A Crisis of Christian Aesthetics

What is beautiful?

It may seem to you like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a timeless proverb that your great-great-great-great-great-grandparents quoted to one another, but that quote is actually only about 150 years old. Is there truly no objective, substantive reality behind the word "beauty"? Is it all nothing more than opinion? Are all beholders equally situated? Is God a "beholder"? Have we any obligation to try to behold beauty as God does?

A much older proverb says "There's no disputing taste" (literally, from an ancient Latin proverb, "Of tastes and color there is no disputing"). This proverb, without reaching so far as to deny objective truth in beauty and taste, simply suggests that no one can have a profitable argument about beauty. How can you go about PROVING that one thing is beautiful while another thing is not? Such conversations sometimes cannot push back beyond the phenomenon of personal experience (some of you Neanderthals find the taste of a cold glass of whole milk to be an unpleasant sensation), but does that mean we cannot ground the concept of beauty in some shared universal affirmations? At the very least, can Christians identify some universal ideas that we ought to adopt and promote that would move society in the direction of being able to dispute profitably about beauty?

We quote both of these proverbs despite that fact that we don't believe them. None of us believe them. If we believed those proverbs even a little bit, we wouldn't have "Rotten Tomatoes" or Siskel and Ebert. If we believed it, Instagram would die. If we believed it, no one would ever use Photoshop. If we believed it, we would get off one another's backs about "Comic Sans."

At a familiy wedding years ago (identities withheld more for MY protection than for the protection of anyone else), the bride brought in a hairdresser and gave him a free rein to beautify the various members of the bride's party. Looking at one lady's hair, he exclaimed, "I think I can put it up." After employing enough hairpins to reconstruct the Eiffel Tower, he admired his masterpiece: A sort of semi-beehive that was unlike any way the recipient had ever worn her hair.

When the bridal party emerged, everyone noticed the hairdo. The bride, trying to make the best of the situation, said, "I think I kind of like it."

Her aunt immediately, emphatically, unthinkingly interjected, "YOU CAN'T!!!"

And there we all are. Our disingenuous proverbializing notwithstanding, we instinctively know that some things cannot be considered beautiful while some other things cannot be considered ugly.

I think we can find frameworks for declaring things to be beautiful or ugly. I think we can do so precisely by prioritizing God as the Prime Beholder. Indeed, I think we face a number of crises in American society that can only be resolved by doing precisely this work of Christian Aesthetics.

Enter Chip & Joanna Gaines.

The two have launched a new TV show, "Back to the Frontier," that has resulted in public conflict between the founders of the "Fixer Upper" empire and much of the Christian part of their fan base. In the show, among other families who have committed to living a "reality" show experience of pre-industrial frontier conditions, the Gaineses are putting on TV two "married" men who are raising children.

Now, the Gaineses are, first and foremost, aesthetes. They have built an empire, starting with their original TV show "Fixer Upper," teaching us to do two things that we all really need to do. With dilapidated houses as their canvas and shiplap as their brush, they have taught us (a) to see beauty where other people can't see it and (b) to work to enencumber, enhance, and draw attention to the beauty that we see in something. This is noble work. It is NEEDED work. The Gaineses have done it very well.

Aesthetics is the stock-in-trade of the Magnolia empire, and it goes far beyond remodeled houses. The most lucrative beauty that the Gaineses cultivate is television programming. At one level, this is about backsplash tile and custom-made furniture incorporating heirloom elements. At a higher level, it is about watching people settle into a comforting space that bears witness to both the history of the structure and the personality of the inhabitants. It is itself beautiful to watch people be nourished by beautiful things.

So, if the Gaineses deliberately chose to feature in their TV program a couple of men pursuing a lifestyle of male homosexuality, they did so because they think it adds beauty to their program.

It is at this point that I part company with what I think is David French's poor analysis of the situation. French is a lawyer, and it is perhaps an occupational liability to tend to see things in terms of rights "cancelled" or free-speech curtailed. But there is no right to be on a TV show. We all know the limitations of the "reality" in "reality TV." These are curated offerings, and we want it that way. This is a conflict not over what is legal but over what is beautiful. Fans accustomed to being able to trust the Gaineses' taste are reacting to a sour bite.

Chip Gaines's online response was more relevant than David French's. On his Twitter account, Gaines tweeted,

Talk, ask qustns, listen.. maybe even learn. Too much to ask of modern American Christian culture. Judge 1st, understand later/never

It’s a sad sunday when “non believers” have never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they are introduced to a modern American Christian

There is an undeniable ethical assertion in Gaines's tweet. He is accusing his accusers of being judgmental. He is accusing them of hurling accusations before gathering all of the information ("ask [questions], listen…maybe even learn").

The Good Lord knows that his children are guilty of that plenty of the time. I don't know what additional information was forthcoming or is still pending, but I am sympathetic to calls for us to take our time and listen before responding.

(Indeed, my post comes long after almost everyone else's post on this topic precisely because I have decided to try to specialize in having the coldest takes on the Internet. There is often much to be gained by just waiting until more information comes out. In this case, I haven't seen any additional important information, but I did wait and listen.)

But alongside the ethical content of Gaines's tweet, there is an unmistakeable aesthetic element that emerges starting with "It's a sad [sic] sunday."

Gaines is making the case that it is an unpleasant, ugly, unseemly experience to encounter, on the Lord's Day, "hate or vitriol" coming uniquely from "modern American Christian[s]." And maybe in that sentence we see some insight into the true nature of the conflict. Maybe Chip & Joanna Gaines find it beautiful that a couple of Evangelical Christians who (I'm presuming, here) find homosexuality and same-sex marriage to lie outside the Christian sexual ethic are nevertheless people who would, in spite of their different ethical perspectives, welcome Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs onto their Reality TV show. That—this sense of boundary-crossing inclusion in spite of differences—is perhaps the beauty that they are trying to portray on their TV show. True to their brand, perhaps they are prioritizing the effort to see the imago Dei in what they truly believe is a "dilapidated" lifestyle as a part of their efforts to "fix up" broken people they encounter in life.

And, I've got to tell you, if that's what they are trying to do, they have certainly identified some of the ways that modern American Christianity has indeed fallen far away from what is beautiful. Things like anti-semitism genuinely are gaining ground in some quarters of Evangelical Christianity. Modern American Christians DO need to improve our skills at (to employ a biblical metaphor) seeing Ninevites as human beings God finds worthy of saving.

The effort falls short, in my opinion, because of Philippians 4:8.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

If, as I suggested at the beginning of this little essay, there is any universal foundation from which we can construct a definitive Christian approach to aesthetics, this sentence from the Apostle Paul's hand in his letter to the church at Philippi must play a major role in it. Loveliness cannot be separated from truth, honor, justness, or purity. It is not unloving to commend only the commendable things. It is not unloving to withold praise from the unpraiseworthy things.

To the degree that any Christian engages in a career of aesthetics, it must—there is no room for negotiation here—it must be a career devoted to directing people's attention to the items listed in Philippians 4:8. There lies beauty, truly recognized.

Drag shows cannot be beautiful. Nothing can be done to make them beautiful. Gay marriage cannot be beautiful. Nothing can be done to make it beautiful. The human beings involved are beautiful in other ways, but this is a beauty that they have in spite of these non-beautiful things in which they engage.

Why can't a drag show be beautiful? Because it is not true (the truth is that these are men, not women). It is not honorable. It is not pure. For all of these reasons, it is not commendable. The same is true for the Obergefell ruling. The same is true for the marriage of two men or two women. Frankly, the same is true of a man and a woman having sex with one another outside of marriage.

I don't go house-to-house in Farmersville, TX, telling people how ugly their sex lives are. In fact, to tell you the truth, I spend almost zero time thinking about anyone else's sex life. We are finite creatures with limited time, attention, and resources. We must prioritize. And yet, my visceral negative reaction to the prospect of seeing Jason and Joe on "Back to the Frontier" need not be hatred or vitriol. To be sure, hatred and vitriol abound online and elsewhere, and I'll concede that the Gaineses have encountered exactly that in some of the responses to this news. But we can have powerful, deeply negative reactions that arise not out of hatred but out of good aesthetics.

An example might be helpful here.

I think that graffiti can be beautiful. There is no denying that some graffiti artists are gifted with incredible artistic skills.

I nonetheless would object strenuously if even the most skilled "street artist" undertook to graffiti over the Mona Lisa. Art that might otherwise be beautiful in and of itself ceases to be beautiful when it defaces other beauty. The impulse to protect beauty is neither a temptation nor a vice. And so, apart from "hate or vitriol," the very enterprise of seeing in every human being the beautiful touch of God's creative hand can prompt in us powerful disgust when we see God's masterpiece being defaced. This is why parents often are the last to appreciate their children's tattoos—they thought their children were perfectly beautiful without tattoos.

Let's draw together two ideas I have asserted here, put a fine point on them, and move toward a conclusion, shall we?

1. Beauty is an objective reality that can be asserted in debate over and against ugliness.
2. The earnest effort by any Christian to see beauty in every human being can be the cause of our visceral reactions against the "defacing" of that beauty.

There are some purported works of art that simply cannot be redeemed. There is no upside to Robert Mappelthorpe's "Piss Christ." This is, in a way, like the hurtful comments at the funeral ensuing from a tragic death making it "all part of God's plan." Tragic deaths, actually, are the fruition of Satan's plan. God's plan is at work redeeming us from that. "Piss Christ" is not in any way whatsoever beautiful, and it cannot be redeemed. Even in the "at least artists have the freedom to express…" sort of approach, there is no solution. Artistic freedom, to the degree that it is beautiful and for the reasons that it is beautiful, is beautiful in spite of "Piss Christ," and not in any way whatsoever because of "Piss Christ."

I will pull back the curtain a little to my own sense of aesthetics. I am, in the realm of aesthetics, drawn toward naturalism, I think by the inexorable pull of Genesis 1:31 and God's decree that the natural world is "very good." I like Bob Ross and Norman Rockwell, and I'm not embarrassed about that one bit. Bob Ross saw the beauty in a simple panoramic view of the earth. Norman Rockwell saw the beauty in the common interactions of a community of human beings. Not only did they see the beauty, but they also dared to show it to the rest of us. I like Michaelangelo and DaVinci.

I prefer Philippians 4:8 sorts of art. I am composing this little essay from a hotel room in Vienna. I don't mind telling you, I've little use for Klimt. Edvard Munch doesn't interest me. I'm not a nihilist. I don't think anger is beautiful; I think love is beautiful. I don't think anxiety and doubt are beautiful; I think hope and faith are beautiful.

You know what: From what I can tell from a distance, I think my aesthetic hews pretty doggone closely to the aesthetic favored by Chip & Joanna Gaines.

Gay marriage is unethical because it exists contrary to God's repeated comamnds. But in addition to that, I think it isn't beautiful because it is contrary to God's good design in nature and violates the aesthetic of Phillippians 4:8 in the ways I have outlined above. If the Gaineses have chosen to feature gay marriage as one element to make a TV show beautiful, then they have made a mistake, I believe—their own Hildi-putting-straw-on-a-wall moment, but of much more significant cultural impact. Inserting an unnatural family into "Back to the Frontier" makes this TV show less beautiful.

Such conversations as these always take place either in concert with the zeitgeist or in opposition to it. Society imposes tremendous pressure sometimes to try to get us to conform to its aesthetic sensibilities. Marxists worked hard to pretend that the "New Brutalism" produced aesthetically acceptable structures and to force everyone else to agree. Defending beauty sometimes means disagreeing with an angry crowd.

But it can be worth it to separate oneself from the herd, because aesthetic conversations also always take place either in concert with God's aesthetic senisbilities or in opposition to him. Just as all Christians are theologians whether we want to be theologians or not, we are also all artists. We get to choose whether we are good artists or bad artists. We get to choose whether we highlight beauty or feature ugliness. We get to choose whether ours is art in rebellion or art as celebration. But make no mistake, we are all painting something.

If I knew Chip & Joanna Gaines, that's what I would say to them. You can't paint a good painting by asking for feedback on every stroke of the brush, so I understand the need to be able to shrug off some criticism. But you also can't paint a good painting without a clear understanding of what you want that finished work to look like. Philippians 4:8 gives us that guidance. The Gaineses are gifted by God in terms of appreciating and creating beauty. I pray that they won't lose sight of the bigger vision. I'm rooting for them to make it count in all the right ways.

Postlude

I have read Matt Capps's recent work on Christian aesthetics, Drawn by Beauty. I commend it to you for your reading pleasure and edification.

Some of you may recall that I preached at the SBC Annual Meeting in New Orleans back in 2023 from Philippians 4 about aesthetics. You can watch it here (link to video).

This subject keeps coming up for me. I'm thinking about producing a podcast mini-series on the subject of Christian aesthetics, talking about everything from church architecture to art appreciation. I may even see if I can host Clint Pressley on the podcast for a conversation about what to wear while preaching.

I haven't firmly committed to doing this, but I'm mulling it over. As Rich Mullins wrote, there really is "so much beauty around us." I hope that we will do all that we can to put it on display and give glory to God.

The Need for the ERLC

In advance of our 2025 Annual Meeting in Dallas, the Southern Baptist rumor mill says to expect a motion to defund the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the SBC. This rumor is all the more believable since similar motions have been made repeatedly in the recent history of the Convention.

The question before the Convention in these previous motions, all of which have failed, is not a question of any one policy, or even of the overall direction of the ERLC. The question is whether we should have an ERLC at all.

I unapologetically believe that the work of our mission boards is and should be prioritized over our other common endeavors. I would go further to say that theological education is more necessary to the health of our churches than is the work of the ERLC. I will not argue that the ERLC is our most important entity.

I can safely say this, though: We need the ERLC more than we ever have needed it.

It is difficult to pin down a date when the ERLC was started. To do so, you have to choose which successor groups count as a beginning of the ERLC. But whichever of the possible dates you may choose, we can observe two things to be true.

First, the ERLC was established at a time when not one person in the United States of America had any trouble answering the question, "What is a woman?" or "What is a man?" Not a single state in the United States of America would grant a no-fault divorce. This was an America in which someone like Wilbur Mills, the powerful chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, could lose his political career just because he was seen in the company of a stripper. Abortion was illegal coast-to-coast. People were justified in trusting that their children could go to VBS and not be molested by a volunteer or a pastor.

In that environment, Southern Baptists concluded that we needed a Southern Baptist entity advocating for ethics.

In contrast, look at the moral chaos around us today. And before someone accuses me of "trying to bring back the 1950s" and chastises me for hearkening back to a decade filled with racism, let me say that I'm not having any of it. Our discourse is chock full of racism and antisemitism right now, only without stable two-parent homes, without dignity in civic life, and without sexual morality. I cannot fathom how anyone could conclude that we have less need for a Southern Baptist entity advocating for ethics than we had when the ERLC was founded.

Second, the ERLC was established at a time when Americans were overwhelmingly convinced about the rightfulness and importance of religious liberty. E. Y. Mullins, writing about the "Axioms of Religion," treated religious liberty as a foregone conclusion, barely articulating even a modicum of a rationale for it, naively concluding that no such defense was needed in an America in which everyone had conceded the truth and necessity of religious liberty (you'll find a better effort put forth by Roger Williams). The American ideal set itself up in opposition, at first against the state churches of Europe, and later against the state atheism of global communism. To be an American was to believe in strong, free churches operating within a strong, free state.

In that environment, Southern Baptists concluded that we needed a Southern Baptist entity advocating for religious liberty.

In contrast, the state of affairs today is far more bleak. States like Colorado and Washington persist, even in the face of adverse Supreme Court rulings, in their demonic persecution of Christians in their philosophical effort to subjugate Christianity to the competing infertlility religion exemplified by SOGI laws. Oregon v Smith is still the law of the land, and although the judicial branch gives every evidence of being robustly committed to RFRA and RLUIPA, these are mere congressional statutes, and not constitutional amendments—highly vulnerable to any Democratic majority in Congress. Or will it even require a Democratic majority? After all, we live in a time when the Republican President of the United States is fighting in the courts to protect abortion-by-medication. One congressional vote to repeal RFRA and RLUIPA and the whole framework of American religious liberty could be in grave peril.

And this is not the only threat. We live at a time when people pretending to be Baptists…even pretending to be Southern Baptists…openly declare their interest in the establishment of state Christianity and repudiate Article XVII of The Baptist Faith & Message. If we could go back to the days when the ERLC was founded and predict that this state of affairs would come to be in 2025, they would have laughed us out of the meeting hall.

Less need today for an entity advocating for religious liberty? How could anyone even start to make that case?

And so, it seems to me that the only way to argue that we do not need the ERLC today is to argue that it was a fool's errand to begin with. If we take that position, it will put us at odds with not only our spiritual great-grandparents and our spiritual grandparents, but also with our spiritual parents. During the Conservative Resurgence, the generation ahead of us worked so hard to wrest the ERLC out of the hands of leadership that was advocating for abortion on demand and was inviting pornographers to speak at ethics conferences. They did that because they saw needs that their forebears had identified long ago. Those needs are even greater now. That's why I will not support any efforts to mothball the ERLC.