Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measles.
Francis SchaefferRead
A Christian should use these arts to the glory of God, not just as tracts, mind you, but as things of beauty to the praise of God. An art work can be a doxology in itself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art should be created to honor and glorify God, serving both beauty and praise.
In this quote, Francis Schaeffer emphasizes that art transcends mere religious function and should be appreciated for its inherent beauty as a form of worship. He suggests that artistic creations have the potential to express devotion and reverence towards God, functioning as 'doxologies' that lift the spirit and draw the viewer closer to the divine.
Themes
ArtBeautyGloryPraiseChristianWorship
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon discussing the importance of creativity in worship, this quote could inspire artists in the congregation.
More from Francis Schaeffer
All quotes →In two areas above all others the Christian demonstration of love and communication stands clear: in the area of the Christian couple and their children; and in the personal relationships of Christians in the church. If there is no demonstration in these two places, on the personal level, the world can conclude that orthodox Christian doctrine is nothing but dead, cold words.
Francis SchaefferRead
Christian art is the expression of the whole life of the whole person as a Christian. What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life. Art is not to be solely a vehicle for some sort of self-conscious evangelism.
Francis SchaefferRead
There are two main reasons why we may not be bringing forth the fruit we should. It may be because of ignorance, because we may never have been taught the meaning of the work of Christ for our present lives.
Francis SchaefferRead
We should not view men with a cynical eye, seeing them only as meaningless products of chance, but, on the other hand, we should not go to the opposite extreme of seeing them romantically. To do either is to fail to understand who men really are--creatures made in the image of God but fallen.
Francis SchaefferRead
You must not lose confidence in God because you lost confidence in your pastor. If our confidence in God had to depend upon our confidence in any human person, we would be on shifting sand.
Francis SchaefferRead
Similar quotes
Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence. It is an invitation to savor life and to dream of the future. That is why the beauty of created things can never fully satisfy. It stirs that hidden nostalgia for God which a lover of beauty like Saint Augustine could express in incomparable terms: 'Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you!'.
Pope John Paul IiRead
Camus says in 'The Stranger' that reason is the enemy of imagination. Sometimes you have to put reason aside and make something beautiful.
Oscar NiemeyerRead
What a creature he was! Never have I felt such a horse between my knees. His great haunches gathered under him with every stride, and he shot forward ever faster and faster, stretched like a greyhound, while the windbeat in my face and whistled past my ears.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
When the script is finished, and you're sitting around at a table read, and all the actors are reading the words that you've written, and you're hearing it out loud for the first time, that is always, every single time, no matter what, a magical process.
Shonda RhimesRead
No translation can possibly be perfect. Every production and every performance is a different path up the mountain, and nobody ever makes it all the way to the summit.
Terry TeachoutRead
My work is not about paint. It's about paint at the service of something else. It is not about gooey, chest-beating, macho '50s abstraction that allows paint to sit up on the surface as subject matter about paint.
Kehinde WileyRead