The place of The Arts

Well I was talking the other day with a student from my Perspectives of Christian Art class. We both love the Christian art in the Gothic and Renaissance churches, but we have some major disagreements about how they should be used.

This person says that he feels that all the artwork is deceptive.

He says that churches use art and music to trick Christians into a "feeling" of worship. Churches find a song that makes people feel something and then they continue to copy that style in other pieces. They do this to give the church-goers a good feeling so they'll keep coming.. This person says that that is not true worship. It's deciet, and to be hated.

I agree that you get that sense of awe from this art, and from some songs. Who says that that is not a part of worship? I can't say that the intentions of these churches were good. You can tell from the way they stole icons from one another and profitted off of the pilgrimmages as a trade. But that doesn't mean that using art in churches is something bad.

You can't go along your whole Christian walk and never read anything from the Bible or reading a book on some Christian school of thought.. But I've never read a book by Kierkegaard or a geneology and wept. There is a place for satisfying curiosity and gaining knowledge, but we were given feelings. Feelings are good. The pleasure we take in emotions is not bad. It is the best things that can be twisted into the worst. Feelings are abused, I can't say that no one has ever cried and never been really been broken; but God gave us emotion. God feels joy, hatred, and sorrow.

Why shouldn't we spend our greatest emotions on Him? God is perfect, holy, merciful, wrathful, creative, infinite. If reading those words doesn't fill you with awe, then shouldn't SOMETHING? God deserves our speechlessness, and what better way to get there than with art.