Redeeming Art

Excerpt from Artists Build the Church

So in January 2009, Youngren, his wife, and three children moved from the Pacific Northwest to Chicago to plant The Line. One of Youngren’s hopes was that The Line could ask and then affirmatively answer the question: “Can the art that is present in the world be redeemed and be a part of the church?” By “redeemed,” Youngren doesn’t just mean hung up on the wall, but fundamentally changed from the core so that, as he said, “everyone can respect it and see it right alongside the rest of art and know that it’s different.”

Many churches in Youngren’s past had been aware enough to ask this question, but answered it negatively, believing refined art is not appropriate for a church setting. “In other words,” Youngren said, “We can turn the amps up, we can make it sound more modern, but when it comes to things like abstraction, impression, and subtlety, we think they are best left outside the corporate church setting.”

The poet Luci Shaw has also noticed this trend, and in her essay “Beauty and the Creative Impulse,” she expresses her concern:

The church has given considerable attention to Truth and Goodness, to theology and ethics. But too often beauty has escaped us, or we have tried to escape from it. This is partly because of its innovative, experimental aspect, its way of reaching for originality or a new way of expressing an old standard. In many Christian circles this is felt to be dangerous; the pursuit of beauty is seen merely as an option, and a seductive one at that, because beauty can be neither controlled nor programmed.

Despite many churches’ fear of artistic impression in a corporate context, impression is often how God works. At The Line, they look to Abraham for their theology of impression. When God called Abraham and first told him he was going to make him into a great nation, he didn’t sit him down and say, “Here are my promises 1-5, sign here.” Rather, God said, “Abraham, come outside. Look up.” Abraham gazed into the luminous Middle Eastern sky. As he was contemplating the stars, God continued, “See how amazing that is? That’s what I’m going to do with you.” God started with impression and then moved to propositions. He directed Abraham’s attention to his handiwork, and then asked him to imagine the impossible.