Podcast Episodes

Lisa Smith

Hello, welcome to the Be Make Do a soul|makers podcast where we explore what it takes to live out your call in the arts with spiritual wholeness and creative freedom. I'm your host, Lisa Smith, here with my producer Dan ABH. And it's our passion to encourage you to become who you were created to be, make what you were created to make, and do what you were created to do. So, this summer on the podcast, we're exploring some of the questions that came out of the wise-hearted ones series about the artists call of Bezalel and Exodus, and the discussion guide that's available on our website if you'd like to dig a little bit deeper. But today, we are joined by Mary McCampbell. And I have been looking forward to this conversation for a really long time. Right, Dan?

Dan ABH

Yeah, she talks about you all the time.

Mary McCampbell

Oh, thank you so much. I love the work you're doing. And I'm so happy to be here.

Lisa Smith

Oh, well, thank you for taking the time. So, here's kind of where we are in this wise-hearted one series that we were looking at. We spent a lot of time making the case that art making matters. And that God gave us the capacity for art making with intention and purpose because it has power. And that as Christians, we need to be aware and respectful of that. So today, we want to talk a little bit with you about the power of art. Specifically, the way you talk about how narrative art forms can increase our capacity for empathy and learning to love our neighbors as ourselves. So welcome, Mary, we're just so glad you're here.

Mary McCampbell

It's really an honor. And I like I said, I think we connect so much on our thinking about the prophetic aspect of the arts. And so, I'm excited to dig in with that.

Lisa Smith

Yeah, it's like a little magic code word. Whenever somebody uses that we're like, Oh, okay. Let's talk.

Mary McCampbell

Define that. Yeah, yeah.

Lisa Smith

Well, let me share with our audience a little bit about you. Dr. Mary McCampbell is an author. She's an educator, and speaker, whose publications span the worlds of literature, film and popular music. Her interdisciplinary focus is also present in her book, imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy. Which will be a big part of our conversation. And I highly, highly recommend this book, whether you're an artist, or working at a church or just a person, this is an amazing, amazing, wonderful book. And you can find other pieces of her writing in outlets such as image Journal, The Curator, The Other Journal, Relevant, Christianity Today and her weekly substack newsletter at the Empathic Imagination, as well as she's been speaking all over the world. This year, you've been everywhere this this year speaking, and it's great. So hopefully, you can catch up with her.

But yeah, I'm excited to kind of just dive deeper into this conversation. And the way I want to frame it is thinking about how artists often struggle with questions around the impact of our work. Like it can actually really be paralyzing. To feel like nobody's reading your book, or no one's seeing your film or listening to your, I mean, I talk with writer friends all the time, we have the paralysis conversation about like, does anybody really care what I have to say, you know, and it does become parallelizing this doubting the impact of your work? Is that something I mean, let's make it personal. Have you ever struggled with that? How do you deal with that?

Mary McCampbell

Absolutely. I mean, and of course, you know, I've been teaching as a professor for over 20 years and there's a there's a little bit of an ego boost, you know, are a feel a good feeling when you're in the classroom and you have students kind of invested. But then you step back and remember, wait a minute, they have to do that to get a grade. So, it's like, oh, I'm saying these profound things like, Oh, really? So, you know, I mean, and that kind of imposter syndrome or syndrome is almost like a, you know, calling card for academia. If it feels like I'm, you know, I'm playing apart. Yeah, so much of my audience has been students, you know, which is complex in its own ways, but then I think, a wider audience.

And also, because for so many years, I'd see myself, you know, as a cultural critic. I didn't even feel comfortable using the term “writer,” you know, because I'm, like, I'm not the one producing the things, right? Or that's, that's a real insecurity. But more recently, something that was really interesting and helpful to me. Because I've become more interested now. And in writing, creative writing, like creative nonfiction, and fiction. And although I've published quite a bit of nonfiction, either as an academic or just a cultural critic, I haven't ever published anything in that realm. And again, it's that idea of will this mean anything to anyone else? Or is this just me, almost being kind of narcissistic, just delving into my, my own interest? Right?

Forgive me, I don't, I don't want to go off a little bit of the topic of what you're asking. But something that I found really helpful, the author, Douglas Copeland, that I did my PhD on the Canadian novelist who wrote Generation X. And he's also he's written many books, and he's a visual artist. But I read something from him that was really helpful, where he was talking about how any real artist is curious all the time. Like, that is the main focus of you know, being an artist. And, and there's a humility that goes with that. And he says, you know, any artists that acts as if they have it all together and figure it out and kind of has this air, he's like, that person is a hack. Artists have curiosity. And actually reading some of his nonfiction work is what made me think, you know, I've kind of been doing this, even in my cultural criticism, maybe I want to venture into that. But I love that idea of, you know, the curiosity and the humility, and that we each do have such a unique set of experiences and ways of seeing the world. And that I think, if it's underlying with humility and curiosity, hopefully this will be interesting to others. Yeah. But yeah, so that's kind of going all over the place. But yes, I've definitely felt that insecurity both in my academic work, and even, maybe even more so into would I want to call myself an artist? Would I call myself a writer?

Lisa Smith

I love that the curiosity and humility piece, because so much of what, I think I was reading somewhere else, I can't pull it up right now in my head, but about the importance of the way that we connect is through the specificity of somebody else's story. Like, oftentimes, the universal becomes clear in the specificity of somebody's unique particular story. And I was privileged to be in a little writer's group with you at the Habit Conference and got to hear some of your writing. And it is very good. And I'm excited for when you do publish, because your story, your ability to tell stories, and to kind of flesh out an experience and the colors of who the people are, and what's going on is really powerful. And I think it's a great example of exactly what your what you write about and what you care about, and how that I felt a connection to you and to that story and wanting to know more, just by hearing this little piece of what you've written.

Mary McCampbell

Well, thank you. That's encouraging. Well, I love that, and I love the way Copeland in that interview, he was actually talking about Steven Spielberg, because Steven Spielberg had brought him in to consult with him. When he was designing, he was thinking about the future and what the future would look like, and maybe a movie like AI or Minority Report. And Copeland, you know, he’s always thinking in the future, and, the interviewer asked, “what was it like to work with Steven Spielberg?” And Copeland said, Well, “He's just really curious. Just ask questions all the time.” He just feels like he's always wanting to, to learn and that's when he went into….And in my conversations with the author, Douglas Copeland. I feel like he's asking me as many questions as I asked him,

Lisa Smith

isn't that interesting.

Mary McCampbell

It feels like genuine curiosity. And so that's where we get into that empathy piece. There's a sense of, I don't know, I like thinking about, you know, art. I got this from spending time at Liberty and Liberty Lectures. And I think Ellis Potter was the first one who said this, that, you know, art is not a commodity, it's a conversation. And that wrote in that reflexive, you know, going back and forth. Rather than “look at this amazing thing that I've done,” there's a, create space for relationship. And, but sometimes it's easy to lose sight of that.

Lisa Smith

Yeah. And I mean, clearly, we're living in a moment, or more than one moment where the need for empathy is so important. And we all seem to be really struggling with that. And so put that on one side of the page. And then on the other side of the page, is this like we're talking about, you know, it's difficult if you if you're somebody who wants to make a difference in the world, or you have something to say, as an artist, it can be difficult to measure the effectiveness and impact of your work. And I feel like this talking about your work, your work kind of speaks to this on a deeper level by highlighting what art making actually does, and the kind of impact it makes, which is different from that commodity piece. This idea of the arts as a prophetic means to grow empathy, as you as you write. Yeah, tell us about your work, and the book and about empathy and art making and the value of it.

Mary McCampbell

I guess, this idea of this book, I realized I didn't, I didn't have words for it necessarily, but just how much I've been sort of shaped by the art I've spent time with and that there's, there's a huge spiritual formation piece in there. But also, I think, what was really profound to me, it's just years of teaching, and seeing the way the impact of many different types of art, it can be visual, it can be a painting of song or a novel, but the kind of life changing encounters I've seen when students interact with a piece of art, and I liked the way you focus on the idea of specificity. I think that's where really, they recognize, I mean, I will never forget, you know, teaching Samuel Taylor Coleridge, or Gerard Manley Hopkins poetry, about dealing with their own experience of clinical depression. And students saying, “Oh, my gosh, I've never heard from someone they put into words, what I'm experiencing.”

But it's not this sort of selfish, you know, “I'm consuming this.” It's, wow, I mean, in the specificity even though this was someone well, Coleridge was the first I think, to write on this really, and, you know, early 19th century, completely different contexts. Yet, there's that recognition of humanity and the other.

And so when I teach that I like to tell students you know, “you might recognize yourself and this but then again, you might not, but this gives you a doorway or into empathizing, maybe understanding a friend or family member who's who struggles with depression on this level.” And so, there's so many times when we don't know what we don't know. And then the arts in many different ways present this opportunity to. But, you know, we have to be careful. I talked some in the book about kind of voyeurism, you know, and, or even like I say, trauma, tourism, or voyeurism. Is it just “wow, this is so strange and different,” and we're just spectators?

But I think the way good art transcends that is because it really shows the reality of the complexity of the human condition. You know, I talk a lot about how Blaise Pascal says, we're both wretched and great. And there's this pendulum swing. And so, our that's really filled out. And giving an honest picture of what it means to be human presents that opportunity for us to you know, be generous in our reading, and really see the experience of the "other" but also see the sameness and the likeness. I feel like that can help us to flex those empathy growing muscles, that what hopefully then transition into real life encounters.

Lisa Smith

Yeah.

Mary McCampbell

I think that taking time to really slow down and be attentive with a piece of art is an act of love. You know, there's a bit of submission there. And practicing that, I would hope would help us to enter those conversations in many different ways. So that's a lot of what I'm very interested in. And as a Christian, I like to think, you know, how, what difference does it make when we look at artists, as someone made in God's image who has something important to say that they're inviting us into a conversation. As opposed to what I like and what I don't like?

Lisa Smith

Yeah, yeah. Oh, Dan, What were you gonna say?

Dan ABH

I have so many, so many things. But I just I'll stay on topic here. Well, first of all, I love this way of looking at art and how it shapes empathy. And I, you know, not to be Debbie Downer, but I feel like our world is sort of lacking in empathy. And I just love that this has been your focus. Could you tell us a little bit of what led you for this to be your focus? Like, what? That something happened? Was it a quick thing? Or, like, God told you like, I don't know, you just tell us I'm really, I'm really interested on how this all came about? Because it is lacking in our culture right now.

Mary McCampbell

I do feel like the thing that, to me is, the saddest is how many sort of Christian circles seem to be lacking in empathy, and like, “I've got to I've got to win the argument.” You know? “I've got to be a gatekeeper for the Gospel.” Whereas isn't a large part of the Gospel, also loving your neighbor as yourself. And, and again, it's very easy to, to slip into that just, well, I guess, I'm trying to think of when I first I mean, I've long been talking in my classroom about how so much of our default tendency is to slip into that sort of us and them thinking. And into when someone is very different than you, or someone annoys you, to really kind of just slap a label on them and then dismiss them. And maybe, I mean, this is something important to me, because I've struggled with it so much myself, and but I, again, to go back to the classroom. I just feel like, I think in the most profound ways, I've seen it in dealing with topics of race. And every fall I've taught Othello by Shakespeare. And every spring I've taught Frederick Douglass, The Narrative Life of an American Slave. And it's quite amazing to see students, you know, I was teaching at a predominantly white institution with many people who in Appalachia, many people who come from small towns, where they've never interacted with anybody who, you know, is black.

Mary McCampbell

But what happens is that, you know, when we're looking very closely at the words of this text and being really attentive, I have students in the class share things from their lives, which then is very transformative to the community of the classroom. But even if they don't, (that doesn't always happen), there's something about these kind of straw figures that maybe some of the readers in my class had in their head were transformed into an actual human being. And then with Frederick Douglass, his firsthand experience of being enslaved.

So, I have had so many end of the semester or so many things that have been written, saying, “I didn't know I was a racist until I read this book.” Or, “I grew up in a family where the use of the N word was frequent, I never realized it was wrong.” “I grew up and I was taught that it's to be afraid of black people.” And just all that, yeah, and “my parents were against interracial marriage.” And of course, that's another big theme in Othello. And so, there's several layers to that. That’s, I think,is a huge spiritual formation thing. It's like seeing, it's like a work of art, when you're interacting with a work of art sometimes can be a sense of almost being (to put it into spiritual terms) “convicted,” you see yourself, you see this ugliness. And it's corrective, you know, in that sense, but also humanizing the very person or the kind of person that you labeled and dismissed. And so that just happened a lot in particular with that topic. Yeah. And I just thought, man, this is, this is beyond just, “Oh, I'm moved.” This is like, “I need to change the way I look at the reality and the way I look at other human beings.”

And so, these works of art were just entryways. And it helps them to be more empathetic towards others. But it also is helping. It's like a kind of soul care, soul changing for them. Yeah. And so those two together, sorry, that was a very long example.

Lisa Smith

But no, it's great. Yeah, I mean, you write about, like, I think this is a quote from your book, recognizing both the Imago Dei and our sinfulness in ourselves, allows us to connect and empathize with these things and others. And I mean, I think that's, that's the, like, you quote Graham Greene, “Hate is a failure of imagination.” I love that. Everything that you're talking about is so important for Christians. You know, to be a Christian you have to have a well-formed imagination in order to be able to think. Like another quote that from your book, “Christian empathy moves beyond both instinctual emotions and prescriptions for how to be a good person.” Like we have to go deep, really, really deep. And part of those tools to be able to understand even how to do that, I think stem from the arts. What happens there when our imaginations are, are poorly formed?

Mary McCampbell

You know, that's a great question. I think, well, a constricted imagination. You know, I just, I don't know there many times I'll read comments on posts on Facebook that will just, there's no sense of thinking of the other person as a human being. when it's like someone who's in prison or something. And I think these people need to be in more humanities classes. Because there's a sense of it, it really, it challenges you outside of that.

And I want to go back to I think that oftentimes we don't even really know we're lacking. Because we are on some level, you know, very much formed by our culture. You know about the most important things are efficiency, the most important things are, you know, being the top of the pack survival of the fittest. I mean, so much of the rhetoric, even sadly, sometimes in Christian circles, is, is very, it's the opposite of being slow and attentive and gracious, and practicing empathy. And so, I feel like suddenly your imagination gets smaller and smaller, and smaller, and there's a constriction in a sense. Your imagination can lead you in, in the, in the movement against love. And there's a really great again, I keep talking about Samuel Taylor Coleridge, it's not even my area, but he has this poem, This Lime Tree Bower, My Prison, where he's, he's really mad because his friends were going to come visit him, he's gonna show them around the Lake District, and he hurt his leg, he broke his leg or injured his leg. And so he's sitting there, and the friends come, and they still want to go hiking.

And he's mad, you know, really mad. And really, he's hilarious. When I teach it, I say, I'm so emo. You know, he's just really like, dramatic. And then he's using his imagination, to sit and think, what they're doing? And how much? You know, it's like when you know someone is doing something that you don't like, you can easily imagine the narrative can get bigger. But then all of a sudden, he remembers that his dear friend who was visiting him, has been pent up in the city in London and loves nature and nature's life giving for that friend. And so, then all of a sudden, he says, “Oh, it's as if I was there with him.” Because he starts to being able to imagine, through his love for the friend, he's able to think, oh, imagine their wonderful time. And then the whole time he thought he was he said he was in a prison, when actually he's in a beautiful lime tree bower, and he looks around, and that the love that's come in his heart that's helped him empathize has also helped him to see the beauty in his surroundings. So, it changed.

And one of my favorite films I talk about in the book is The Tree of Life, which is also very much about this. You know, you have one character who's very much Nietzschean survival of the fittest. You know, I've got to get ahead. And in the end of the film he laments, “I haven't seen the glory all around me.” You know, now I have new eyes to see. And so, I think there's a real deprivation if the imagination is constricted. It's almost like you need imagination to see reality. I mean, you need real imagination to love your neighbor as yourself. And that love of neighbor itself, is also a way for you to see the glory and beauty of everything around you.

Lisa Smith

I love your kind of just stating that imagination is essential in order to see reality. Like people don't, we don't think about it in that way. But it's true. And this kind of then leads to this idea of, you know, you use you use the “P” word, you use the “prophet” word. You know, when we're talking about prophetic narrative art, let's talk about that a little. Looking at the artists side of things. What do you mean by “the prophetic” when you when you're using that word?

Mary McCampbell

I think prophetic, well is you know, I'm a big fan of Walter Brueggmann's, Prophetic Imagination. And I like the way he talks about the prophetic as two parts twofold. And one is; on one hand is there's a recognition that the way things are is not right. And, and the way you, you recognize and grapple with that is through either lament or critique. Both of those things are saying the way things are (what he calls) the “Empire mentality.” It's not right. And I feel like there's so much great art that does that, that critiques and shows us.

But Brueggemann also says, well, there's another part. It's not just the one. He's coming from, of course, a theological a Christian perspective; that there's also hope, and energizing. And he says, a “hope based on doxology.” Which is why I love talking about like African American spirituals, because you have those two things together. You have there, you have lament, you have critique, but you also have hope.

So, I think the prophetic, we see it in many different forms. But I would say it's, pointing us towards reality, it's peeling back the false layers of what we've been conditioned to think. So, the prophetic goes together with empathy, the empathy enhancing qualities of art, because I think a work of art is prophetic when it really helps us to see the complexity of what it means to be human. And it may even take someone that we think of as an “enemy figure,” and forces us into a space of loving them. You know, seeing their humanity. I can think of so many good television series that do that. And it's but not coming from a Christian perspective, right. So yeah, so prophetic, really, I would say is, is recognizing something is wrong, and pointing us towards the truth, on the most simple level, you know, that's the way I would approach it.

Lisa Smith

That's a great way to put it. Well, and so I want to kind of talk a little bit about words for Christians working in the arts, because I feel like I see two pretty well-worn paths. At this point. There's Christians who pursue art, but don't really feel a sense that it needs to, or maybe even that it can be a part of the narrative. Like “I just make music. I happen to be a Christian, but I, I'm in a band, I make music that I don't really, I'm not going to tell Christian stories through my music.” And then on the other side are those who overtly and explicitly make, you know, that's the narrative and in a devotional or evangelical or apologetic way.

But I wonder if you have any thoughts on it. Is there a third way? Like, what you were talking about just now and in your book, you write the words, like ”resisting romanticism or cynicism.” You know, being able to tell the truth. People like Flannery O'Connor. How do…even these filmmakers or authors, you know, or maybe even not Christians, that you're, you're studying who are saying something powerful, but it's not propaganda. It's okay to have a point of view and to, you know, be prophetic or, and bringing that hope and seeing things in the real way. Is there a third way? How do they see what they do? And how do you see what they do? Is there a way we could think about it?

Mary McCampbell

Because it sounds really kind of cocky, like “I'm a prophetic artist!” you know? I mean, I think yes, a third way. Because I feel very uncomfortable with the label of “Christian artists” or “Christian art.” Because, if Reality of life is God in His creation, then I would think, moving into that, and moving towards the truth and moving towards the idea of revealing truth. I wouldn't even feel the need to put a label on that. It's just art that is honest and good. And is going to work against death and toward life.

There's another L'Abri guy Marsh Moil, I like the way he talks about that; "Is it affirming life or death?" And when something is affirming death oftentimes it can be very tricky in the way it's disguised. It can look really glitzy and glamorous, and it can hand us a sort of beautiful and easy narrative. When really it's just dishonest. So, I would say you know, maybe the third way is just honest art that is holding together is not trying to romanticise, is not trying to sugarcoat reality or, you know, create this Disney World.

And O'Connor, I love the way she talks about that. She's so offended by things being overly sentimental. Because she says, we need to start with what we know. And what we know is the natural world and the experience of being humans. And she thinks that when you feel the need, which I say sometimes in, “Christian art,” to really not show things that are too disturbing, or to wrap things up, you know, in a nice little bow after two hours with a nice, easy solution. She basically says that, you know, our work as Christians is participating in the Christ's death and resurrection like the cross of Christ. And if we are kind of creating our own little enclaves, of what we see as heaven on earth, but without showing what we need to be saved from/into she feels like it's almost like that Bonhoeffer “cheap grace” idea. And so, there's something about art that tells the truth.

On the other hand, if you have art that just focuses on the ugliness and destruction and sadness, which we know is there, then you can get into real despair and cynicism. So I think both are very dangerous. So, I think the real tough part is being in the middle is the, tension. And I mean, paradox is the big word, right? It's paradoxical. The human experience is paradoxical. There's always this tugging back and forth between darkness and light.

Lisa Smith

Well, and I think understanding that. Being okay with that, and understanding the power of what happens when you are real with it, like understanding that if you're not telling the truth about something, you're not really going to be able to affect somebody else. Because it doesn't carry the same weight as when you're vulnerable and real, really telling the truth.

If we are called to make the culture in which we live, you know, that's part of what we're called to do as Christians. But we're not doing it from a genuine and authentic and real place, then we're not able to do anything that's really meaningful. Like we're talking about this, this art making stuff has real power. And so, we’re either choosing to engage that or choosing to not engage that.

Mary McCampbell

I feel like Christians should be the most creative and should have the most profound understanding of the complexity of the human condition. And where are we seeing that? I will say that I think I know people probably tired of talking about this, but I do think The Chosen does a really good job with that. It really surprised me because I was I was nervous watch it, you know, because of what I expected. But I think the reason it works and is attracted an audience, including a family member of mine, who is formally Buddhist, but now just kind of all religions pagan sort of thing, who told me, how much he loved that series. And he's a very brilliant guy. And he said, “If someone like that Jesus came and said, ‘Follow me.’ I would.” I think Whoa, yeah. But I think it's because of the reality of humanity depicted in that series with the disciples, and also, of course, Jesus Himself.

Lisa Smith

Yeah. Yeah. See, I think this is why it's so important to talk about these kinds of things, and for your book to be out there and you to be talking because I really hope that artists who are Christians come across this kind of these thoughts and resources and start to understand, like, I just don't think that now is a time to be waiting around to get permission from Christians, or not artists, especially. Because what we're talking about is I think there's a fundamental deficit of imagination within institutional Christianity. And I think that has had a direct effect on where we are now. And so, the practitioners of imagination are the people who have studied and developed and expanded their capacity for that, and their capacity to communicate about that and tell stories, which are the artists of all disciplines and all shapes and forms. They really are the experts. And I think that we're in a time where God is calling those people to lead and to lead the Christian church back to a, an expanded imagination so that they can, like you said, see reality. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's huge.

Mary McCampbell

It's huge. I mean, and it's so sad that in so many contexts, I mean, Francis Schaeffer writes about how in so many (he was writing, of course, like in the 60s), but I mean, in some ways, that's gotten a lot better. But in some ways, it hasn't. So many in the church just think of the arts as like, window dressing or the curtain.

Lisa Smith

But it's, you know, you talk about a spiritual formation. And imagination is just like anything else that this is a, it is a spiritual formation. It's a discernment. It is a discernment tool. It's something that we have to cultivate in practice and bring within that realm of our relationship with Christ and our kind of that dying to self.

Mary McCampbell

Absolutely, it's, there's a lot of unlearning false, like our imagination that has been falsely formed. Yeah. And then, so unlearning, but also getting new. You know, feeding it with the truth. But it's yeah, I just feel like reality is so, I mean, it's I feel like the traditional kind of sacred/secular split, and “my pastor gave me a list of these are the movies you can watch.” That kind of thing. It's so much easier.

Lisa Smith

And we like our roles and our boundary lines.

Mary McCampbell

Yeah, Legalism is easy. But you know what I mean, it's too. I mean, reality is messy. Yeah. It is messy.. So, it's good to make messy art. Or art that reflects messiness.

Lisa Smith

Yeah. With that hint of the hope leading towards life, like you said.

Mary McCampbell

Yes.

Lisa Smith

Well, Mary, thank you so much. This has been such a rich conversation. I could sit here and talk with you for another couple of hours.

Mary McCampbell

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.