Christian Faculty and Staff Fellowship meets April 24

What a great semester it's been. We won't meet on 4/24, so 4/20 was the last meeting. Turns out I have to be out on sick leave. I hope you have a great summer and look forward to reconnecting in the fall. 

It's also time to think about a book for next term. 

I created an interest survey of books to consider for next term. Don't worry. There are only 5 books on the list plus one wild card, and I pasted the abstract for each book for your reference.  If you choose the wild card, I'll use my despotic powers and select the book for the term. Otherwise, we'll go with the book ranked most highly by everyone. 

Meanwhile, in light of the fire at Notre Dame and the subsequent discussion of restoration, I found some reflective statements on why it's important to create beautiful things for God's glory, an idea relevant to the book we studied this term. These are extracts from Art for God's Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts by Philip Graham Ryken:

• The kind of art that glorifies God is good, true, and, finally, beautiful. Today it sometimes seems as though the art world is struggling to overcome an aesthetic of ugliness. Beauty used to be one of the artist's highest priorities; now for many artists it is among the lowest priorities, if it is even a criterion for artwork at all. But God is a great lover of beauty, as we can see from the collection of his work that hangs in the gallery of the universe. Form is as important to him as function. Thus it was not enough for the tabernacle to be laid out in the right way; it also had to be beautiful. There was beauty in the color of its fabrics, the sparkle of its gems, the shape of its objects, and the symmetry of its proportions. The tabernacle was a thing of beauty. God made sure of this by taking the unprecedented step of endowing its artists with the gift of his Spirit. All of this tells us something about what kind of artist God is: an artist who loves beauty.
• Art for God's sake—this is what the tabernacle was all about [Exodus 31:1-11]. Every detail in that sacred building was for the praise of God's glory. The altar and the atonement cover (also known as the mercy seat) testified to his grace. The table of the showbread proclaimed his providence. The lampstand spread his light. But even the things that were not symbolic were for God. This is why the tabernacle was made so carefully, with such fine materials and elaborate decorations: it was all for the glory of God.
• The same should be true of everything that we create: it should all be for God's glory In one sense, this is inherently true of all good art, whether or not it happens to be produced by people who actually intend to glorify God. The doctrine of creation teaches that by God's common grace, the gift of art inevitably declares the praise of its Giver. Thus non-Christian as well as Christian artists can represent virtue, beauty, and truth. It is important to remember, as Nigel Goodwin has said, that "God in His wisdom did not give all His gifts to Christians." But even if God may be glorified by art that is not explicitly offered in his honor, he is most truly praised when his glory is the aim of our art.
• Thus the art of a Christian ought to be consistent with a life of faith in Christ. This is not always the case, of course, because artists struggle with their fallen nature as much as anyone else. Nevertheless, as Francis Schaeffer wrote, "Christian art is the expression of the whole life of the whole person who is a Christian. What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life." Johann Sebastian Bach is famous for signing his works with the letters "sDg," standing for the Latin phrase soli Deo gloria - "to God alone be the glory." This was a pious act that indicated the composer's sincere desire to present his art as an offering to God. The important thing, however, was not so much the letters that Bach added to his score, but the music itself, which in its ordered beauty was a testimony to his faith in God. In the same way, every artist whose talents are under the lordship of Jesus Christ will produce art for God's sake.