by Michael A. Van Horn

“One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the Lord’s house, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord. I long to see the face of God. …I believe I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” ~ Psalm 27:4, 14

In a recent seminary class on worship, we had finished viewing slides of a recently renovated church sanctuary. This was a contemporary space which I thought offered a fitting example of theologically intentional worship space – a thoughtful balance of historic Christian imagery rendered in fresh form. When the lights came up, one student asked with genuine concern, “What does all this have to do with Jesus?” Another tentatively wondered whether money spent on glass and stone and steel couldn’t be more suitably used to alleviate poverty or respond to human suffering. The concern of these students is understandable – particularly for those raised within pietistic renewal movements within Protestantism, where historic concerns about idolatry abound. And so, let us ask: How can Christians justify spending resources on aesthetics for worship when there is so much social need and injustice present in our world?

This quandary is at least as old as the question of Judas in John chapter 12, when the woman lavishly anoints Jesus with the costly perfume from the alabaster jar: “Couldn’t this money be better spent on the poor?” Jesus’ reply is neither flippant nor dismissive (though many preach it as if it is): the poor cannot be forgotten, they must always be the concern of God’s people. And yet, Jesus implies, the Church’s enduring mission of good news for the poor is not at variance with beautiful (even extravagant?) expressions of devotion to the Lord. In this essay, I would like to reflect on the specific relationship of liturgical aesthetics to justice as a microcosm of the larger concern of how worship itself relates to the pursuit of God’s shalom in the world. It seems that if we can answer this narrow question of aesthetics and justice, we might find theological resources for the broader question.

Marva Dawn has famously referred to worship as a “royal waste of time.” Dawn speaks to the common tendency to see worship as valid only insofar as it is useful for some other end–such as evangelism or social action or personal enrichment. In contrast, Dawn suggests that there is something inherently valuable in the act of worship itself–not because we are doing something, but precisely because we do nothing. Worship invites us to pause before God to consider His works, to delight in Him alone, all while we ourselves do nothing that would be considered “useful” by our standards of efficiency. Sabbath rest is God’s corrective to our idolatry of self, a call to see our illusions of usefulness, self-sufficiency and personal importance for what they are, in the face of Kingdom values. As such, believers are called to a different center of life – into the Divine dance (perichoresis) of the Triune God. The liturgy of the Church is not valid because it is “useful” for some other utilitarian end. The act of worship is inherently valid because human beings have been created as worshipping creatures (homo adorans) and our Creator is worthy of our praise. As Eugene Peterson puts it, such worship “unselfs” us.

It is no wonder, then – if our culture of utility balks at the sheer inefficiency of devotion before God – that spending resources on worship art or architecture would also be considered a waste of resources. Stained glass windows won’t feed the hungry; pillars and arches do not convert the lost. This raises two questions for me: First of all, must they? Is the only way to justify an act of worship (or worship art) to require that it lead to validation of some action other than the simple praise of our Creator and Redeemer? Second, if worship itself is inherently valid and does not require utilitarian justification, does this necessarily mean that beauty in worship and acts of justice are hermetically sealed categories with no relationship to one another?

Perhaps whenever we pose questions in such stark either/or terms (either justice or aesthetics) we betray, however unintentionally, an unhealthy dualism in our thinking. The problem with dualism (aside from being rooted in Greek philosophical assumptions rather than the more holistic vision of Scripture) is that if we remain consistent with these metaphysical assumptions, we will be forced to ask other questions as well. For example, if we accept that there is a fundamental conflict between spending money on worship space and caring for the poor (or more broadly between the worship of the church and the mission of the church) we must also consider whether any money spent on an elaborate AV system could really be better spent on missionary work, or whether time spent at praise band practice detracts from time at the soup kitchen, or whether energy used by the pastor searching for an interesting sermon illustration or video clip is lost time for actual Bible study. There will be no end to these dichotomies, and they will cut across all worship styles (dualism won’t stop at chastening high church traditionalists with stained glass windows, it will also censure trendy contemporary churches with enough technology to launch the space shuttle!). Dualism is no respecter of worship styles, and it will not be satisfied until we are all thoroughgoing ascetics and over-scrupulous gnostics.

On the other hand, if we can purge from ourselves the vestiges of Gnosticism, we may recover a more holistic biblical vision: one in which all of creational life is lived out before God. For instance, fuller recovery of the doctrine of Creation may help us appreciate how aesthetic beauty in worship (be it musical, architectural, visual, or technological) might not only not stand in conflict with the mission of the Church, but be integral to it. How can we as Christians read the Genesis creation stories without being struck by the premeditated beauty, symmetry, and even extravagant wastefulness within the design of the world: a garden brimming with what many would deem inefficient multiplicity in aesthetic beauty (“both pleasing to the eye and good for food”); abundant rivers with shorelines littered with gold and precious stones; the glorious heavens filled with a sparkling array of stars and planets; the verdant earth populated with all things crawling, burrowing, swimming, climbing, walking and soaring.

As the Scriptural narrative unfolds, we find this magnificent creational beauty reiterated in the craftsmanship and art of both tabernacle and temple, not to mention in the glorious apocalyptic visions of heavenly worship and the sensual splendors of the new creation. A message is being sent to the faithful reader: something of the beauty of our Creator is unveiled in the beauty of Divine worship. Human beings were created in such a way that truth–including religious truth–comes to us mediated through all the senses. Even a Puritan like John Bunyan, who communicated the faith powerfully by means of colorful mental images, could suggest that God created the senses (among them the “eyegate” and “eargate”) as a means of spiritual access into the “city of Mansoul.” While evangelicals have made much of the dangers of negative spiritual forces gaining access into the human heart via the senses, Scripture would warrant a fuller appreciation of how these created senses also serve to draw humans into the glory of their Maker. It is helpful to be reminded that before Eve is tempted by the fruit which is “a delight to the eye and good for food” (Genesis 3:6) these same aesthetic attributes are noted first in Genesis as a positive quality of original creation (2:9). So, rather than promote a dualist disparagement of aesthetic beauty and physical pleasure, the creation narrative implies that beauty and pleasure are part of the original goodness of God’s world (which, admittedly, can be misused and distorted for evil).

Our concerns about idolatry are valid. And yet, creation teaches us that the root of idolatry is not in the physical object. John Calvin, for all his aesthetic moderation, still admitted that it is our hearts that are the true “idol factories.” Idolatry begins within the human heart, not in the stuff of God’s good creation. Idolatry occurs when God’s good creation is taken hostage by our distorted schemes of personal deification. The biblical doctrine of creation should steer us away – not from the beauty and goodness of the physical world – but from the twin heresies of idolatrous worship of creation and a gnostic denigration of it. Instead, in Scripture we are invited into thankful and redemptive participation in creation as the means of our devotion to God. Since God’s blessing of humanity includes both the creation and renewal of the physical world, we must conclude that any form of worship that denigrates what God has made and is now redeeming cannot be properly Christian worship.

Yet what remains is the question of how artistic beauty in worship relates to the mission of the Church in the world. Does liturgical aesthetics have anything to do with justice? I would like to make the case that such an aesthetic is not only not inconsistent with justice, but that it might be connected in surprising ways. Theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar has argued that aesthetics might indeed be a significant dimension of the Church’s apologetic. The beauty of God enfleshed, the attractive symmetry of the Gospel message – these truths beg for artful expression. The aesthetics of worship provide a faithful way to embody God’s vision for His creation. This might be especially so in our culture of sight and sound. If the Church is an incarnation and foretaste of God’s coming kingdom, then failure to speak to the sensory embodiment of that kingdom may indeed enfeeble our proclamation.

In an incarnational appreciation of the Gospel, the Church is called out to “do the world God’s way.” As such, this calling would include the fullness of our humanity as creatures who are made in God’s image. Art and architecture are among the important aspects of our human experience, and likewise could be an important dimension of our living as signs of God’s coming in the world. Of course, all art done by Christians does not need to be “religious” in character to accomplish this mission, since in a world created by God there is no room for “secular” vs. “religious” distinctions. Art should reflect a world viewed through the distinctive lens of the biblical narrative (creation/rebellion/redemption/new creation). In worship we are giving formative expression to this vision of reality revealed in the biblical story. To unpack that vision for the whole person (including the senses and imagination, and not merely the mind or emotions) might begin to speak to how we ought to live (and not only think or feel) Christianly in the world. Perhaps our failure to take this embodiment in worship seriously is a contributing factor to our hesitation to embody justice and peace in the world. Embodied worship might offer a corrective to the evangelical sins of immoderate introspection and spiritual narcissism by calling us out of ourselves into a broader, incarnational spiritual narrative.

Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff is careful to note that the Christian distinction from others in matters of justice is not merely due to a different interior motivation, a unique kind of “inwardness.” Instead, he argues, it is the unique vision of worship and work – a rhythmic alternation between liturgy and labor – that shapes the Christian vision of being and acting in the world. In contrast to a modern utilitarian vision of worship, which assesses the value of liturgy in terms of what we get out of it as individual churchgoers, Wolterstorff proposes another option. Citing Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, Wolterstorff makes the case that worship is not escape from the world, but is authentication of our action within the world. In Sabbath, God endorses His creation by taking delight in His works. By calling us to Sabbath, God calls us to do the same. In the sacred (set-apart) time of worship, the ordinary is highlighted as deeply and redemptively meaningful to God, and therefore, to God’s people. In the liturgy, the character of the Christian worldview is not reduced to an interior attitude of believers, but is fleshed out for the world to see.

As Christians worship, the vision of God’s shalõm–His just and harmonious intentions for the world–are publicly enacted. As we consider the poverty and brokenness of the world, we begin to see them in light of the good news of Jesus. Wolterstorff considers the ugliness present within this world (in the contemporary city, but one could also speak of the pragmatic ugliness of suburban sprawl) as a contributing factor to the impoverishment of human hope. The quality of our human life is profoundly shaped by our surroundings. If Christians can appreciate beauty as a reflection of the nature of God and as part of our vision of hope in God, then the value of providing sensory refreshment in our worship space is underscored. God is renewing all things in Christ, and will one day restore the beauty of humans and the world in His new creation. As signs of this hope, Christians as renewed images of God are commissioned to create beauty in the world. God’s love for humans should compel Christians to create “humane space by…dignifying the mundane, ennobling of the human craft, redeeming creation” as a part of the missio Dei in the world.

This vision of worship and justice is not intended to be a justification for prideful ostentation or poor stewardship of resources. The Medieval European cathedral may be an instructive example. No doubt, some of these magnificent structures may have been grandiose expressions of selfish ambition and personal extravagance on the part of rulers or religious leaders. And yet, in many cases, the presence of such public beauty in the center of town stood as a constant reminder of hope and joy for the average peasant. Not only would the splendor of such a structure speak of eschatological delight, it also stood as a physical reminder of present justice. The cathedral was a public structure in the fullest sense of the word; its construction providing generations of work for local stonecutters, carpenters, glassmakers, etc. Likewise, for subsequent generations, rather than despise the presence of such beauty in the midst of widespread sickness and dire poverty, the cathedral may have spoken into the soul-killing joylessness of “aesthetic poverty” as well. As a public work of art dedicated to the glory of God and as an offering both from and for the community, the intentional theological aesthetic of the cathedral could stand as a sign of shalõm–of God’s redemptive wholeness–for the Medieval community.

The act of worship is properly a world-formative experience. Authentic Christian worship centers our lives in the life of the Triune God, and thereby shapes us into the people of God for the world. Worship itself does not need to be authenticated by any pragmatic outcome, because our God is inherently worthy of our praise. However, if worship shapes and authenticates our actions in the world, then a holistic, fully incarnational, unapologetically creational worship should never detract from, but should rather endorse, our pursuit of justice in God’s world. The full mission of seeking justice in the world must rightly involve working against aesthetic squalor and mediocrity. Holistic social justice will involve addressing poverty, but also the contributing causes of joylessness and despair in “aesthetic poverty.”

In the end, when Christian worship is reduced to the merely pragmatic and worship space is largely utilitarian, we stand in danger of undermining our own proclamation. Surrounded by so much ugliness in our world, the recovery of an incarnational worship aesthetic may be more than a luxury, it may be part of our unique vocation as Christians. How can we rightly declare the message of a God who creates, who dignifies the ordinary, who ennobles human creatures if we fail to embody good news in works of beauty?

Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace, “A City of Delight,” pp.124-140.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989.

Marva Dawn, A Royal Waste of Time, Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999.

Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace, Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983.