A simple straightforward book only about sixty pages long, it is a call to the church to recover the arts for God’s sake. The reasoning central to the book is that man is made in God’s image and part of that image is that God Himself is THE artist in all His creation work. Ugliness, the opposite of beauty is the dreadful result of sin, Jesus the beautiful Savior became the ugly one at Calvary and bore away the sin of the world and therefore the arts can be thoroughly redeemed. This is my way of expressing what the book is about. I always am uplifted when people, in their reasoning and argumentation begin with God Himself. I suppose that a book published by the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing House is more likely to express this view. That the evangelical churches have had a rather ambivalent view towards the arts is obvious to all. Usually the fear art closes the ranks against various forms of artistic expression and then others react in the opposite direction resulting in all sorts of kitsch appearing in Christian music and the Christian bookstores seem to reinforce the inferiority of what passes for ‘Christian’ art.
There are sound Biblical reasons why the arts should be fields of gracious activity for those in the church whose gifts are pronounced in the artistic direction. Foundational to the argument of the book is the record of the fashioning and building of the tabernacle, an exercise commanded by God and accomplished under the leadership and with the skills of Bezaleel and Aholiab. It is deeply instructive to realize that the first time it is recorded in the Bible of anyone being ‘filled with the Spirit’ concerns these two men and thus they were enabled to engage in this most holy of work. This is a powerful thought. This is a short introduction to the subject of how Christians should view the arts and is meant to encourage us all to think Christianly about them and to buttress Christian artists in the pursuit of the glory of God in their particular gifting. From the story of the building of the tabernacle four principles are discernible, first, the artists gift and call comes from God, second, God loves all forms of art, thirdly God maintains high standards for goodness, truth and beauty and finally, art is for the glory of God. This is an excellent little book.
