Art, Beauty, and A Christian Worldview: Art as a Worldview Magnifier

This morning we’re going to talk about a Christian Perspective on Art & Beauty. This is a school so I will accept the fact that you can wrestle with difficult concept.Ecclesiastes 3:11 [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (ESV)As you can see from Eccl. 3:11, we are thinking about Beauty, Eternity, the human heart, and God’s Creation. And maybe we have limits? We are finite… maybe we need to think a bit more about what Beauty is? And what this means for what we usually call beautiful – Artwork and creativity.Intro: Art, Beauty, and A Christian WorldviewYou probably encounter hundreds of types of creativity & artwork every week. You probably encounter hundreds of things everyday you find beautiful or ugly. But is this just preferences?.. like you like some music and your friends like others, you think a movie was really good, but your friend didn’t like it? How should you as a Christian enjoy creativity, beauty, and art.To answer this we are going to ask, What IS Beauty? What is the Standard of Beauty? And from there say--how should a Christian think about Art. To Answer this I will frequently cite Paul Munson’s Chapters in Art & Music A Student’s Guide.First, What is Beauty? Munson says that “the beauty of any object is its capacity to proclaim truth and to realize goodness.” [2x] (Munson, 28)But What is Art? Throughout this talk when I say “Art” I mean a fitting or appropriate form in order to convey Beauty. – And this can be music, painting, sculpture, it can be a child’s painting that is fitting and good for the context, it can be a master painter’s painting which serves a different fitting good. Art can be, Poetry, Novels… Architecture, the way an athlete plays a sport, even. Art can be pop art, folk art, Fine Art, each has strengths and weaknesses depending on the goal. But the goal is to convey goodness, truth, and beauty in a fitting and appropriate way.As a Christian I am going to argue that: Art and creativity are good. Because we are made in the image of God. We are, by definition, creative beings. Art can magnify and display in beautiful and fitting ways a message, a worldview. However, art can display not just the Christian worldview, but any worldview, so it can also be a magnifying glass to display falsehood and ugliness in a fallen and broken world. Therefore, we must seek God as the standard of the good, the true, and the beautiful to inform our use and consumption of Art.#1 What is Beauty?· Who has heard the phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”· Do we believe that as Christians? As with many things, the answer is No in some ways but also “yes” in some ways. But really there is an important “No” here.o Is something beautiful because that is what it IS? Or is something beautiful because you find it beautiful?§ Is there some external standard for beauty and judging art or is it not really in the art or the beautiful thing but only in your eyes seeing it and finding enjoyment in it.§ Well this is actually a really hard question to answer. – Munson helps us think through these questions in his book called Art & Music. He argues· On the one hand you have Classical Greek artwork and Modernists, people who value Objectivity. Let’s think about modernism for a second: They Desire to find mathematical rules and order and forms for what makes beautiful music or statues or the perfect building.o And right away part of us say, yes, good music does have order to it.o There is such a thing as Color Theory. Complementary colors, split complementaries, analogous colors... There is real math behind musical chords and harmonies…to rhythm.o There are rules for perspective and balance, compositions, and symmetry can look beautiful.o But symmetry and balance and order while often beautiful doesn’t account for all beauty. Impersonal rules are not a complete picture. Jazz music, impressionistic paintings, and sometimes quirky architecture can be beautiful and accomplish good things.o There is much good here but it is not a complete view of Beauty. This next view also fails.· Post-modernists, that is those who embrace a more subjective individualist view of truth and reject a transcendant, external, and objective standard of beauty they tend to to think beauty is all a matter of taste and preference.· They might say, You are just culturally conditioned to like some things and not others.· This can make us susceptible to others pressuring us to conform to their tastes and preferences or…. everything is always about whether you are a conformist (conformist BAD!) or a rebel (Rebel GOOD!) in post-modernism you are defined by your response to your given culture’s beauty preferences. Beauty is only in the eye of the beholder.o This leaves us chaotic, and open to absurd and foolish things being called artwork. It means not celebrating someone’s art as good is no longer judging the artwork but is felt to be a judgement against the person.o If beauty is ONLY in the eye of the beholder then we can no longer objectively ask is this Art Good? Is it True? Is it Beautiful in itself…No its two people’s Wills…two people’s opinions locked in battle.· The Post-modern view fails…And is especially dangerous as many people’s worldview is not just non-Christian but anti-christian.o Some people find drug use appealing and even beautiful.o But objectively. IN Reality. it is destructive to the mind, the heart, the body, and does damage to the dignity of human beings made, what? made in the image of God.o A True Standard for beauty, allows us to call an appetite for a bad thing wrong-headed.§ Paul Munson Says, “It’s precisely because we are so prone to deceive ourselves about pleasure that we need the concept of beauty. It enables us to think critically about pleasure, which, by the way, is why postmoderns hate beauty so much and want to conflate it with preference. They don’t want to have to think critically about pleasure. They don’t want any reminders that their joys aren’t solid, that their treasures won’t last. (Munson, 25-6)· SO you don’t want to be arrogant and call your preferences for some art over others objectively good, but you also want to be serious about the fact that some creativity and artwork just plain stinks. And is even harmful.· You need a standard for why some things really are Beautiful in themselves. Not just the eye of the beholder. For example.· In Mark Chapter 14 Jesus is eating in a home and a woman he had shown some grace and mercy to enters the house during dinner and anoints Jesus with perfumes and oils and uses her tears to wipe his feet.. Some were indignant (and maybe we find this a little odd and yucky) but Jesus defends her as having done what?? Havin done something beautiful. “leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.”· Why was it good and beautiful? Jesus says, “she has anointed my body beforehand for burial.”o She through a fitting symbol of burial perfumes was driving home to people’s hearts that Jesus was going to die!§ Jesus has said this several times. I will die. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He has said it plainly. He has given word pictures saying he is the shepherd who dies, but she does it in a way people could see and smell, and with the same smells, they had memories of from the many funeral they had attended.· It was beautiful because it was the truth displayed in an understandable and fitting way using fitting means, oil and tears people would understand.· The performance was artistically just the right vehicle to display Goodness & Truth about Jesus’ sacrificial death to save us.o Ok this is where “Beauty” and “Art” come back together for us. Paul Munson says quite plainly “Form matters to God.”§ Creation is beautiful according Eccl. 3:11 “God has made everything beautiful in its time”§ Form Matters to God.· God did not have to make hummingbirds, humans with different eye colors. God didn’t have to make us able to sing beautiful hymns of praise. Have you ever watched the beauty of a sunrise. But he did make all these things.· Guys you know the beauty of a campfire watching the light flicker, the flames dance and how much better it makes our conversations.· God’s creation is beautiful. Because it creatively reflects his Beauty and Majesty. This brings us to our second Point. God is the Standard of Beauty.[#2 The Bible teaches that for Beauty and Art: God is the Standard]Psalm 8[1] O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!You have set your glory above the heavens.[3] When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,[4] what is man that you are mindful of him,and the son of man that you care for him?[5] Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beingsand crowned him with glory and honor.[6] You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;you have put all things under his feet,Romans 1:19–20 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.All creation, shows the majesty of God. His goodness is the standard that overflows and ought to satisfy of our hearts. All goodness and beauty we find in our creation is by definition good and true NOT because it meets our fallen human preferences or gives enjoyment, but because it is a witness a sign pointing to the standard God himself. Because you have a mind, a heart, and a soul that is designed to enjoy God and his beautiful creation. Your heart longs for the transcendant majestic God creation points to. You look at the art but the artist is what your soul was meant to truly find satisfaction in.· From these Passages Paul Munson says, creation is beautiful in order to “reflect [God’s] own beauty. And if God is beautiful, and if his creation is beautiful, then there is an objective measure for beauty, and we can think critically about it.”· In other words we shouldn’t just consume artwork and assume everything you desire and like is beautiful. You need to compare it to the standard. And for the Christian and the non-Christian [even if they deny it] the standard is the same. The Universal Creator, the Architect and designer of the entirety of Creation.· Beauty is “the forms through which we recognize the nature and ways of God.”o So Art isn’t very beautiful just if it tells the Truth. We can tell the truth in blunt and clumsy ways.o Art isn’t beautiful if its just good. We have a lot of good things in our lives that aren’t particularly beautiful. I am thankful for Toothbrushes and toothpaste but it aint art.o Art uses a fitting form to reflect the nature and ways of God. So that some aspect of HIM is revealed. Something about the goodness of Creation is Told. Something about Salvation and Redemption is told. Something about Light defeating dark. This is why we love stories and music that reflect God’s greater story and reflect the great themes of the bible and salvation.§ This means yes, art can be beautiful in conveying to us difficult truths about sin and shame and suffering. But Christian art doesn’t glory and dwell on the darkness it uses that truth to show us that darkness loses that the nature of God is indignant against the darkness and knows of its defeat.o So beauty makes goodness and truth visible and compelling it is the magnifying glass for a worldview that has a right understanding of God and his creation.Point #3 We as the Image of God get to reflect that standard and so enjoy and create beauty and art.In Genesis The Holy Spirit is the life-giver and seems especially to give us spiritual life and even creativity. We see this throughout the bible he gives gifts and makes kings kings and prophets prophets and priests priests. But did you know he makes Artists Artists?The Holy Spirit working in us gives gifts and skill to do work. In Fact the very Tabernacle which is a wonderful work of Art is commissioned and approved by God to teach Israel how to worship him is the work of the Holy Spirit through Craftsman & Artists. We see this in newly rescued Israel in Exodus 31.Exodus 31:1–11 Bezalel[1] The LORD said to Moses, [2] “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, [3] and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, [4] to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, [5] in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. [6] And behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you: [7] the tent of meeting, and the ark of the testimony, and the mercy seat that is on it, and all the furnishings of the tent, [8] the table and its utensils, and the pure lampstand with all its utensils, and the altar of incense, [9] and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the basin and its stand, [10] and the finely worked garments, the holy garments for Aaron the priest and the garments of his sons, for their service as priests, [11] and the anointing oil and the fragrant incense for the Holy Place. According to all that I have commanded you, they shall do.” (ESV)· God commissioned and approved not just what the priests would say, but how they would look [as a kid I stared all the time in my bible atlas at the intricate details of the tabernacle, beautiful full color illustrations…the bible is filled with beauty], God cared how the tabernacle would look. With beauty. It looked like a garden filled with carved pomegranates and trees, and gold, and lampstands to remind us that God is present…just as he was in the Garden of Eden, but we live in a fallen world removed from EDEN, but even redemption can be beautiful… beautiful basins where the priests washed, the Tabernacle becomes a picture of God’s presence, salvation, and cleansing from sin as well as his holiness and separateness. The veil that separate the Holy of Holies and the various sections.o The Artists acted to make the Tabernacle a Magnifying glass highlighting truths about God who he was, how he saves us in ways that are Beautiful and Creative.o [Transition] The Holy Spirit also is still at work giving life and beauty. The Holy Spirit is an artist working in hearts and souls to direct our gaze to Christ.· The Holy Spirit Is the one who causes us to be born again, one who gives new birth and new life to hearts that are dead in sin. The Apostle Paul uses the beautiful metaphor of Our hearts as pottery on the wheel of the Holy Spirit. He renews and shapes us after the image of God and in that renewal our personal relationship with God restored.· Not just individually but as a Beautiful bride the Church. We are united to The True One. We are United to the Good one. We are united to the gloriously and unfadingly Beautiful one the Savior of our souls, Jesus.This should compel us to live a thankful life. To live a Beautiful Life not an ugly & foolish life… Why should our language and imaginations be shaped by the ugliest and most evil entertainment and images our culture offers us? It should not be.This brings us to our Final Point.#4. ART is a Magnifying Glass· As Christians, we recognize the goodness of creation. We recognize God is the standard of the good, true, and beautiful. So we love art and creativity.· But we also always remember that, due to remaining sin in our hearts that we still struggle to hate sin as ugly and to love what God defines as beautiful.§ So we may be attracted to and fascinated by DARKNESS. By LIES and DECEPTION.o The Means there exists false and deceiving artwork.o Some Art tells the truth. Some Art tells lies. And we want the art we use and consume to be for Good. Truth. And True Beauty.o This doesn’t mean all our artwork has to be happy.o You may use your artwork to expose darkness.§ Paul Munson again says, “in a movie about the Holocaust—if the ugliness and the evil are depicted accurately. If we learn from it anew how vile sin is, how real judgement is, and how near grace is, then a depiction of ugliness can be very beautiful indeed. And only the Christian view of beauty can account for this.§ Art is a magnifying glass for reinforcing a worldview’s persuasiveness of what is good and true and beautiful, but more than just worldview it magnifies your moral imagination. What I mean by that your moral imagination includes your worldview, but also things like your loves your affections what you reflect on and reflexively respond to as compellingly good or instinctively wrong or evil in someway§ It takes a fitting medium, like musical instruments, the human voice, clay, paint, architecture, a film to tell a message over and over again to everyone who looks at it.· This can be as simple as a painting of a loaf of bread on a table – that refreshes your heart to love the simple things in life. This could be complicated like The Lord of The Rings, which teaches us that light must fight and defeat darkness and the good wins in the end and evil loses through friendship, courage, and beautiful cinematography…And one or two good speeches from Samwise Gamgee.· This can be as complex as Handel’s Messiah directly worshipping Jesus. Or a Child’s simple drawing of his mom.· Truly Good art magnifies our sensitivity to the sinfulness of sin. Our understanding that darkness loses to the light. That we can enjoy God’s simple creation and beauty and also have a future hope of heaven, that this life isn’t all there is.· SO you can ask yourself before you consume art: what does this TV Show, Singer, or any kind of artist want me to believe about God? Creation? Myself? Sin & Darkness? What do they want me to believe about My Family? Work? The Church?· This means there are times where you will look at, listen to, or interact with art based on an ungodly worldview.§ Munson - “The ugliness of any object is the sum of all the ways in which it obscures truth and impedes goodness, which means that everything in this cursed [fallen] world is both beautiful and ugly.”§ Ungodly art is ugly. But it can hide itself as beautiful if we are not wise.· What does magnifying this worldview do?o If we consume or use or passively conform ourselves to any art we find pleasing or entertaining or desirable inevitably we are consuming artistic endeavors that magnify a false-worldview. Magnify Idols.o This will shape and desensitize us to true spirituality, and increases and magnifies our love for sin.o Our love of simple Christian living, of being the sweet aroma of Christ will be diminished. We will instead grow tastes and preferences that find sin and false spirituality desirable and mistakenly say this IDOL is good and true and beautiful. When in fact it is evil, false, and ugly,Three Takeaways:#1 Enjoy with an active mind any art that succeeds in displaying beauty, goodness, and truth as defined by God in his Word—the bible!#2 Remember—Beware – Sin is deceitful and our hearts are deceptive, ugly & false things can be dressed up by music, TV Shows, and seek to make us call evil good and good evil. The ugly beautiful and the beautiful ugly. …On this point trust and listen to wise people in your church and family when they warn you about something as inappropriate it is probably because of wise discernment.#3 Most of All: Praise be to God: In a fallen world, He is renewing our hearts and minds after the image of Christ Jesus so that we once more can have our moral imagination be a Holy imagination. There is great joy in enjoying truly beautiful things. Ultimately, the standard of this is encountered in Christ Jesus, loving us while we were enemies and bringing us into the family of God. God is Good. God is Truth. God is Beautiful. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jamesensley.substack.com