"[T]his declaration focuses on a number of issues that the writers believe need to be reaffirmed in our current cultural context."

• Everyone knows Kevin Bauder


• Scott Aniol blogs at Religious Affections


• Ryan Martin is pastor of First Baptist Church, Granite Falls, MN


• Mike Riley is pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Wakefield, MI


• Jason Parker is pastor of High Country Baptist Church, Colorado Springs, CO


• David de Bruyn is pastor of The New Covenant Baptist Church Johannesburg S.A.

I downloaded the PDF of this a few weeks ago and have read through it a couple of times at different points. While I think I understand what the authors are trying to do, I am not sure that they’re successful because, frankly, I’m having a difficult time understanding the need for this. They say that:

Historically, Christians have committed themselves to perpetuating biblical Christianity by pursuing absolute truth, goodness, and beauty. These transcendent realities, which are grounded in the character of God, are expressed through his works and his Word. In every age, Christians have determined to believe God’s truth, live out God’s goodness, and love God’s beauty, preserving these transcendentals by nurturing expressions, forms, and institutions capable of carrying their weight.
More recently, many Christians have abandoned their commitment to these ideals and are therefore failing, in one respect or another, to pursue fully orbed biblical Christianity. The result is a shrunken creed, a waning piety, and a worship that has become irreverent and trivial. We object to this religious reductionism and desire to reclaim the entire heritage of Christian doctrine, obedience, and adoration. We equally object to those movements attempting to preserve traditions that are not biblical Christianity but rather a progressivism from the past. An innovation is not made less an innovation because of its antiquity. Humanly invented doctrines, objects of piety, and elements of worship will never be part of a truly Christian tradition.

The following declaration reaffirms a historic commitment to fully orbed conservative Christianity. We believe in transcendent, absolute principles of truth, goodness, and beauty; we are confident that such principles are knowable; and we are determined to align ourselves and our ministries to those principles in our pursuit of the whole counsel of God. We also pledge to conserve those institutions and forms that best reflect a recognition and respect for this transcendent order.

A couple of thoughts.

1. Historically, Christians have committed themselves to perpetuating biblical Christianity by pursuing absolute truth, goodness, and beauty. I agree with the authors until you get to ‘goodness’ and ‘beauty’, which is why I bolded that part. I do not see where Christians have perpetuated Christianity by ‘goodness’ or ‘beauty’. I think that I could be persuaded to agree with goodness - as in the works of the Spirit - but beauty, as discussed, is going to need to defined and Scripturally defended, not just made as an assertion to be proclaimed. When I hear an instrumental piece with no lyrics, it’s can be considered “christian” because it’s “beautiful”? By what standard?
   
2. Why a ‘conservative’ Christianity? I would imagine that an orthodox Christianity would be sufficient. Right away, it seems as though we need to unnecessarily split the kingdom of God into those who are ‘good Christians’ and ‘bad Christians’ who need to be…re-educated, for lack of a better term. It’s not enough to hold to the correct doctrine…Now we make practice just as critical. While that makes sense for some practices that tie in closely with doctrine (Baptism jumps immediately to mind), I’m not sure I understand why this topic should be important.
   
3. The remarks about ‘fully orbed conservative Christianity’ are interesting. Clearly, they have something in mind, but I have not been satisfied, based on what they have in the PDF (which might be why I need to read the book), that it’s actually defined. And if it isn’t defined, then I have to look at this as a house of cards. They clearly have a goal - and I might even agree with them on the goal in part - but if I can’t understand it, why it’s important or where to go in order to get there…then I think the communication fails and people are just more confused than when they started.

I know that Dr. Aniol and I have disagreed on this subject before, but I really just don’t understand why this issue should be so important and I’m trying to understand why. That’s why I’m skeptical on this project so far. I think it will be wildly successful for people that already understand (or think they understand) what the authors are writing, but for outsiders like me…there’s a fair amount of head scratching.

I haven’t closely observed how this works on the ground, but I find a lot of this emphasis worrisome, frankly.
Does beauty objectively exist? and How do we know what beauty is? are two separate questions. Not that this group would deny that, but while most of us would agree on the first, agreement on the second would not be so easily reached. And we have to respect that.

Recommend everybody do more reading on the subject.

Of course beauty objectively exists, just as truth does. God created them and expects us to recognize them for what they are and pursue them, and love what He loves and hate what He hates. Further, beauty is a reflection of God’s glory. It shows us something of His character. To the degree we do not love the beautiful and good, we continue to fall short of the glory of God. In other words, we sin.

I think the book is not likely to be all that helpful though, because for the most part, the group does not know how to talk to the people who need most what they have to say. I understand the difficulty. There are so few common denominators/shared beliefs anymore to reason from on these matters. And nobody studies history much anymore. But at the very least, a lot of patience and humility is required. (Some days I might have one or the other, but not usually enough of both… and the whole effort seems pretty hopeless to me, so I guess a whole of optimism is required as well!)

[Aaron Blumer]

Recommend everybody do more reading on the subject.

Of course beauty objectively exists, just as truth does. God created them and expects us to recognize them for what they are and pursue them, and love what He loves and hate what He hates. Further, beauty is a reflection of God’s glory. It shows us something of His character. To the degree we do not love the beautiful and good, we continue to fall short of the glory of God. In other words, we sin.

I think the book is not likely to be all that helpful though, because for the most part, the group does not know how to talk to the people who need most what they have to say. I understand the difficulty. There are so few common denominators/shared beliefs anymore to reason from on these matters. And nobody studies history much anymore. But at the very least, a lot of patience and humility is required. (Some days I might have one or the other, but not usually enough of both… and the whole effort seems pretty hopeless to me, so I guess a whole of optimism is required as well!)

This is precisely my warrant for dividing the two questions of 1) Does beauty objectively exist (we agree) and 2) How do know what is beautiful?

and 2) How do know what is beautiful?

Knowing that something is beautiful is a subjective objective. Yes, Phil. 4:8 tells us to think on things that are lovely, excellent, or full of praise. It does not, however, give me a criteria to define those things. So when the writers say:

In every age, Christians have determined to believe God’s truth, live out God’s goodness, and love God’s beauty, preserving these transcendentals by nurturing expressions, forms, and institutions capable of carrying their weight.

It’s hard to quibble with that, until you get to the part where they say that Christians should “nurture expressions, forms, and institutions” capable of these things. Those are subjective things because the Declaration does not give an objective and Scriptural criteria to define what is beautiful. Declaring that I should nurture expressions, forms, and institutions because they meet the writers’ definition of what is beautiful subtly shifts the emphasis from what is objectively beautiful to what the writers see as objectively beautiful.

Let’s be honest for a moment here. The writers have a very clear idea in their mind of what is and is not beautiful. I am sure they they would argue that rap music is not beautiful. I’m fairly sure that they would argue that modern art and cinema is not beautiful…they even say that things that appeal to the “visceral appetites” are bad. But how do they make those judgments? They won’t say, and they haven’t said when they have interacted with us on SharperIron. Instead, we get tied up in circles arguing about culture and beauty…essentially, whether they are allowed to dictate the terms of the argument or not. If you reject their definitions or presuppositions, you’re in sin. And that, ultimately, is my biggest beef with them. They can argue all day long for objective beauty, goodness, and these sorts of things, but I don’t see Biblical warrant for making disagreement with them a sin issue. If I am in sin because I disagree with them, then I need them to explain why from the Bible so I can repent and turn from it.

We believe in the perspicuity of Scripture. If so, then act like we believe it and define these things from the Bible, not from websites, articles, or books.

Yes, Phil. 4:8 tells us to think on things that are lovely, excellent, or full of praise. It does not, however, give me a criteria to define those things.

We believe in the perspicuity of Scripture. If so, then act like we believe it and define these things from the Bible, not from websites, articles, or books.

Care to reconcile your assertion with your request?

I get your point, but I don’t think it’s the same, because I’m not the one with a whole ministry based on telling people what is and is not acceptable to God, and I’m not saying that people are in sin when they do or utilize ______________. As a matter of fact, I increasingly think that using the Bible to defend or condemn a particular style of art (whether due to rhythm, lifestyle of the artist/performer, or what have you) is a waste of time. I’ve laid out principles for judging music’s value on SharperIron, but I’ve been careful to note the underlying Scriptural principles for why I do and don’t do certain things. But even that is limited in scope only to music, not performing art or visual arts (paintings).

Here’s my point, though - If the guys want to call the use of certain types of music or art sin, then they’re going to need to trace their arguments back to where we are disobedient to the Bible, and those principles have to be clearly obvious from Scripture and they have to be able to be used universally. So you can’t argue that something was valid in the 20th century and then condemn it in the 21st because it would be a violation of a clear Scriptural standard and that would be contradictory.

I for one make a distinction between physical/form beauty and spiritual beauty. God is beautiful, but He has no physical attributes. Christ is beautiful, but not physically (Isaiah 53:2). I believe it is a sin to not pursue spiritual beauty, which beauty is in my estimation equivalent to holiness. Holiness is intrinsically beautiful and the objective standard of spiritual beauty.

I am willing to grant that the Old Testament sometimes uses the physically beautiful (according to the standards of their time and culture) as a symbol of spiritual beauty, just as it uses physical uncleanliness as a symbol of spiritual uncleanliness. Yet I do not believe the two are equivalent, or that we, in the New Testament era, are supposed to think of the two the same way.

So my problem with statements like “beauty objectively exists” and “beauty is a reflection of God’s glory” is that they equivocate between spiritual and physical beauty. I am not convinced physical beauty objectively exists, and besides, it can point to God only by analogy — God does not have physical qualitities. Spiritual beauty does exist objectively and it is an attribute of God. Phil 4:8 is talking about spiritual attributes, none of which apply inherently to physical forms of art, but only in so far as those physical forms of art mean something in a given cultural context.

If you believe physical/form beauty objectively exists and that it is a sin to not pursue physical form/beauty, I am curious how you apply that idea to humans. It is obvious that physical beauty applies to human beings — that a man finds certain types of physical features in a woman beautiful according to his own tastes (subjectively). However, if there is an objective standard for physical/form beauty we are to pursue, and if we are in sin if we do not pursue it, how does that work with a man pursuing a wife? I know what the biblical standards are for a man looking for a wife and none of them ever focus on physical beauty.

How would Francis Schaeffer responded to “a Conservative Christian Declaration?”

“One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative. Christianity is not conservative, but revolutionary.” (The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century)

Jay, we’ve hashed this about more than once. My recollection is that your standards for music are related (almost?) entirely to the words. Which are not music. But I’ll go back and check my memory.

As far as RAM goes, if you read them regularly, you might notice that they spend surprisingly little time assessing this song or that style to determine if they belong in the accept or reject bucket. Much discussion about principles and ministry philosophy, though.

EDIT: Jay, I’d love to resume our email conversation on “Slow Burn”. Especially having fairly recently been supplied by Dr. Al Mohler with the category of Therepeutic Deistic Moralism.

Nick,

Is physical beauty simply a matter of taste, or is there overwhelming consistency between humans about what the basic standards of physical beauty are?

[DavidO]

Nick,

Is physical beauty simply a matter of taste, or is there overwhelming consistency between humans about what the basic standards of physical beauty are?

Taste for the most part with perhaps a few exceptions. And even for those exceptions I would not make some eternal/objective Platonic point about them, but rather I would say that’s the way we (as humans) are made by God. Universal tastes are not necessarily an indication of an objective eternal standard coming down from God, let alone a moral one.

At any rate, let me ask you a question. If you see a fellow that married a woman you think is ugly, and that you would guess the majority of people will also think of as ugly (following your own argument from the majority to a “standard”), is his wife really objectively ugly, or just ugly to you? More importantly, what does that mean for the guy — did he somehow sin in marrying her?

[DavidO]

As far as RAM goes, if you read them regularly, you might notice that they spend surprisingly little time assessing this song or that style to determine if they belong in the accept or reject bucket. Much discussion about principles and ministry philosophy, though.

Or is it that they don’t have a valid means of assessing a song or style and therefore cannot determine if a song belongs in the accept or reject bucket without admitting that it boils down to preference? They can talk about principles and philosophy all they like but if they can’t apply Scriptural principles to a specific musical score then they really have only opinion.

Yah, Ricky, it’s a howler of a shell game they’ve got over there, but don’t tell anyone!

Nick, to your example, are you asking me my opinion? You’ve already told me it’s merely a matter of taste. Not sure there’s much point, but I’ll play along (pointing to an interesting article here, from whence I draw the following.)

In De Veritate Religione, Augustine asks explicitly whether things are beautiful because they give delight, or whether they give delight because they are beautiful; he emphatically opts for the second.

So, based on what you already expect is my opinion (which is what philosophy has pretty much agreed upon up until the last 200 years or so [ibid.] ) I can propose the following.

1. The woman may well be a beautiful person. People, of course, unlike paintings or trees, are more than just physical, and so the physical is not the only metric by which we judge. It would be no surprise to me if, after I got to know this woman, I would consider her beautiful as a whole.

2. This same woman may possess physical qualities/features that humans are hard-wired to find as displeasing. This, like any physical defect, (and, listen, ask anyone who saw me at my 25th high school reunion—I have, or have grown into, plenty of physical defects, so I’m not looking down here!) could be easily considered results inhereited from the fall, and not something the person is held responsible for.

3. The woman’s husband would not be culpable for any kind of sin (duh?) since we all, to one extent or another, bear physical affects from the fall. This is just one of the aspects of the fall we hope to be saved from.

4. I don’t see anything in the Declaration above that necessitates a man or woman only pursue mates that match a certain level of “objective beauty”. We are talking about the project of creating worship art. Your “test” is not apples to apples.

[DavidO]

4. I don’t see anything in the Declaration above that necessitates a man or woman only pursue mates that match a certain level of “objective beauty”. We are talking about the project of creating worship art. Your “test” is not apples to apples.

Let me get this straight. According to you physical beauty reflects the glory of God, and to quote Aaron (who is simply saying many of the arguments I heard at RAM) “to the degree we do not love the beautiful… we fall short of the glory of God”, but all of that only applies in a congregational worship service? Outside a congregational worship service we don’t have objective standards of physical beauty we need to pursue. Really? I like the dichotomy — it is quite helpful in imposing legalistic standards when one cannot realistically apply them to the whole of the Christian life. All tied up with a nice touch of appeal to the authority man’s philosophy instead of Scripture…. Sight.