In my book Rediscovering the Goodness of Creation, I explored the importance of beauty in the Christian life, observing in chapter 15 that as modern man is caught in the pincer grip of materialism and the machine, he is deeply hungry for the sublime and the symbolic. Yet in the economy of purpose, where all value is tied to use, there can be nothing sublime nor symbolic, only efficiency or inefficiency in serving a function. The attempt to address this poverty by externally adding aesthetic qualities to the world (for example, Robert Venturi’s decorated sheds, spiritual places in airports, or mindfulness rooms in modern office complexes) is the ultimate parody of the sacramental vision, since it involves the jarring bifurcation of form and content and the conceit that we can layer spiritual-aesthetic nourishment on top of a world already disenchanted and de-symbolized.
I will be building on this in an upcoming online panel hosted by The Orthodox West on Sunday, October 27. Joined by Fr. Patrick Cardine and the composer Nazo Zakkak, we will discuss the role of beauty in worship. In my presentation I will suggest that when we allow our lives to be transformed by Christian worship—including inhabiting its rhythms and cycles, while organizing our lives around the liturgical calendar—then our dispositions can become rightly-ordered. Not merely our minds, but also our affections, become sanctified so we learn to delight in what is truly beautiful, ultimately in God Himself. Over time, worship forms our affections, so that we aren’t even attracted to the counterfeit beauty images at the mall or on Instagram, let alone the counterfeit transcendence of UFOs or psychedelics, or even the incomplete beauty of a romanticism that would merely stop at transient beauty without following it through to the source.
This online panel is open to all. It is occurring at 7:00 PM EST. You can register and get the zoom link HERE. I hope to see you there!
