Another interesting article by Chuck Colson...

"Made for Beauty: Art, Worship, and the Bible"
January 31, 2008

The neighbors watched the new church building go up in just one month—and
what a sight it was! The church was a squat, square building made of
unrelieved concrete. On the inside was garish red carpeting. A massive
parking lot surrounded the church.

Nothing could possibly have been uglier—and the fact that so many Christians
build church structures like this reveals how far Christians have strayed
from the place beauty and art are meant to have in our lives.

As the late Francis Schaeffer notes in his book, *Art and the Bible*, we
evangelicals tend to relegate art to the fringes of life. Despite our talk
about the lordship of God in every aspect of life, we have narrowed its
scope to a very small part of reality. But the arts are also supposed to be
under the lordship of Christ, Schaeffer reminds us. Christians ought to use
the arts "as things of beauty to the praise of God."

This is exactly what God commanded regarding the building of His Tabernacle.
As Schaeffer says, "God commanded Moses to fashion a tabernacle in a way
[that] would involve almost every form of representational art that men have
ever known." In Exodus 25, for example, God instructs Moses to make for the
Holy of Holies "two cherubim of gold; of beaten work shalt thou make them."

In other words, God was commanding that works of art be made: a statuary
representation of angels.

Outside the Holy of Holies, lampstands were to be placed—that is,
candlesticks of pure gold, decorated with representations of nature: almond
blossoms and flowers.

And then we have the descriptions of the priestly garments. Upon their
skirts were to be designed pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet.

Does God value beauty for beauty's sake? It seems He does. Consider the two
columns Solomon set up before the Temple. He decorated them with a hundred
pomegranates fastened upon chains, as God commanded. These two free-standing
columns supported no architectural weight and had no engineering
significance, Schaeffer writes. "They were there only because God said they
should be there as a thing of beauty."

And this brings us back to those ugly church buildings we often build. No
wonder non-Christians often remark on the ugliness of our churches—an
ugliness that is off-putting to anyone sensitive to beauty. We have
forgotten that beauty is not achieved, as some argue, just to draw people
into the church, but because it is a form of praise to the God who designed
and created magnificent mountains, delicate flowers, and our beautiful
children.

No doubt you have seen churches that have crossed the line from beautiful to
garish, where opulence is more valued than true beauty. Indeed,
historically, the Protestant reaction to opulent church furnishings was to
seek beauty in simplicity. And that is fine too. But every congregation, no
matter how small its budget, should ensure that its facilities, humble
though they may be—and in some parts of the world, they are very, very
primitive—nonetheless, are tasteful and reflect the beauty of the Creator.

The God we worship glories in beauty.

--
Richard Dongses
c: (510) 295-9734
rdong...@gmail.com