Frederica Mathewes-Green has a blog post up on that subject titled “A Golden Bell and a Pomegranate: Beauty and Apologetics,” which I think deserves careful reading and reflection. A lot of it is on the specific importance of beauty in worship; she has a distinct Orthodox slant to this, which is only to be expected, but I think her basic point is right.
In worship, it’s about God, and all signs must point in His direction. An atmosphere of beauty teaches wordlessly about the nature of God. It teaches that He is not just a concept to be endlessly discussed; that at some point our capacity to grasp him intellectually fails, and we fall before him in worship. Beyond all we know and cannot know about God, he reigns in beauty. Beauty opens our hearts, and stirs us to hunger for more, to hunger for the piercing sweetness of the presence of God.
As she notes, however, this applies beyond just Christians to the ability of non-Christian visitors to perceive the reality of our worship, and thus to be drawn by it; as such, she argues (rightly, I think) that beauty is actually important in evangelism as well:
What does it take to be a missionary? You need to know your stuff, and you need to have a tender heart toward the people you are trying to reach. But there is one more thing that Orthodox Christianity would contribute to the ministry of evangelism: beauty.
Again, I don’t think this is purely an Orthodox contribution; I’ll grant, though, that they’ve continued to make beauty, according to their particular approach, a priority where too much of the Western church no longer does. As such, I do think those of us in Protestant churches, especially, could stand to learn from Orthodoxy in this respect. After all, the poet had a point when he wrote,“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”—John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”If we don’t show forth the beauty of God, we aren’t being faithful to his truth.
This is one area that I think the church I currently attend falls short in. In terms of visual beauty, it’s a pretty utilitarian worship space. Not bare, or bad-looking, but pretty much devoid of anything whose purpose is simply to be looked at, except for the candles they use sometimes. And the music… well, I happen to like classical music, and pre-19th century hymns. I don’t like most modern music, so it’s hard to say how this music fits in terms of quality. But it’s the volume that bothers me. Beautiful music has quiet sections, and rests – and not just in between songs. Just like visual beauty includes space that isn’t all filled with people and things.
But they do have excellent drama sketches (not as a regular thing, but when they have them they’re great).
That’s a pretty common approach among Protestants these days, and probably the more common the farther you move away from Catholicism on the spectrum. I think the sonic problem, the volume of the music, is probably the worst.