The Role, Reflection, and Reality of Art in Spirit

As I reviewed our comments and thoughts over the last two weeks, I’ve tried to bridge the conversation between music and beauty. A few takeaways stood out.

Beauty can point toward God, but it does not define God’s presence. Music often feels immediately accessible, whereas the visual arts frequently require learning and sustained attention; they’re not always as immediate. Longing for God’s presence does not imply disbelief in God’s nearness—that came through clearly in Carolyn’s remarks. Beauty, and often God, is discovered rather than imposed. Ordinary things—trees, silence, routine prayer—can be illuminating when attention is focused. Not everything meaningful is dramatic or sensory, and beauty can even mislead us into thinking we are having a spiritual experience when we are not.

That raises some questions. How has your culture or cultural background shaped what you consider spiritual or appropriate in worship? What role does silence play in your spiritual life? And how comfortable are we with unanswered spiritual questions? I think that comfort is one reason we come together weekly. We tend to be more at ease with unanswered questions than many people are.

As we continue this conversation, I want to reflect on something most of us experience but rarely name: our relationship with beauty changes over time. What once moved us deeply may now feel distant. What once felt unfamiliar may now feel rich. As we age, what we value—and what we find spiritual—often changes. This change is not necessarily a loss; it is often a form of becoming.

In music, there’s a concept that helps us hear this: harmony and counterpoint. Harmony is agreement—notes moving together, sounds blending smoothly. Counterpoint is different. It involves independent lines moving alongside one another. They are not the same, they do not collapse into one voice, and yet together they create depth. Good music needs both, and so does a community, and so does faith. That ability to hold two things at the same time is something Don does particularly well.

We often assume holiness should sound unified in the sense of sameness, but Scripture suggests otherwise. God gathers people with different histories, cultures, and ages, and invites them into relationship rather than uniformity. Harmony without counterpoint can be flat. Counterpoint without harmony can be chaotic. Together, they create richness.

This brings us to culture. Every generation learns to recognize God through the language of its time—through familiar sounds, images, and practices. What feels holy to one generation may feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable to another. That doesn’t mean God has changed; it means culture has changed. The danger comes when we confuse familiarity with God’s faithfulness, when we assume that what feels sacred to us must be sacred to everyone.

Age plays a role here as well. When we’re younger, we often respond strongly to energy, emotion, and intensity. I might challenge that a little, though. If you visit non-denominational churches with highly involved worship experiences, you’ll often see older people just as engaged as younger ones. As we grow older, many of us become more drawn to quiet, nuance, and depth—but not all of us. Neither response is superior. Each reflects a season of life.

Maturity in faith does not mean clinging tightly to what once worked. It means learning how to bless what we do not fully understand. One of the most difficult—and most holy—sentences we can learn to say is: “This does not speak to me, but I trust that God may be speaking to someone else through it.” That sentence requires humility, and humility is always a sign of spiritual growth.

Time teaches us that holiness cannot be reduced to preference. God continues to meet people through forms that may stretch us, surprise us, or even unsettle us. Our task is not to approve of everything; our task is to remain open. Faith, like music, unfolds over time. What once felt dissonant may later reveal meaning. What once felt obvious may later feel shallow. This is not inconsistency; it is deepening.

Holiness is not frozen into one era, one sound, or one image. God continues to meet us—sometimes through what comforts us, sometimes through what challenges us. The invitation is not to control the conversation about beauty and holiness, but to stay present within it: to listen longer, to look more carefully, and to allow time, difference, and grace to keep forming us.

In doing so, we may discover that God has been meeting us all along—not only through what we recognize immediately, but through what patiently teaches us how to see and hear anew. Those are my opening remarks. I think this has been a good journey. It’s easy to read something or say something, but when we’re confronted with the reality of accepting the other, we often plant poles and find we’re not as generous as we thought.

Grace keeps forming us, and I think that’s evident in this class. As we move forward in our conversation today, I invite you to keep these things in mind. 

David: That was a very nice summation of the key points we’ve been discussing over several weeks. One of the first points you made was that art can point toward God, but is not God’s presence. I agree with that. To me, God is ultimate Goodness, with a capital G. Or we might say God is holiness. And then Goodness or holiness becomes the ultimate form of beauty.

The danger is in assuming that something beautiful is therefore good or holy. To me, that can only be true of God. The statement that something beautiful is holy can only be true of the ultimate Goodness of God.

Michael: Donald said that maybe we can see beauty in music right away, but that with the visual arts we need some training or guidance. I wonder if the same can be true with God—that maybe with some training we can see God in the beauty around us more readily than without such training. And what would that training look like?

Carolyn: I agree with you. I think with music you need a little training, but I also think it’s easier to see beauty there, even if you know nothing about it. I still think training matters. There’s so much to say about both music and the visual arts, but I agree with what you’ve just said.

Donald: I may have gone back and forth between beauty and the visual arts. I would land on the idea that appreciating the visual arts requires more from us. That doesn’t mean people know what they’re doing with music; it just means people participate in music more easily. We hum, we whistle, we find ourselves involved with sound more naturally.

I don’t know that beauty itself requires training. I think it can be sharpened, but beauty probably comes quite naturally. Michael’s point is interesting, though. Does this mean that, in some ways, we’re being asked to return to being like children? We overthink these things. We become theologians. We make a study out of everything. Then it moves from the heart to the brain. I’m not sure that’s exactly what you meant, but that’s how I’m responding to it.

Carolyn: I do think appreciation—though I’m not sure that’s the right word—comes with familiarity. In my case, music has a lot to do with memory, and the visual arts do as well. When you have a memory that makes you feel good, you automatically assume it’s something good. 

Donald: Knowing Carolyn as long as I have, she has a song in her heart. We don’t say “She has a song in her head”—we say “She has a song in her heart.” Carolyn will often take a moment and turn it into a song, because there’s a song in her heart. Often it’s a praise song, a song of thanks. I think all of these things fit together.

Carolyn: I can only speak from experience. When I move to the visual arts, I try to bring my family and my children into my experience—what I want to share with them. I’ve learned that I understand more when I try to look at something and then do a little background research. For example, giving them a book on Monet, or someone else who might appeal to a child.

With nature, it’s just there—it’s for all of us. But when something is made by humans and we want to appreciate it as art, there needs to be some discussion to make it interesting. I’m coming back to what Michael said: you need some kind of training—not necessarily formal, but something internal.

You can train yourself to look at things by listening to what other people say and why they find them interesting. I think music works the same way. If someone says, “Listen for these five things in the opening of a symphony—this is the beginning, this is the excitement, this is where it goes off”—suddenly it becomes real and important.

Donald: I would suggest that light music is something most of us can say we like or don’t like without much formal training. You turn the dial on the radio—country, pop, soft rock, rock, Christian—and you quickly know what you prefer. I don’t think you need much training to say, “I prefer this over that.”

I recall when the Eastman School of Music—one of the most noted music schools in the country, even the world—once did something generous for the community by inviting schoolchildren—maybe fourth through seventh graders—to come listen to what was probably a rehearsal during the week. The people who took us on the bus from our church school didn’t know much about classical music, and neither did we. (That’s a strong statement, but I think it’s true.)

We were supposed to write reports on what we heard. Thank goodness we were given a slip of paper describing the program, because that was our only reference point. No one had taught us anything about classical music. Yes, there might have been a classical radio station, but those who listened to it were a small group.

More recently, when my wife and I visited friends who are deeply immersed in classical music, we asked them to help us understand it better. They live with it; their home is filled with it. Bach, Mozart, and so on. I still think that kind of music asks more of us. But maybe I’m drifting too far from the central question: how does this relate to our spiritual appreciation and our understanding of God?

As David has suggested, just because something is grandiose or majestic doesn’t mean it’s spiritual, even though it may make us think it is. In itself, it’s not. These things—music, art—are aids to our spirituality, not spirituality itself.

Reinhard: That thought connects with your earlier remark about how our interests change as we age. I believe that’s true in every aspect of life, including our hobbies and priorities.

I think that’s one of the strengths of our group. We’re more focused now. We have these discussions because we want to grow spiritually. We want to know more about God and what God wants for our lives. For me, questions about heaven are settled in this life. What we do now determines what we reap later.

Psalm 92, verses 12 to 14, says that the righteous flourish, and even in old age they still bear fruit. I think that’s important. We can still do good for others. We can still enjoy life. We can still have goals and meaningful experiences, as long as we remain connected to God.

That’s why meetings like this matter. Even on a busy weekend, there’s nothing better than coming together to seek truth and discern what God wants in our lives. To me, that’s part of worship. The Spirit of God is something we want to keep close, something that helps guide our direction in life.

I also want to say something about visual art, especially religious images. We touched on this last week. Religious paintings—what we might call artifacts—have played an important role throughout history. Bible pictures, for example, help reinforce belief. A picture can communicate what thousands of words cannot.

When I was young, a babysitter taught me Bible stories using picture books, almost like comic books. That’s how I first learned about God. The Adventist Church still publishes Bible storybooks for children, and they’re popular because pictures attract attention and invite learning.

I had a personal experience with this when I was a college student at Loma Linda. One summer I worked selling books door to door. We offered Bible story sets and other religious books. I was surprised how many people—often not Adventists—were eager to buy the children’s Bible story sets. Some had seen them in doctors’ offices and wanted them for their families.

To me, this shows how visual art—Bible stories, paintings like The Last Supper, images of Jesus carrying a lamb—helps make faith real. Even though these images are created by humans, I believe the Holy Spirit can work through them to reinforce belief and support spiritual growth.

We see this even today in large-scale visual experiences, like the replica of Noah’s Ark in Kentucky, which millions have visited. People want to experience what biblical events might have felt like. Visual representations make those stories come alive.

When we imagine crossing the Red Sea or witnessing Jesus’ ministry, these images help us engage more deeply. Even though we weren’t there, through Scripture, storytelling, and visual art, those experiences become more real. For me, all of this helps bring us closer to God and strengthens our obedience to Him.

Donald: That might be a good place to pause and ask where we go from here. Looking back over the last few weeks, I think we could agree on a few things.

Music, beauty, and the visual arts all have the ability to bring us into a more spiritual frame of mind. I think we can agree on that much. But as I listen to Reinhard and think about artists like the painter in Berrien Springs, MI who creates contemporary biblical scenes, I notice something else: none of those images are frightening. That raises another question. Where does fear enter into spirituality?

Last week we briefly touched on Revelation—its vastness, its imagery, its sense of scale. Much of that imagery is symbolic, yet historically those symbols have often been used to frighten people into faith or into a spiritual journey. David mentioned Jonah as metaphor, and that connects here.

So perhaps I’m pushing the edges a bit, but I do think we’re all comfortable saying that both music and beauty have some role to play in spirituality.

David: I’m afraid I’m not there yet. To me, there’s just too much danger involved. Reinhard mentioned that a picture is worth a thousand words, but to me, a spiritual revelation or spiritual moment is worth a thousand pictures.

I find it noteworthy that in the Bible—especially in the New Testament—there are few, if any, references to music. I may be wrong, but I don’t recall Jesus ever speaking about music at all. We human beings rarely write without describing beauty—especially physical beauty—but Jesus never describes people that way. There’s no emphasis on art, either.

Donald: But aren’t many beautiful women described in the Old Testament? It’s striking how often they’re identified as beautiful.

David: That’s true in the Old Testament, but not in the New, as far as I can tell. I love music, but it’s cultural and physical. It consists of vibrations of molecules that strike our eardrums. It’s a physical, human phenomenon. To equate it with something spiritual seems dangerous to me.

Carolyn: What about rhythm in music—the kind associated with dancing? Not just rock, but many genres. Then we moved into the era of Bill and Gloria Gaither, which introduced a softer form of Christian music—not classical, but still gentle.

I’m thinking particularly of praise music. I want my music to praise the Lord. Many young people are drawn to strong rhythms—the beat—while many churches now use praise music that includes rhythm and movement.

David: Rhythm is a very dangerous thing. It can have an hypnotic effect that leads us astray. It’s powerful. Think of the Whirling Dervishes—the rhythmic spinning is undeniably hypnotic. The danger is mistaking that hypnotic feeling for a spiritual experience. I’m not convinced that it is one.

It’s a beautiful experience, but it’s a beautiful human experience. That’s how I understand it.

Donald: I understand your point, David, even if I’m not sure I agree. When I’m troubled—and this past year has brought many such moments—beauty and quiet music have helped me deeply. The rhythm, if it’s there at all, is subtle. I would be saddened to think that the senses God created us with could not be one way through which we receive God.

Last night on the airplane, watching the sunset—the red horizon, the deep blue sky beyond it, nothing visible but the wing—I put on some quiet music. In moments like that, it’s hard for me to believe those experiences are disconnected from God.

When we imagine the life to come, we often picture music—trumpets, harps—many instruments described in the Bible. Beauty may not be discussed directly, but it’s certainly implied. Those are just my thoughts.

C-J: [The Biblical] David danced before the Lord. In films that portray that scene, the music is loud, free-flowing, even chaotic. David is like a child, full of joy.

Where we are in our maturity, our experiences, and what God is doing in a particular moment all matter. Each of us has described how music influences us and how we choose music that aligns with what we need. Music can heal. For David in that moment, dancing was rejoicing.

Music is universal. It’s a language our souls use—to express, to heal, to celebrate. We attach values to it. When I first heard rap, I thought, “That’s not music.” But when I listened to young people explain the poetry and the message, the sound mattered less than the story being told.

Music is like the environments we choose—the restaurant we eat in, the candles, colors, textures at a banquet, the people we seek for counsel, the walks we take in a park. We choose environments that support our spiritual needs or express our joy at a particular moment in time.

Don: Is it possible that it’s both—that God is in music and in the arts, and that God is not in music and in the arts?

C-J: If God created humanity and the environment we live in, then I would think God is present in all of it—even in forms we might consider inappropriate, wicked, or salacious. Those expressions reflect where humanity is at a given point in time. Their purpose is not salvation, but to draw us in, to shift our awareness of what we’re thinking, feeling, and processing—whether sadness, overwhelm, or joy.

A bird sings—is that not God? My cat meows to greet me—is that not God? My dog barks to protect and warn me—is that not God? The same is true for things we don’t understand. I’ve been angry because my dog couldn’t sleep and kept me awake, until I realized it was doing what it was created to do—protecting me. It was frustrating, but it came from care.

Music can work the same way. I might put something on and realize, no, that’s not what I need. I search through my music library and think, this isn’t where I am, but it’s where I want this music to take me. It’s deeply personal, constantly changing. That’s the beauty of music and of the individuals who create it.

We choose when we want stillness and when we want protection, when we want to be inside and when we want to be outside. Music helps shape those choices.

Don: If it’s personal, then it also becomes cultural. There was probably a time when Bach would have seen Beethoven as radical. As culture changes and we adapt to it, we’re both indifferent to spirituality and drawn into it at the same time.

This tension may be a result of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We want to discriminate—to say this is good, this is not; this music is appropriate, this art is inappropriate. Donald said something earlier about humbly recognizing that something may not speak to him, even if it speaks to someone else. That feels central to this conversation.

God can be found even in rap music or the Whirling Dervishes of the Sufis—but God can also be lost in a Bach concerto.

Reinhard: I think most Christians have their own traditions when it comes to music. Carolyn mentioned rhythm, and that’s where disagreement often arises. Some Christians completely reject Christian rap, while others accept it. I think it depends on the motive of both the performer and the listener.

Some churches incorporate dancing into worship, including certain Pentecostal churches. I’ve seen this in Indonesia, both online and in person. To me, it depends on motive. If these activities bring us closer to God, help us appreciate God’s beauty and grace, then I don’t see a problem.

Paul talks about how some people eat certain foods and others don’t. As long as we act to glorify God, He accepts it. I think the same applies today. Some people like Christian rap; others prefer Christian country or other styles. Lyrics matter. Secular rap often includes inappropriate language, but Christian music—regardless of style—can uplift if it’s offered sincerely.

In the end, God judges the heart. If music brings us closer to God and strengthens our faith, then so be it.

David: It seems to me that the personal becomes cultural only if we share it. As long as it remains internal, it isn’t cultural—it’s purely personal.

Why do we share personal things? Reinhard used the word “motivation.” If our motivation in sharing personal things is to bring others closer to God, isn’t that hubris? Isn’t that God’s work? Are we trying to take the role of the Spirit?

Donald: If you asked me right now to send you something that’s meaningful to me—something that moves me—that would be entirely personal. No one can discount that experience. They can’t tell me it doesn’t uplift me.

But if I expect you to respond the same way, that’s a risk. Very often, when we recommend something to others, it doesn’t resonate with them. One size doesn’t fit all. What I’m asking for is the freedom to have something that fits me. If it works, I’m grateful for it.

Another dimension we could explore is the corporate experience—what happens when two or three people share something together.

David: Would Beethoven’s music be more beautiful, more holy, if he had composed it but never released it—if it had remained entirely in his head and never become a cultural object? I find myself thinking it might have been more spiritual that way.

Carolyn: Beethoven was radical in his time and in his stage of life. His music wasn’t immediately accepted because it was different. 

I once read that for every good thing, Satan has something he will substitute in its place. As an educator—working with children and adults, especially in the church—I have to ask whether there is a difference between sacred music and what we might call easy listening.

I struggle with this because I don’t want to become judgmental. Is it right or wrong to listen to either? We judge so many things when it comes to music and art. Personally, I’ve often been called out for where I stand on music. I don’t want to be a stumbling block.

If I present a song in church as praise to the Lord and it doesn’t meet everyone’s standards, what’s happening? Are we discerning, or are we judging? Are we open to new ideas?

C-J: I was thinking about how censorship puts us on a slippery slope. Diversity is what challenges us, and we need to be open to that. What pricks us, edifies us, or even alarms us is part of how we grow. Without that tension, we don’t grow; we become bland and unengaged.

Judgment often comes from wanting to feel safe—not necessarily from wanting to be right. We worry: Will I survive this? Will I lose part of my faith? Will I question my integrity or authenticity? Those fears arise whether we’re talking about literature, music, friendships, or churches.

I appreciated what David said earlier, because it raises a profound question: which came first—the chicken or the egg? Are we spiritual because God is spirit and created everything we engage with, or is everything inherently corrupted because we live in a so-called fallen world? That binary feels too easy.

God didn’t forbid the Tree of Knowledge because knowledge itself was bad; it was because we weren’t mature enough to handle the responsibility that came with it.

Donald: It’s interesting how quickly our conversations default to music rather than the visual arts or beauty more broadly. Even so, I think bridging the two has been valuable.

One intriguing direction for us is what happens when we reach the edge and move toward fear. The God of the Old Testament and the Christ of the New Testament often appear radically different, and that’s worth exploring. As we think about music, beauty, sight, and the visual arts, fear is another element that isn’t human-made. The Old Testament is full of it. That might be a worthwhile path to follow next.

Don: I’ve had personal experiences trying to share God with someone using something that deeply moved me, only to find it had no effect on them at all. And I’ve had the opposite experience—someone shared something that moved them profoundly, and I found it completely innocuous.

That raises a question for me: how do we share our faith? And what does it mean to share faith in light of this conversation about sensory experiences of God? David will address this next week.

C-J: I want to speak to the idea of Old and New Testament dispensations. If God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, then the change isn’t God—it’s us. The narrative changes because our understanding of ourselves changes.

I see violence and judgment in both Testaments. God didn’t change; our self-understanding did. When I stop trying to explain my way out of a corner and instead say, “Lord, thy will be done,” something shifts. God doesn’t change—I do.

That’s frightening, not because I fear rejection by God, but because I fear what might be revealed about who I’m meant to become. Growth is unsettling. God says, “Have you considered this?” and I hesitate. “We’ll go slowly,” God says—but we will go.

Reinhard: It can indeed feel discouraging when we talk to others about God and see no response. But as Christians, our responsibility is to spread the Gospel. God judges us by our faithfulness in doing that, not by whether others accept it.

The Bible talks about planting seeds. God makes them grow. That part isn’t ours. As long as we stay connected to Him, God knows our intentions.

Connie mentioned David dancing before the Lord. Even David’s wife despised him for it, yet David was simply expressing his relationship with God. He praised God in his own way. That, to me, says it depends on the individual and on intent. God will judge whether what we do is for His glory.

Don: That’s a powerful reminder—that David’s wife found his expression inappropriate, and yet it was deeply sincere. That connects directly to everything we’ve been discussing.

Thank you, Donald, for your thoughtful opening and for guiding the conversation. And thank you all for the richness of this discussion. We’ll look forward to David’s contribution next week.

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