Artistic expression is one of the most awesome and powerful rights that God has given to man.  It has recorded the rise and fall of nations.  Be it simple or be it grand, art had quietly rendered the most honest spiritual and secular accounts of life, death, war and peace.  Its greatest advances have come about during the hardest of times. 

Throughout church history, the role of visual arts in worship has often been controversial, with debates being waged on both theological and cultural grounds.  Worship is the passionate expression of God’s people in response to His redemptive work on their behalf.  In worship this truth is not only said or sung, but dramatized, danced and viewed through paintings and sculpture.  Therefore, visual art in worship can act as a vehicle of proclamation and has in fact been used by Jesus Himself.

 For too long we in the religious community have either denied art from entering our context, or we have defined our context as a place where art must illustrate, teach, or be a source of evangelism.  This limited view of how art communicates has served us poorly.

 People go in droves to see works of art.  I, too, along with them, packed exhibition rooms standing in reverential silence and transfixed before such great images.  Why?  Because precious epiphanies burst forth from these works.  In some measure art always breaks open perceptions for the viewer, enabling nuanced insight about what he or she already knows, or startles one into recognition of what is not yet known.  These insightful moments of jarring intensity, shimmering with transcendent luminosity, are entries into the mysterious edge of life.  The fact is, large segments of the religious community have refused to recognize this revelatory power of art.  Such moments of inbreaking are appreciated when experienced in the museum.  But, such moments of inbreaking when experienced in the context of the church, cause us to fall to our knees.  Not only are we reminded of who we are, but also whose we are.

 Art discloses the Holy on Holy Ground.  Quality art shimmers with luminous disclosures for the believer when ensconced in religious space.