Here's the opening:
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.”
I've talked about what is in the rest of the article before, but it is nice to see the same message getting out. Check out the article here.
I don't see anything wrong with trying to make a church beautiful, but we also need to be careful about going overboard. Certainly, we'd want our place of worship to honor God. But God also calls us to be good stewards of the money and resources that He's given us. I think many people would question a church that spends tons of money beautifying the building and none on missions or giving to the poor and needy. There's an answer in the middle somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we shouldn't be spending lavishly on decor that just makes a church feel important. Still, the greater issue from the post is that the Church has given up a lot regarding beauty and artistry for practicality.
ReplyDeleteChurches used to be the pinnacle of architecture. Now they aren't the cutting edge. I'm sure there's a fine line between meeting people's needs and finding a way to glorify God in how we present ourselves. We should be able to reflect Him as creator in what we do.