Thomas
Kinkade
My
Eulogy
For
thousands of years certain people have been bigger than life. Perhaps unfairly, they are beloved more than
they deserved and critiqued more harshly than was warranted. The Christian community has been as guilty of
this as any collection of people and this has been particularly true of our
own. And yet a strange twist on this has
taken place recently that has troubled me.
Thomas Kinkade makes this point clear almost perfectly.
Beloved
by many in the Christian community for his bold proclamation of his faith
through his paintings, Kinkade was derided by critics in the art community for
his style and technique. His passing
brought out the best and the worst in his life and made his legacy an object of
public scrutiny. Yet was it deserved? Should this be the way we react to those who
“make a name for themselves”?
Recently
a number of public figures have made strong statements of their faith in Christ
and their popularity among Christians has provoked a backlash that has stunned
many of us. Jeremy Lin, Tim Tebow,
George W. Bush and Thomas Kinkade among others have become heroes of sorts
because their success has catapulted them into the public arena where their proclaimed
love of Christ has reached a broad audience.
Because that clear public loyalty to Jesus has infuriated many, they
have become polarizing figures beyond the scope of their professional success.
The
success certainly has fueled their exposure in the press but it has also guaranteed
them undo scrutiny. The technique,
talent, skill and worth of these popular Christian artists, athletes and
leaders have all been excoriated by those who just don’t like them. Of course they all have flaws and certainly they don’t
always get it right in their private lives but must they receive such caustic
contempt?
Thomas
Kinkade’s brother has been quoted as saying that the extreme criticism Kinkade
received in the art community hurt him badly and that does not seem
implausible. It is painful to be derided
publicly or even privately by one’s peers.
Was it warranted though? Did
Kinkade have to be Dali or Picasso to deserve the popularity of his works? Did he have to hate the Gospel or be a serial
adulterer to gain favor in the art world?
Regardless of one’s take on his creativity or skill set, Thomas Kinkade
did something with his art that I will forever be thankful. He made the love of
Jesus Christ a topic of discussion among those who considered his works. That can of course be said of Jeremy Lin,
George W. Bush and Tim Tebow. Each in his
own way made his professional status a forum for proclaiming devotion to Jesus.
When
you reach the status of viral popularity, you become a target for those who
think little of your abilities and less of your acclaim. That must be accepted but it does not need to
characterize the response of the Christian community. Cannibalism is common within every
grouping. Democrats are guilty of it as
well as Republicans. Evolutionists and Creationists have engaged in it. So too have liberals, communists and
conservatives. If one of us steps out of
line, we are just as prone to turn on our own as we are to attack those outside
our group. Which brings me to my own,
the Christian world.
The
Christian community must make it anathema to practice cannibalism at any
level. When finally someone of us
reaches the privileged place of a Thomas Kinkade, we must do our best to
protect him or her. I am embarrassed to
admit my failure to pray even once for Kinkade, to send him a single note
encouraging his faith, to attend to the spiritual battle surrounding his
work. We must do our best to ignore the
foibles and style points these public figures generate and simply give our best
to fight spiritually for their lives. They need our help and Satan will do his
best to attack the chinks in their armor.
One prayer can save Kinkade from a bar fight, rescue Tebow from sexual
immorality, protect Bush from ignoring crucial advice. We don’t need our public spokesmen but they
need us. They need our joy in their
testimonies, our support for their efforts to honor Christ and our prayers for
their protection and help. The gospel does
not depend on these public figures but because they are ours, they depend on
us. The body of Christ must be the
safest and most supportive home another believer has and we cannot shatter this
by ignoring, critiquing or disabling the ministry of others trying to be brave Christians
in a disparaging and slashing unbelieving world.
I
salute the Christ who called out Thomas Kinkade for more than just a shallow,
muted faith. I applaud the Father who
enabled Thomas Kinkade to have a forum for honoring Jesus with his work. I bless the Holy Spirit who gave voice to
Thomas Kinkade’s longing to make of God’s grace an object of praise and
wonder. May the memory of Thomas Kinkade
and the lingering evidence of his witness in his art bring us a renewed
commitment to stand together in the faith and be a living laboratory of true
spiritual union and love.
The
Christian Community is much too quick to snip at one another and go after the
jugular of faults. Do we think it was
toward the Pharisees only that Jesus aimed his barbed arrow in the Sermon on
the Mount? It pricks us too and more
truly stabs us all the way in the heart.
How can we ever hope to progress in joy if we are captivated by the
splinters in the eyes of our fellow servants?
Evangelism is simply pious platitudes if we are not loving one another
unconditionally. It is laughable to hope
that we can build the Kingdom if internally we are squabbling and mocking one
another, critiquing and evaluating each other's works and motives. The crisis in the Church has never been
without but for two millennia within.
Much more damage has come to us at the hands of our fellow believers
than any non-Christian has ever caused.
Love does not begin with some lavish pronouncement but with a single
determination to overlook an offence or keep to ourselves our criticism. We can do this with Christ living through us
but without Him, we are hopelessly entangled by our grievances and
dissatisfactions. As we look to Christ
in the heat of our acrimony, the Lord will grant us His love and kindness to
come out of us at the very moment we need it.
Our Lord has a great deal of grace for those who "love too
much" or "overlook too much" it seems and if we should err, it
would be best to err on the side of mercy and compassion rather than take up
with the older brother in his complaints.
Job's friends look all too familiar to us and we must be careful we don't sit in their
camp when Job comes our way. We might
find ourselves begging the Job God has given us for mercy when the Lord "catches
up with us."
