I think there are some Christians, in the ultra-conservative camp, who have an angst, an unspecified fear, of art. Emotions, after all, aren\u2019t easily constrained, and if art does anything at all, it elicits an emotional response. \u00a0An experience with something of beauty might feed my desire; desire awakened could arouse my passion\u2014and that can\u2019t be good! Furthermore when God was setting down his commands, \u201cno graven images\u201d made the Big Ten of things to avoid. It\u2019s more likely, though, that the anxiety around art in general and specifically the visual arts in worship is a reaction to the sensual nature of Roman Catholic worship.<\/p>\n
With nothing against the convictions or morals of the movement of English protestants known as the puritans, \u201cpuritan\u201d and \u201cpuritanical\u201d in modern language has come to mean (unfairly) against pleasure\u2014a label assigned by the world to some of us conservatives. It is a twist of the enemy. Satan wants us to believe that God is stoic, austere, against pleasure\u2014that desire, pleasure, and the sensual are part of the enemy\u2019s worldly assets. But it is God who is the creator; He made the world and filled it with beauty, with wonder, with intricacy. Creation, God\u2019s work, delights the senses and is a form of visual art; it can draw us to God. As Paul puts it \u201c<\/em>For since the creation of the world God\u2019s invisible qualities\u2014his eternal power and divine nature\u2014have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.\u201d<\/em>[1]<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Theologian William Dryness argues for an understanding of art that draws us into transcendence. He writes \u201cAll great art is often symbolic in this sense; it opens up window to the transcendent dimension of life and calls for a response to this dimension.\u201d[2]<\/a> In the presence of fine art we become aware that there is something more then the natural world, there is something nobler, or something evil. Again he writes, \u201cWe live in a world that invariably reflects God\u2019s values and even features echo of his presence. People may miss the significance of these echoes, but as long as they are human they cannot miss the values embedded in creation.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n Dryness argues that through the sensual nature of art our longings are stirred and we recognize they are not fulfilled, that there is something more. The artist, then, Christ-follower or not, has a special mission: \u201cto call the world to a kind of rest or remind it of its restlessness.\u201d[4]<\/a> Artists may intuitively perceive the spiritual reality and be able to reflect that dimension; this can provide an indirect (and perhaps unintentional) witness.<\/p>\n I think many of my conservative friends are going to continue to be anxious about art as long as they are misunderstanding the virtue of desire, longing, passion and sensuality. We can\u2019t be against those things\u2014they were God\u2019s ideas, and he created our five senses to enjoy this world. By awakening our passions or stirring our longings, Art or beauty can be a prophetic witness that convicts us, or at least reminds us, of what we are created for.\u00a0\u00a0 C.S. Lewis put it this way \u201cOur Lord finds our desires, not too strong but too weak\u2026 We are far too easily pleased.\u201d[5]<\/a> In the same sermon Lewis goes on to argue that the places in which we find beauty\u2014such as in books or music\u2014is where we thought beauty was located, but that\u2019s a danger. If we trust them they will betray us because beauty was not in<\/em> them but only came through<\/em> them. And what truly came through them was longing. These things\u2014beauty, the memory of our own past\u2014are good images of what we really desire. [6]<\/a> Lewis is arguing that beauty stirs our longings, memory stokes our passions, and both can bring us to experience God. Not if we put our trust, our affections, our passion in the object\u2014perhaps a memory, a song, a piece of art\u2014that\u2019s idolatry. It is when the object is used as a conduit for worship that it is serving its highest and its intended purpose. So maybe the sensual worship of the Roman Catholics isn\u2019t all bad?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Romans 1:20 NIV<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> William A. Dyrness,\u00a0Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue<\/em>\u00a0(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 84.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid., 85.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Ibid., 101.<\/p>\n