Not much to add to the 20 excellent comments below... That said, I keep finding that deep humility - for me, should be added to the Fruits of the Spirit "list" given the crazy world we are living thru. Yes, I'm in my own head but quickly get pulled out by such great writing. Unbelievable!
I am a therapist and I often chat with my clients about beauty. They are always surprised by the question, “When life is beautiful, where are you, what are you doing?” Beauty is necessary, it is healing,especially in a world where scrolling produces after-gloom and detachment. Good piece, thank you!
Wonderful! Our Christian imagination today is convinced that beauty means order. Another way of getting at what you are saying is looking to Christ’s noble steed. There is a beauty in the donkey that does not radiate through the outward appearance like the stallion’s appearance. The beauty to be found in the donkey is Christian beauty.
You’ve expressed a concern I’ve been carrying. And I love the way your essay takes us on a journey of self awareness, starting with experiences where our own inner aesthete of good taste may surface, and then moving into our true heart’s knowing of what Christed beauty really is—and is not. Your cautionary message needs to be circulated far and wide these days. Thanks for this great essay!
Amen, Dan - there is little as staggeringly beautiful as the off-key, full-throated worship of a brother who has tasted His love. Discordant as it may sound (Melkor would be proud?), it is the song of a life transformed from darkness to light; what could be more stunning than that?
You mention the sudden fixation on a theology of beauty in modern discourse, but I'd love to see an essay that tackled the material influences of why this has come to be, which probably has quite a bit to do with social media aestheticization as a means of creating identity, or the fact that so many upwardly mobile young evangelicals have entered graphic design as a profession.
I think this is really interesting question and one that I think a lot about. It probably has a very complex answer with lots of multivalent reasons but these come to mind:
- In broader philosophical movements, we’ve become more suspicious of abstraction and reason as a reliable source of ultimate knowledge about reality. There is a growing emphasis back on feeling, embodied experience, and intuition as a source of knowledge about reality. In this sense, we’re seeing a Romantic swing again. I think this Romantic swing is also discernible more broadly in culture where there has been a more intense focus on analysing and drawing meaning from fundamental human experience.
- Academic theology, since the 40s-50s (post-war), has had a strong existential inflection which has been about answering the question of how Christianity can plausibly be considered ‘good news’ in a world that feels so senseless and vacuous of spiritual meaning. Yes, there are questions about the rationality of faith that had to be addressed (historicity of the resurrection etc) but there have also been other, perhaps deeper questions, about how existentially satisfying and plausible Christian faith is in the modern world and that, by necessity, draws us to consider the human experience of beauty and the sublime.
- I also think what you say probably plays some role. We’re about 100 years into the popularisation of photography and the radical swing to a visual culture. The accessibility of music, photography, content etc probably does make the general person more literate and susceptible to aesthetic experiences which makes us consider them more deeply.
There are probably lots of other factors and more detailed reasons, but these were just some that came to mind as I was reflecting on your question.
My view on this is that the Enlightenment or Modernism or whatever you want to call it elevated Truth and Reason above Beauty and Goodness, in both secular and Christian thinking. This resulted in a diminishment of the value of Beauty while also pushing itself to its limits, which has resulted in disillusionment in the form of Post-Modernism that we see in philosophy, arts, etc. So now general society has distrust in objective truth claims (including objective moral claims) but is desperately craving Beauty.
I sorta understand the philosophical underpinning of why that might be true when looking at the past 500 years as a whole, but not when looking as the past 10. As someone in a high church tradition, I'm curious why this has become a line of inquiry among an evangelical culture that has become interested in the topic in a huge way more in the past 10 years.
We were not getting wall-to-wall books, podcasts, YouTube essays, and blog posts about rediscovering a theology of beauty in 2015. I'm curious as to why!
Personally it was because I saw that ~2017-2020, Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Pageau were articulating Christianity in a way that spoke to people in a way nobody else was doing, and reinvigorating a lot of interest in Christianity from both Christians and non-Christians. But nearly all of that interest was going towards Catholicism and Orthodoxy. In the following years I saw so many random non-Christians on the internet *and* Protestant friends and acquaintances starting to show more interest in that direction. What was it about this specific cultural moment, combined with that form of "apologetics", that was sending people to RC and EO? What were evangelical, Reformed, and mainline Protestant churches missing that was resulting in them seemingly be skipped over?
I feel like the beginning of the trend you describe probably arose out of at least these 3 things: 1. there were always already some people working on creative stuff, but they were more in the background waiting for opportunities, 2. people getting disillusioned with the standard evangelical style of influencing culture more directly politically, and 3. this internet trend of increased interest in old church traditions I described. All together getting some steam and slowly attracting more mainstream evangelical attention.
I mean, I find it a little dismaying that economic and political considerations are not factoring in here, when they seem to be an enormous driving force behind what you're saying. I think you're right that:
>nearly all of that interest was going towards Catholicism and Orthodoxy
But a lot of that also has to do with dogmatism, exoticism, and traditionalism (as opposed to tradition). To observe that the conservative YouTube manosphere sent people who were formerly Stoicism/Rome Guys into being Catholic and Orthodox Guys is totally true, but largely that has to do with these places being the final refuges for 20th Century male identitarianism .
You meantion "mainline Protestant churches [...] seemingly being skipped over..." but... they're very much not being skipped over. People are going into Mainline churches of all kinds, Methodist, Episcopal. It's just usually not Jordan Peterson Guys who are doing it. And honestly, sometimes we even get those guys in mainline churches, but it becomes very treacherous grounds because often those guys are coming into those spaces with a lot of dodgy intentions.
Still, I don't think see Theology of Beauty discourse a primarily coming down from the conservative debate corners, but perhaps I haven't been paying close enough attention!
> I find it a little dismaying that economic and political considerations are not factoring in here
I mentioned shifts in politics as one of the factors but just from my experience and conversations it hasn't come up a lot and it's hard for me to discern the causality there. It's all very interconnected of course.
> But a lot of that also has to do with dogmatism, exoticism, and traditionalism (as opposed to tradition)
Yeah I mean I think there is real beauty in RC/EO that is being seen but I don't disagree that the exoticism of EO in particular is a factor particularly in North America.
> People are going into Mainline churches of all kinds
True, the Redeemed Zoomer/Reconquista idea comes to mind as being a related part of this trend although until recently it hadn't seemed that big to me.
> I don't think see Theology of Beauty discourse a primarily coming down from the conservative debate corners
This is more just how I got into this trend but back then I wouldn't consider Peterson or Pageau to be in those corners, although they did interact with them a bit. That's changed a bit with Peterson joining The Daily Wire (I'm not a fan of that decision). The Daily Wire has tried to get more into influencing culture through arts rather than rhetoric by making their own films but they're still more political than theological. I like the approach of e.g. The Rabbit Room better.
Thank you for this!! I have resonated so much with the recent call for Christians to re-embrace beauty, especially as an alternative to an intellectual/apologetics-only approach to engaging with and sharing our faith. But I have also felt the very concerns you bring up—that we idolize a version of beauty that fits with our personal or cultural aesthetic standards instead of Beauty, which is ultimately the scarred and risen Christ. So thank you for this very timely and well-written caution.
Beauty is a PERSON. Only through that rightly-ordered understanding of Beauty can we evangelise rather than idolise. Thank you, Daniel! Also, I saw news about ChristianStory through Wycliffe's Instagram. SO excited about this project!
This I say is a thing of beauty. It resonates for me this morning with Erik Varden's quoting the poem, To The Feet, compose 800 years ago. He says that meditation on the wounds of Christ increase our access to vulnerability. It seems to me that neither the means nor the end are exactly what we hear about in the marketplace. It is the cross embolden's beauty.
I read it in the varden book and then I have not been able to find it either. I will post here when I find it. It is part of a larger poem about meditation on the suffering of the cross. Originally erroneously attributed to somebody else but I will look up again and find the author that varden favors. It really is worth finding. I will stay on the trail.
A thoughtful essay. I became a little sidetracked studying the fragment of the scene of Christ and Peter walking on water. The figure on the left to me is in the process of sinking as the one on the right is standing on the water and is placed higher. So to me I see Peter but the visage of Christ is lost to time.
Thanks so much for featuring me :)
Thank you very much.
“Primitive art” can be quite different from “bad art”. The primitives will help you see something that you had overlooked.
And Dan, please keep writing.
Not much to add to the 20 excellent comments below... That said, I keep finding that deep humility - for me, should be added to the Fruits of the Spirit "list" given the crazy world we are living thru. Yes, I'm in my own head but quickly get pulled out by such great writing. Unbelievable!
I am a therapist and I often chat with my clients about beauty. They are always surprised by the question, “When life is beautiful, where are you, what are you doing?” Beauty is necessary, it is healing,especially in a world where scrolling produces after-gloom and detachment. Good piece, thank you!
Jackie Pullinger's life and teaching almost singlehandedly changed my life. Very happy to see she is getting recognition in this space.
Wonderful piece (:
Thank you, Dan. When beauty and truth walk together, it is good, like your writing.
Wonderful! Our Christian imagination today is convinced that beauty means order. Another way of getting at what you are saying is looking to Christ’s noble steed. There is a beauty in the donkey that does not radiate through the outward appearance like the stallion’s appearance. The beauty to be found in the donkey is Christian beauty.
You’ve expressed a concern I’ve been carrying. And I love the way your essay takes us on a journey of self awareness, starting with experiences where our own inner aesthete of good taste may surface, and then moving into our true heart’s knowing of what Christed beauty really is—and is not. Your cautionary message needs to be circulated far and wide these days. Thanks for this great essay!
Amen, Dan - there is little as staggeringly beautiful as the off-key, full-throated worship of a brother who has tasted His love. Discordant as it may sound (Melkor would be proud?), it is the song of a life transformed from darkness to light; what could be more stunning than that?
You mention the sudden fixation on a theology of beauty in modern discourse, but I'd love to see an essay that tackled the material influences of why this has come to be, which probably has quite a bit to do with social media aestheticization as a means of creating identity, or the fact that so many upwardly mobile young evangelicals have entered graphic design as a profession.
I think this is really interesting question and one that I think a lot about. It probably has a very complex answer with lots of multivalent reasons but these come to mind:
- In broader philosophical movements, we’ve become more suspicious of abstraction and reason as a reliable source of ultimate knowledge about reality. There is a growing emphasis back on feeling, embodied experience, and intuition as a source of knowledge about reality. In this sense, we’re seeing a Romantic swing again. I think this Romantic swing is also discernible more broadly in culture where there has been a more intense focus on analysing and drawing meaning from fundamental human experience.
- Academic theology, since the 40s-50s (post-war), has had a strong existential inflection which has been about answering the question of how Christianity can plausibly be considered ‘good news’ in a world that feels so senseless and vacuous of spiritual meaning. Yes, there are questions about the rationality of faith that had to be addressed (historicity of the resurrection etc) but there have also been other, perhaps deeper questions, about how existentially satisfying and plausible Christian faith is in the modern world and that, by necessity, draws us to consider the human experience of beauty and the sublime.
- I also think what you say probably plays some role. We’re about 100 years into the popularisation of photography and the radical swing to a visual culture. The accessibility of music, photography, content etc probably does make the general person more literate and susceptible to aesthetic experiences which makes us consider them more deeply.
There are probably lots of other factors and more detailed reasons, but these were just some that came to mind as I was reflecting on your question.
My view on this is that the Enlightenment or Modernism or whatever you want to call it elevated Truth and Reason above Beauty and Goodness, in both secular and Christian thinking. This resulted in a diminishment of the value of Beauty while also pushing itself to its limits, which has resulted in disillusionment in the form of Post-Modernism that we see in philosophy, arts, etc. So now general society has distrust in objective truth claims (including objective moral claims) but is desperately craving Beauty.
I sorta understand the philosophical underpinning of why that might be true when looking at the past 500 years as a whole, but not when looking as the past 10. As someone in a high church tradition, I'm curious why this has become a line of inquiry among an evangelical culture that has become interested in the topic in a huge way more in the past 10 years.
We were not getting wall-to-wall books, podcasts, YouTube essays, and blog posts about rediscovering a theology of beauty in 2015. I'm curious as to why!
Personally it was because I saw that ~2017-2020, Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Pageau were articulating Christianity in a way that spoke to people in a way nobody else was doing, and reinvigorating a lot of interest in Christianity from both Christians and non-Christians. But nearly all of that interest was going towards Catholicism and Orthodoxy. In the following years I saw so many random non-Christians on the internet *and* Protestant friends and acquaintances starting to show more interest in that direction. What was it about this specific cultural moment, combined with that form of "apologetics", that was sending people to RC and EO? What were evangelical, Reformed, and mainline Protestant churches missing that was resulting in them seemingly be skipped over?
I feel like the beginning of the trend you describe probably arose out of at least these 3 things: 1. there were always already some people working on creative stuff, but they were more in the background waiting for opportunities, 2. people getting disillusioned with the standard evangelical style of influencing culture more directly politically, and 3. this internet trend of increased interest in old church traditions I described. All together getting some steam and slowly attracting more mainstream evangelical attention.
I mean, I find it a little dismaying that economic and political considerations are not factoring in here, when they seem to be an enormous driving force behind what you're saying. I think you're right that:
>nearly all of that interest was going towards Catholicism and Orthodoxy
But a lot of that also has to do with dogmatism, exoticism, and traditionalism (as opposed to tradition). To observe that the conservative YouTube manosphere sent people who were formerly Stoicism/Rome Guys into being Catholic and Orthodox Guys is totally true, but largely that has to do with these places being the final refuges for 20th Century male identitarianism .
You meantion "mainline Protestant churches [...] seemingly being skipped over..." but... they're very much not being skipped over. People are going into Mainline churches of all kinds, Methodist, Episcopal. It's just usually not Jordan Peterson Guys who are doing it. And honestly, sometimes we even get those guys in mainline churches, but it becomes very treacherous grounds because often those guys are coming into those spaces with a lot of dodgy intentions.
Still, I don't think see Theology of Beauty discourse a primarily coming down from the conservative debate corners, but perhaps I haven't been paying close enough attention!
> I find it a little dismaying that economic and political considerations are not factoring in here
I mentioned shifts in politics as one of the factors but just from my experience and conversations it hasn't come up a lot and it's hard for me to discern the causality there. It's all very interconnected of course.
> But a lot of that also has to do with dogmatism, exoticism, and traditionalism (as opposed to tradition)
Yeah I mean I think there is real beauty in RC/EO that is being seen but I don't disagree that the exoticism of EO in particular is a factor particularly in North America.
> People are going into Mainline churches of all kinds
True, the Redeemed Zoomer/Reconquista idea comes to mind as being a related part of this trend although until recently it hadn't seemed that big to me.
> I don't think see Theology of Beauty discourse a primarily coming down from the conservative debate corners
This is more just how I got into this trend but back then I wouldn't consider Peterson or Pageau to be in those corners, although they did interact with them a bit. That's changed a bit with Peterson joining The Daily Wire (I'm not a fan of that decision). The Daily Wire has tried to get more into influencing culture through arts rather than rhetoric by making their own films but they're still more political than theological. I like the approach of e.g. The Rabbit Room better.
Thank you for this!! I have resonated so much with the recent call for Christians to re-embrace beauty, especially as an alternative to an intellectual/apologetics-only approach to engaging with and sharing our faith. But I have also felt the very concerns you bring up—that we idolize a version of beauty that fits with our personal or cultural aesthetic standards instead of Beauty, which is ultimately the scarred and risen Christ. So thank you for this very timely and well-written caution.
Bravo. Reminds me a bit of this essay by Isaac Angel Meza: https://substack.com/@isaacangelmeza/p-153991983
Beauty is a PERSON. Only through that rightly-ordered understanding of Beauty can we evangelise rather than idolise. Thank you, Daniel! Also, I saw news about ChristianStory through Wycliffe's Instagram. SO excited about this project!
This I say is a thing of beauty. It resonates for me this morning with Erik Varden's quoting the poem, To The Feet, compose 800 years ago. He says that meditation on the wounds of Christ increase our access to vulnerability. It seems to me that neither the means nor the end are exactly what we hear about in the marketplace. It is the cross embolden's beauty.
I'd like to know more about the poem you mention here. Is it called To the Feet? and who is the author? I don't seem to see it online...
thanks
I read it in the varden book and then I have not been able to find it either. I will post here when I find it. It is part of a larger poem about meditation on the suffering of the cross. Originally erroneously attributed to somebody else but I will look up again and find the author that varden favors. It really is worth finding. I will stay on the trail.
Okay, thank you!
Salve Mundi Salutare is the poem.
Loved this essay! Thank you.
A thoughtful essay. I became a little sidetracked studying the fragment of the scene of Christ and Peter walking on water. The figure on the left to me is in the process of sinking as the one on the right is standing on the water and is placed higher. So to me I see Peter but the visage of Christ is lost to time.
Surely the decapitated figure is Jesus; the other one is sinking...
Anyway, thanks for the reminder about not worshiping beauty.