Art, photo of upside-down
church art installation, from Flickr, by benkay
This article is adapted from “Theology and Art”
from Preaching.com.
You can read the article in its entirety here.
As Christians, we should study and participate in the arts. Tim Keller stated,
"The Church needs artists because without art we cannot reach the world.
The simple fact is that the imagination 'gets you,' even when your reason is
completely against the idea of God." According to Keller, art has an
evangelistic purpose and value. We can come to know God through creativity and
imagination. While we may agree with this statement, there is more to the importance
of art than just evangelism.
We must not neglect the beauty that God has created or the
truth that we ourselves were created in the Creator's own image. We also have
been given the mandate to cultivate and to care for God's creation as stewards,
and this cultivation includes the arts. There is something particularly
creative, even artistic, in the very nature of who we are as image bearers. We
have been tasked with a creative vocation as Christians in our call to this
stewardship (See Gen.
1—3).
GeneVeith captured the Christian's role in the arts well when he said,
"That the arts are corrupt does not mean that Christians can abandon them.
On the contrary, the corruption of the arts means Christians dare not abandon
them any longer." As Christians, we cannot abandon what the enemy has
corrupted in the fall. We must reclaim the arts. God has gifted us with the
arts and they are His. The arts are a tool for us to participate with God in
His great artwork of restoration and re-creation. We must reclaim the arts for
God's kingdom purposes and for His glory.
This article is adapted from “Theology and Art”
from Preaching.com.
You can read the article in its entirety here.
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