Worth Repeating: The Church Needs Art

Saw this on Facebook this week and my heart hurt a little, missing YET ANOTHER dear friend swallowed up by the lures of that dratted Franklin, Tennessee. But this made me think of her, and Cory, and Amanda, and Elaine and Caleb, and Ken, and Michele, and so many others who glorify God with their art, their music and their voice.

‎The Church needs artists because without art we cannot reach the world. The simple fact is that the imagination ‘gets you,’ even when your reason is completely against the idea of God. ‘Imagination communicates,’ as Arthur Danto says, ‘indefinable but inescapable truth.’ Those who read a book or listen to music expose themselves to that inescapable truth. There is a sort of schizophrenia that occurs if you are listening to Bach and you hear the glory of God and yet your mind says there is no God and there is no meaning. You are committed to believing nothing means anything and yet the music comes in and takes you over with your imagination. When you listen to great music, you can’t believe life is meaningless. Your heart knows what your mind is denying. We need Christian artists because we are never going to reach the world without great Christian art to go with great Christian talk.

– Tim Keller

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