrilege, and violence under the cover of freedom of artistic expression.

Before embracing this conclusion, however, it is important that Christians pause to think carefully. Almost all American Christians accept the separation of church and state and oppose using the power of government to impose Christian morality onto society. The use of governmental power to restrict the right of Christians to practice their faith openly during certain eras in history (or in nations such as China and Iran today) should warn us not to be too quick to favor the use of political coercion to advance our moral agenda for society. We had better do some clear-headed thinking about under what conditions and by what means restrictions on the freedom of artistic expression are appropriate.

Four Guidelines

This is not the place to articulate a complete Christian response to these issues. Nevertheless, I have four observations that can serve as starting points for thinking Christianly about the freedom of artistic expression.

First, freedom of artistic expression does not mean the right to produce anything without any restrictions whatsoever. Some pundits seem to be taking as a given that there should be no limits of any kind on the freedom of artistic expression. But this is a false premise, and it frames the issue improperly.

A free society, as many social and political thinkers have pointed out, requires a certain self-imposed restraint. Freedom implies responsibilities. A sense of decency, civility, and respect for others—which is learned, not legislated—is crucial if freedom of expression is to flourish. “Anything goes,” never has been, and cannot be, a synonym for freedom.

Problems arise when this civility breaks down. Society then faces a cruel dilemma. The use of political power to try to enforce a basic respect is often futile, and it works to the detriment of everyone’s freedom. But to do nothing tears society apart.

We as Christians need to insist in our public discussions that the issue is not simply whether restrictions should be put on freedom of artistic expression. Implicitly, if not explicitly, everyone already accepts this. The issue, properly framed, is what these restrictions should be and what, if any, steps should be taken when previously consensual limits are crossed.

Second, legally imposed restraints should be distinguished from withholding of public funds. Censorship occurs when the government actually restricts artistic freedom. But this is quite different from the government deciding not to fund certain artistic endeavors.

Poet Allen Ginsberg has reacted to certain minimal restrictions on NEA grants by stating, “We are in a dead-end totalitarian ecological trap.” Another artist claimed, “Little by little our rights are being taken away.” This is hysterical nonsense. Anyone can say or perform anything that he or she could have said or performed a year ago. To confuse legally imposed restrictions with the rejection of a grant application is absurd.

At the same time, when the NEA supports antireligious or vulgar artistic expression, the government’s imprimatur is being put on it. It is no longer on the fringes of society. Jacob Neusner, a member of the main advisory committee of the National Council on the Arts and critic of any restrictions on NEA grants, has noted the “profoundly symbolic” nature of federal support for a practicing artist: “This is the Government saying, ‘We approve or disapprove a certain kind of art.’ ”

In a free society, it will often be appropriate for Christians to tolerate—even while witnessing against—what is highly offensive and an affront to themselves, others, or their God. But toleration is one thing; the government’s imprimatur is something else.

Third, legally imposed restraints should be distinguished from economic and social pressures. A variety of publicity tactics aimed at drawing attention to highly immoral art and entertainment is often effective. Such tactics are essentially means of public suasion and thus do not possess the dangers and civil-liberties problems inherent in political restriction of artistic expression.

Public pressure is frequently used by secular groups in our society. Last summer, antiapartheid groups brought pressure to bear on the San Francisco Fine Arts Museum to cancel or find other sponsors for an exhibit of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings being underwritten by the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, which has a subsidiary in South Africa. The chair of the Democratic National Committee, Ronald Brown, has stated publicly one reason the national Democratic party chose New York over New Orleans for its 1992 national convention was that the Louisiana legislature had passed strong prolife (or, in his words, antiabortion) legislation.

In this same tradition, Christians can use a variety of economic and social pressures. We do not have to be silent. Such tactics can be especially effective—and needed—when grossly inappropriate artistic or entertainment productions are being sponsored by major, mainstream corporations and institutions. They can be effective because such establishments are often dependent on the tens of millions of morally sensitive Americans as investors, supporters, and consumers. They are needed because, just as with government grants, sponsorship by mainstream establishments bestows a stature on productions they would not have if isolated on the fringes of society.

Andrew Dice Clay—whose performances are probably as vulgar as those of 2 Live Crew—has his albums put out by a subsidiary of Time Warner communications, a major, mainstream corporation. Should it be able to do so without a murmur of protest from 100 million churchgoers, many of whom invest in, work for, or purchase Time Warner products? I think not.

Fourth, in some situations, the extreme step of government restriction may be needed. Government has been established by God to promote a just order in society. It should step in to legislate limits on the freedom of artistic expression only as a last resort, to be used when freedom is being abused to such an extent that immediate, irreparable harm is being done. Examples would be those things that fall under the Supreme Court’s narrow definition of obscene, the exploitation of children in pornography, and the vilification in a particularly ugly manner of a religious, ethnic, or racial group. Thus the government has a right to take action against those works or acts that trespass the boundaries the courts have set up.

All four of these guidelines operate under the assumption that both art and freedom are God-given gifts that should be honored and protected. Our primary motivation for our actions, then, is not to protect Christians from slander or ridicule by “artists.” In fact, we need to be at least as concerned—if not more concerned—about defending and protecting the integrity of women and vulnerable religious or ethnic groups as we are of our own; that is our Savior’s way. But it is because we so value art and so cherish our freedom that we are concerned that they not be abused and debased. The current debate about artistic freedom has become a muddled mess. Let us pray that a clear-minded response can still be heard.

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