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Beauty draws blood to the heart and speeds up the pulse; sometimes it evokes repentance. I wish more Christians were comfortable with its pull. Too often, beauty raptures us so forcibly that we fear it will lead to temptation. So we avert our eyes. What if we turned our ecstasy into worship?

With provocative hyperbole, a character in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot predicts that beauty will save the world. Commenting on this line, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn imagined that "if the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light," then "perhaps the whimsical, unpredictable, unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar up to that very place and in this way perform the work of all three."

But it won't be the beauty described in Captivating. That beauty isn't wild enough; it's mere prettification, a tendency toward sentimental adornment. For some reason, the Eldredges restrict the source of beauty to women. Sorry, Rubens, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Bach, and men with stunning looks—you don't make the list.

True beauty is precarious, unbound.

It cannot be confined to pre-approved tastes or to one gender. It is wild at heart. Like Christ. And like the complicated men and women who follow him (some of whom room alone when they travel).

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Agnieszka Tennant's previous columns include:

A Velveteen Apologetic | How two creatures dig a rabbit hole in my disbelief. (April 10, 2006)

What Would Jesus Buy? | Saving the world one cashmere sweater at a time. (Jan. 31, 2006)

Agnieszka Tennant's previous articles include:

A Hard Pill to Swallow | How the tiny tablet upset my soul. (Nov. 8, 2005)

Ragamuffin | The patched-up life and unshabby message of Brennan Manning. (June 4, 2004)

'Jesusy' Anne Lamott | Chatting with a born-again paradox. (Jan. 8, 2003)

The Ultimate Language Lesson | Teaching English may well be the 21st century's most promising way to take the Good News to the world. (Dec. 6, 2002)

Possessed or Obsessed? | Many Christians say they are in need of deliverance but some may be giving demons more than their due. (August 24, 2001)

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August 2006, Vol. 50, No. 8