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Christianity Today, October, 2008 |

THE CHRISTIAN VISION PROJECT

A Holy Longing

Beauty is the hard-to-define essence that draws people to the gospel.

David Taylor | posted 10/02/2008 09:36AM

The saying, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," suggests that attempting to say anything concrete about the nature of beauty is a futile task. As soon as one person deems something beautiful, ten ...

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Dave T.

Posted: October 07, 2008 9:34 PM

I think it's possible to call beauty "extra-biblical" if you are doing a quick word search study. There are, however, deep strains throughout the Bible, and even in places like Romans 1:20 (...Those things can be seen in what he has made...) there is an understanding that creation offers us glimpses of God's nature. We more often that not call a snowflake or a sunset etc. "beautiful" with the sense of the eternal Artist behind it's existence. We know beauty when we see it, and we can praise God when we come face-to-face with His artistry in the world: in nature, in the Bible & theology, and even the imperfect ideas and creative acts of his broken image-bearers. If we only look to our concordance, we'll miss it.

BJ	Posted: October 07, 2008 1:38 PM

I'm not sure what to make of this article. As a musician and worship leader, I find myself nodding in agreement the whole way through. And yet this concept seems almost extra-biblical. Other than the Psalm 27 verse that the author quotes, you have to use a lot of conjecture to make a biblical case. I took a quick look at all the instances of "beauty" in Scripture (31 in NIV), and more often than not the context described it as deceptive or fleeting. As a previous poster mentioned, Isaiah 53 says that Jesus lacked physical beauty. The only two NT mentions include a blossom's beauty being destroyed and a woman's beauty being spiritual in nature (James 1; 1 Peter 3). I'm not saying our churches should be ugly and devoid of art, but it's hard for me to place a heavy emphasis on beauty when the Bible doesn't seem to do the same.

Dave N.

Posted: October 06, 2008 10:17 PM

The trap, if you will, with the medieval view of beauty equating with good is that our human condition seems drawn toward beauty with negative results. (Genesis 3 is a nice place to begin thinking about this.) Our culture works to create and preserve subjective standards of beauty through desperate and expensive medical means only to find that beauty is still ultimately quite fleeting. (The poor, of course, do not have access to these resources and are often seen as less-than-beautiful in our society for a variety of reasons.) We are told in scripture that God evaluates things and people in ways that are different than our own and so we must be cautious when trying to achieve beauty as some sort of objective standard or an end in itself or to necessarily trust our own subjective evaluation of what constitutes the beautiful. As for Sue above I don't know what the topic of beauty and Sarah Palin have to do with each other (other than maybe she was a beauty queen?) or liquor.

Dale Fincher

Posted: October 06, 2008 9:26 PM

I'm glad CT is addressing this. The article is a good beginning on beauty. But we evangelicals must be careful. Just like a lot of other good things, we can absorb words like 'beauty' into our marketing but fill it with all the stale content that people continue to dislike about us. When the word "discipleship" fell prey to the Blame and Shame motivations and the doctrine of sin management, we needed a new word like "spiritual formation." Already, we're seeing that abused. "Evangelism" has come to be known as "proselytizing." So we need new words like "apologetics" which is becoming a bad word in the culture and looks like "proselytizing" now too. Sad, sad, sad. We're using fresh words but failing to refresh the foundation of our thinking. "Beauty" will be the next casualty. Until we immerse ourselves in the rich Christian Western Tradition, we may remain spiritual babes and risk sucking the life out of the goodness, truth, and beauty of the gospel.

kwonbbl

Posted: October 04, 2008 3:15 PM

Beauty is more than skin deep. As I read this article, I'm curious this fact. In my oriental culture and mind set, one of utmost concept is 'harmony'. Surely, without it, 'beauty' will not stand. Unity, complexity, and richness - these are only small facets. Even in 'Syntopicon' (1952, 2 volume work, which is linked to 60 volumes of the Great Books of the Western World) by Mortimer Adler, there is no entity 'harmony'! If 'harmony' is put aside, there would not be proper understanding of what underlies the Great Eastern culture/religion/society.

backpackerbill

Posted: October 03, 2008 11:26 AM


Thank you, Ed Sacco, for mentioning tha title. I'll be off to get a copy immediately. My Christian faith is deeply impressed with John's Gospel, and its philosophical concomitant, i.e. Augustine. So I have a fascination with Platonic explanations of essences, or what has usually been translated as his "ideals." Sounds to me like I'll enjoy reading Rolheiser.

Jane	Posted: October 03, 2008 11:12 AM


What about Isaiah 53:2, "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us"? Beauty is a good thing, but it does not equal Good.

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