A Beautiful Calling
Recovering the Legacy of Christianity and the Arts
By Winfield Bevins
Vincent Van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows, Oil on canvas 101x50cm, 1890
The arts have the power to change lives and open people’s hearts and minds to the beauty of the gospel because great artwork connects with the imagination. Likewise, the arts have the power to renew congregations. However, over the centuries the impact of the arts has largely diminished.
The church’s relationship with the arts hasn’t always been so tenuous. Christianity has a rich artistic heritage that is worth reclaiming. Consider how many of the world’s most prominent composers, artists, and musicians belonged to historic Christian traditions, seeking to express the beauty they found in God through their artistic and creative gifts. We see examples of the power of art from the catacombs of the early church to today’s modern stained-glass windows. In historic churches and cathedrals, even the buildings and decorations were designed to proclaim the gospel.
The history of the engagement between the church and the arts reminds us that the arts and the church belong together. Rather than being on the periphery, the arts should be at the very center of the church’s life and mission.
Healing the Divide
For various reasons, the relationship between the church and the arts has suffered in recent decades. According to poet Luci Shaw, “The role of the arts has not always been received kindly in Christian churches. Art has often been seen as too experimental, too self’-indulgent, or too disturbing to be recognized as a gift of grace.”
Often the church doesn’t know what to do with their artists, which leaves them feeling alienated. Rather than being able to use their artistic gifts, they are often viewed with suspicion and contempt, which to be honest, can be justified at times.
The healing of the relationship between Christianity and the artists begins with church leaders who are willing to open their hearts, minds, and imaginations to bless and support artists in their church as well as in their local communities. Pastors and churches need to think of creative ways to disciple, encourage, and empower artists as ambassadors of beauty in their local communities. Artists also need to do their part by being faithful followers of Christ and by being members of a local church.
I believe that if we are going to see a new renaissance of Christianity and the arts, it will require both pastors and artists to begin to work together to rebuild trust. In doing so, I believe there can be a symbiotic relationship between artists and pastors. Artists need the church to love and support them and the church needs to receive the artistic gifts of her artists.
Beauty Will Save the World
Not only do churches need artists, and artists need the church, but the unbelieving world needs what we together have to give. For decades Christians have tried to reach the culture without one of the church’s greatest resources: beauty and the arts. We have tried to tell the gospel story by appealing to people’s minds alone, forgetting the power of the arts to touch people’s imagination.
Many Christians have lost a vision for beauty that encourages us to experience the mystery and transcendence of God through the arts. Some churches tend to focus on teaching and preaching the Scriptures while neglecting the arts and other tactile expressions of the faith. They have viewed mission in narrow terms beginning with apologetics and propositional truths, rather than beginning with engaging people’s imagination through the arts, which can be a starting point for evangelism in a highly visual world where people are looking to media and technology to find meaning in their lives.
What if the answer to the renewal of the church was not more strategy, planning, or political rhetoric, but to press in to the beauty of the gospel? What if God is calling us to rebuild the church with beauty through the arts?
I believe that Christians are called to bring the beauty of the gospel into the world through a variety of ways, including not least of all the arts. Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky is often quoted as saying, “Beauty will save the world.” Christians are called to the arts, because we are called to restore beauty to the world by demonstrating the beauty of Jesus Christ.
It’s worth noting that the word for beauty in Greek comes from the word kalen, which also means “call.” Regardless of the medium, the arts can open people’s hearts and minds to the gospel by lifting our gaze to God. A painting, film, or symphony can become a means of grace that points people to the transcendence of God and helps them hear his call to abundant life.
We have a beautiful faith that must be shared with the world. As Christians we are all called to proclaim the beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ, the One who is ultimately Beautiful, Good, and True.
Beauty, goodness, and truth presented through the various expressions of the Christian arts can be one of the most effective ways to reach this generation with the beauty of the gospel. Let us once again embrace beauty by recovering the arts for the sake of the Christian life, for the sake of the church, for the sake of the world.
Winfield Bevins is the founding director of Creo Arts and artist-in-residence at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books, including Liturgical Mission, Ever Ancient Ever New, and his forthcoming book “Beauty Will Save the World: A Renewed Vision for Christianity and the Arts.”