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# Make the World Real
- URL: https://www.belonging.house/make-the-world-real/
- Published: 2025-09-19T10:00:52.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-24T23:51:14.000Z
- Description: Trying to be something it's not.
- Author: Christ John Otto
- Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1784937001272, #Import 2026-07-24 23:50

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThank you for your prayers.  
  
Last week I talked about psychological war.  
  
In order to understand how this relates to us,  
and our calling to raise up an army of artists,  
we need to understand what is going on in culture.  
  
When I was finishing high school, I had three choices.  
I could go to seminary and follow my call into ministry.  
I could go to art school because I wanted to become a great artist.  
I could go to acting school in the City and pursue a career in the theater.  
My acting coach, Fred Gantz,  
sat me down and said,  
"I don't want you to have the chaotic life of an actor.  
I would advise you to go to seminary and **have a stable, normal life**."  
  
*Bad advice.*  
  
I passed on going to art school because,  
even thirty years ago,  
all I found were indoctrination mills.  
  
Even though I didn't go to art school,  
I found **opportunities to learn** from good books  
and older artists who were willing to teach me their craft.  
**Real artists are generous** and always willing to share.  
  
What I learned **turned into cash**,  
and whenever I needed money,   
I took freelance work as an applied artist.  
I made money from my art for over twenty years.  
  
Being outside the system gave me an interesting perspective.  
**To do brilliant work is art.**  
And real art is a more of a trade and a craft than people know.  
Real art produces something meaningful of value.  
And people intuitively know this.  
  
Until recently,  
Christians understood  
art was an expression of the core of our faith:  
Jesus Christ is the Icon of the Father.  
**All true art is an outworking of the Incarnation.**  
Art was designed   
to clearly communicate truth  
and bring us all together.  
True art is an experience where we encounter  
the transcendant revelation of God.  
  
All you need to do is look at   
a Dutch still life from the seventeenth century  
with a magnifying glass.  
These Christians were telling stories  
by **recreating the creation** in stunning detail.  
  
We are living in a world full of artifice, not art.  
  
The *American Heritage Dictionary* describes "artifice" as:  
1\. Deception or trickery.  
2\. Something contrived or made up to achieve an end,   
*especially *by deception** or a ruse.  
*3\. Cleverness or ingenuity in making or doing something.*  
  
In other words,  
artifice  
**is the attempt to be something it is not.**  
  
A little child knows what beauty is.   
Great masterpieces draw us in   
and **point to a greater reality**.  
  
We are living in a time of war,  
and part of that war   
is the lie that   
only a few smart people really understand   
**what "real art" is.**  
So we live in a world becoming   
more and more  
drab and brutal  
where we are told **ugly is beautiful**.  
  
And even some Christians believe this lie  
and become useful idiots in a world of deception.  
  
Belonging House International  
is called to raise up men and women  
**who do not live by lies.**  
We are called to raise up artists   
who have the interior strength  
through discipleship and wholeness  
to turn the ship of culture.  
It takes a lot of strength to say  
"the emperor has no clothes."  
  
My heart's cry is to teach a generation   
of artists and culture shapers to listen to the Lord  
and do what he tells them.  
This is the path toward reality.  
  
And of course  
artifice   
is the root of "artificial."  
**Fake.**  
  
Oh God, send us the warriors  
to make the world real again.  
*Amen.*  
  
He Never Fails,  
Christ  

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ed/59/ed590bfa-368b-4bcf-b1f2-6ba9ca9abcdb/content/images/2026/07/b85c4d3d-6be1-4a13-bb47-68ea05cef84c_599x200-heic-1.jpg)

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published**Gather Us In is three weeks away! Registration closes October 1\.**   
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