True, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable

This is the second interesting article in the last month to come out of a web journal called The Other Journal. The teaser below is from an article in their Aesthetics issue, written by Daniel Siedell and titled Altars to Unknown Gods: A Christian approach to contemporary art.

Dostoyevsky once said that beauty would save the world. Most Christian writing on the visual arts, however, is a betrayal of the depth and profundity of the Christian tradition that Dostoyevsky represents. It reflects the negativity and superficiality of contemporary cultural discourse rather than the living tradition of the church as Christ’s presence in the world.

Saint Paul tells us to embrace “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable [. . . .]” (Phil. 4: 8). We are called to embrace, not merely to reject in the name of Christ. Too often Christian writing on contemporary art is a litany of rejections and, at times, even appears to take pleasure in drawing our attention to those characteristics and qualities that contradict Saint Paul.

It’s a very good article (only three pages long), in my opinion, that puts into clear language thoughts I’ve had in the past ten years but may not have been able to articulate. Read it in its entirety via the link above. I plan to reread it a few times in order to thoroughly digest his words.