musician will also know how to address the issues involved in fostering an art gallery or studio, dance and drama ministries, or poetry workshops, just to name a few possibilities. In Voicing Creation’s Praise, Jeremy Begbie rightly cautions against allowing the visual to become the paradigm of an understanding of the arts. However, it is equally problematic for the specific concerns of music production and performance to dominate our understanding of the arts generally. Not all arts are equal in congregational life. While the type of music that is appropriate for worship is often a matter of contention, very few contemporary Christians would argue that there ought not to be any music at all. The other arts have varying levels of acceptance, and pose their own, particular production and performance problems.
I am not arguing here that a wide range of art activities have no place in Christian life. Rather, I am asking that those who advocate that the arts are integral to Christian life be more clear about how the various arts and differing levels of participation may lead to a fuller, richer, more authentic life in Christ. Rather than simply lumping all the arts, and all arts activities, together under one banner, I believe that it is important, at some level, at least, to make distinctions.
A Sanctified Art
In this chapter, I have looked at five general ways that the church, and society at large, misunderstands and misuses the arts. Whether we instrumentalize art, reducing it to a single meaning; commercialize it, turning it into a commodity rather than an experience; demonize it, seeing only its potential for idolatry or as an invitation to sin; trivialize it as child’s play or something to while away a free hour; or spiritualize it as a pathway to the Divine regardless of the specific theology or worldview embedded in a particular work, we lose track of the genuine, concrete benefits and dangers inherent in bringing art into our lives.
In the chapters to follow, I will explore the complex relationship between art, beauty, and truth as these terms are understood colloquially, theologically, and in the world of art criticism and theory; propose some ways that the church might speak more constructively about art, inviting both Christian and non-Christian artists into a dialogue that can enrich both our theology and our aesthetic experience; and consider how the arts might genuinely address our aching need for meaning, for communication, and for genuine worship of the One who calls us into relationship with one another and with God.
Finally, I will move towards a theology of art that is both sanctified and sanctifying. John Wesley taught that, while each Christian is justified by faith, we spend our entire lifetime moving towards Christian perfection, which he called sanctification. Art, like any human activity, is not perfect, nor does it have the ability to make us perfect. What it can do is carry the tune when we are off-key and keep the beat when we are out of step. A sanctified art is like a mirror that always tells the truth, even when we would rather it lie. A sanctified art can show us both who we are and who we are meant to be as we journey together towards perfection.
2. Reinhardt, “25 Lines,” 90.
3. Wolterstorff, Art in Action, 5.
4. Begbie, Voicing Creation’s Praise, xvi.
5. Dyrness, Reformed Theology and Visual Culture, 59.
6. Leaver, “Liturgical Music,” 283.
7. Ibid., 284.
8. Ibid., 295.
9. Ibid., 292.
10. McDannell, Material Christianity, 133.
11. Ibid., 52, illustration 33.
12. Ibid., 56, illustration 40.
13. Ibid., 17–66 passim.
14. Milspaw, “Protestant Home Shrines,” 119.
15. Siedell, God in the Gallery, 22.
16. Ibid., 24; emphasis original.
17. Ibid., 28.
18. Wolterstorff, Art in Action, 4.
19. Augustine, Confessions, book 10, chapter 33.
20. Bernard of Clairvaux, “Bernard of Clairvaux: Apology.”
21. Suger, “De Administratione,” 65–67.
22. Bernard of Clairvaux, “Bernard of Clairvaux: Apology.”
23. Barzun, Use and Abuse of Art, 26.
24. Ibid., 27.
25. Ibid.
26. Sullivan, Windows into the Soul, sec. 53.
27. Winton-Henry and Porter, “InterPlay.”
28. Lerner, The Street Where I Live, 89.
29. Barzun, Use and Abuse of Art, 87–88.
30. Ibid., 88.
31. Witvliet, “Series Preface,” viii.
32. Brown, Good Taste, Bad Taste, 8.
3 / Visions of Beauty
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
—John Keats33
Aesthetics is for the artist what ornithology is for the birds.
—attributed
