On Creating Meaningful Art

reality using experienced reason and the prerequisite rules and criteria—namely integrity, proportion, and clarity. The second thing is there must be a personal re-acquaintance made with the gospel, as well as an attempt to educate oneself in the implications the gospel makes about art. In the first place, there is a sense in which the Christian life itself is a work of art. Paul wrote to the Ephesian church that they were God’s ποίημα , God’s workmanship, his magnum opus, his masterpiece: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”48 The Greek word means to create or make something and shares a root with our word poetry. From a gospel perspective, those who are in Christ have not only been created in the image of God, even the fallen nature has been redeemed and is being redeemed, for God’s glorious purpose. This purpose is not to huddle and cuddle and speak in religious tones to one another. Neither is this purpose to wave around a proverbial ticket to heaven where the redeemed will be happy one day in the future. The purpose is to be human, and to glorify God by enjoying him now and forever in the fullness of our humanity. It is in this context that art can really be meaningful and beautiful. The gospel gives truth, goodness, and beauty a meaningful and objective center. Even taste has a moral element, as Scruton explains: “The standard of taste is fixed by the virtues of the critic, and these virtues are tried in the moral life.”49 As a Christian grows in his or her knowledge of the Creator himself, he or she will grow in taste as well as objective judgment.

In the second place, because of the gospel, there is a real sense in which the Christian life is the most viable conceptual basis for art and beauty. Gospel Christianity does not stifle, sanitize, or “prudify” art. In fact, it liberates art to be what it is supposed to be. One can say in a meaningful way that the gospel redeems art, not the way it redeems humans, for sure, but in a meaningful way, nonetheless. With the gospel as the conceptual basis for art and beauty, art can be art for art’s sake. This does not work outside of the gospel, say in the context of Oscar Wilde’s worldview; but in the gospel context, art can be simply enjoyed for no other reason than that the art is meaningful and beautiful and brings one pleasure. This is because God created mankind to create, and as a creative enterprise by those created to create, art glorifies God. Further, with the gospel as the conceptual basis for art and beauty, art can be an opportunity to express a worldview, and idea, a feeling, or a truth without it becoming propaganda. Recall, Horace who said art delights and enlightens us. This does not mean art is reduced to creating religious symbols, scenes, or tracts. That would likely be kitsch anyway. It means that because of the gospel, artists can see the world as it really is, tell stories, paint pictures, and create music that tells the truth.

Thomas Kinkade, for example, was known as “the Painter of Light.” But his art was a lie. There were not any