God And Beauty

There was once a time when beauty was identified with God. In fact, beauty was a proof for God, as Karl noted in the comments to this old post. This may seem just a re-hashing of that old entry, but I just wanted to provide another example of how odd society's treatment of beauty is in its relation to God.

It would make sense that music made for worship would be beautiful, right? It's music for God (allegedly), so I don't think I'm going to far afield to say that. It's why music that is distinctively Catholic sounds something like this:

Consider this contrast. Recently, I had the experience of being exposed to the music of a band known as Skillet. They are a Christian rock band and apparently are a big deal on the concert circuit, and their music is good for praise and worship sessions. Here is one of their more well-known efforts.





Missa Solemnis, it ain't. Now, this isn't a post ripping rock music. Or even Christian rock music. It's about how things being used for worship don't seem to have much bearing on concept of worship. There are a lot of words that might be used to describe the Skillet song above. I'm not sure how "beautiful" would be one of them. If a worship service neglects to include beauty as something to draw the minds of the worshipers towards God, isn't there something wrong there?