Culture is a word we use often yet rarely consider its meaning. The English word culture, is derived from the Latin word cultura which speaks of “cultivating, tending, caring, tilling, and honoring.” We see the immediate application to farming and the caring for the land to produce a harvest—the goal of cultivation. The Latin word cultus is also part of the same word group and overlaps in meaning but focuses on the cultivation of customs of worship and veneration.
This is significant because culture is religion externalized. That is, culture—our social ethos consisting of language, manners, customs, architecture, art, food, music, fashion, education—is the religious expression of a people group. Culture is a reflection of what we worship and how we tend or care for the world around us. Understood correctly, there is a Christian culture that affects language, manners, customs, architecture, art, food, fashion, music, education and so forth. Since culture is religion externalized, we must understand the enormous impact Christianity has on culture and the impact that culture has upon the religious convictions of a people.
(As an aside, it is important to recognize that the so-called “culture war” is really a religious or spiritual war. To be indifferent to the culture war is to be indifferent to the spiritual war.)
Now, my aim in this article is more modest than tackling culture in general or in exhaustive detail. I wish to briefly consider one aspect of culture—beauty. Every culture—every religion externalized—has categories for beauty. Today we’re told that a man in drag is beautiful (see images below). After the toppling of many statues, the monuments raised upon the NYC courthouse in honor of MLK are examples of what is considered beautiful by today’s religious culture. Architecture past and present are notably—and lamentably—different. Some might scoff at modern art compared to the art yesteryear, but these are true reflections of our culture—our societal, religious affections externalized. They are evidence of the changing standards of beauty coinciding with the changing religious commitments of our society.
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What we must remember is that we are culture builders. The spiritual battle is a battle of truth expressed in tangible ways (i.e., in word and form). We are cultivators of truth and beauty. Our religious commitments will be externalized when we decorate our home, sing songs, make meals, engage in a vocation, send letters, practice hospitality, speak to our neighbors and fill our calendar with activities. It is not a matter of whether we “cultivate” a certain aesthetic or culture but which one are we cultivating.
God’s Concern for Beauty
Do you care about beauty? Are you seeking to cultivate beauty in and around you? Did you know that God is concerned about creating beauty?
Consider creation, God made plants for food but he made other plants and trees simply for beauty. In fact, the flowers of the field are often mentioned in Scripture as gloriously beautiful (Isaiah 28:1, 4; 40:6) although their beauty is temporary and serves no practical utility. God gave some creatures for food, others he made beautiful and majestic to demonstrate his own beautiful wisdom and glory (cf. Job 38–41). God made women beautiful in form and appearance, even giving attention to their hair to be a glorious covering (cf. 1 Cor 11:7, 15). When God gave instructions for the temple, he ordered that it be made beautiful with skillful craftsmanship. When he detailed the garments of the priest, he made them, “for glory and for beauty” (Ex 28:2). Jerusalem and the temple were built to be beautiful. Zion, in “the perfection of beauty, God shines forth” (Ps 50:2). In summary, Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”
God cares about beauty. Therefore we should care about beauty. Not in the modern notion of abstraction, utility, gender fluidity, or a general disunity that is seen in modern art and architecture. But we care about beauty in keeping with God’s majesty, creational norms, scriptural insight, skill and wisdom, and with proper expressions of masculinity and femininity, while bringing glory and honor to the King and Creator of heaven and earth.
What does this mean practically?
1. The first step is to consider beauty in light of God’s revelation and develop an appetite for what God calls beautiful. Consider the music, art, architecture, fashion, furniture, and customs around you and what they reveal about religious commitments or religious affections. Set before your eyes what God considers beautiful.
2. Second, acquired tastes become what we cultivate. When we know what beauty is, we then tend and cultivate our homes, our place of worship, our workplaces, and all that we do in a beauty befitting the Lord. We adorn our lives with beauty within and without. The beauty and excellence around us testifies to the fruit of gospel, adorns the truth we proclaim, and brings glory to God.
3. Third, we must avoid the idolatry of beauty. Beauty can easily be idolized. Especially those things that God has made beautiful. The beauty of women as been idolized in countless ways and continues in earnest today. The beauty of women should be a reflection of the inward beauty of holiness not a sensual perversion of God’s propriety for marriage and sexuality (1 Tim 2:9-10; 1 Pet 3:3–4). Aesthetics become idolatrous when they are elevated above God’s intention or not used to honor and glorify him. Beauty ought to bring glory to God and not to ourselves.
Conclusion
According to Isaiah 60, beauty will be a distinguishing mark of the new heavens and new earth. “I will beautify my beautiful house” (v. 7); “he has made you beautiful” (v. 9); I will “beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious” (v. 13). If we are new creatures in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) then we bear the marks of this coming new creation. We seek now for the holiness that we will have, and we yearn and cultivate now the beauty of that future heavenly city. For he is worthy.
“The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified”.
(Isaiah 60:19–21)