Christian Art Quotes & Sayings

There's obviously always danger in making music or art for art's sake. Even as Christians we can be guilty of that, being more about the art than the Artist who gave us this gift. — Steven Curtis Chapman

I had done my best, and it wasn't good enough. I doubted, I pined, I prayed, and I was still me. I was a gay woman, inspired by Jesus in ways beyond my ability to communicate, who failed to live up to the expectations of all that a Christian was supposed to agree with, believe in, and reenact. I was certain I could no longer be the standard-bearer of an institutionalized religion, but I couldn't escape the fact that my faith seeped into my art. — Jennifer Knapp

It is necessarily so, since every traditional art obeys a particular spiritual economy that limits its themes and means of expression, so that an abandonment of that economy almost immediately releases new and apparently unlimited artistic possibilities. — Titus Burckhardt

The end product of the successful preacher's input is transformation. — Christian Michael

The only really Christian art is that which, like St. Francis, does not fear being wedded to poverty. This rises far above art-as-ornament. — Andre Gide

No one expects to attain to the height of learning, or arts, or power, or wealth, or military glory, without vigorous resolution, strenuous diligence, and steady perseverance. Yet we expect to be Christians without labour, study, or inquiry. — William Wilberforce

The people who carried the Catholic faith forward in history, who made the culture of beauty, music, art, and architecture rooted in the Christian understanding of God and humanity - these generations were taught, spiritually fed, and shaped by priests exactly like the men who minister to us in our local Church, men not so different from the one who wrote this book. — Paul Scalia

What is Christian in art does not lie in the theme but in the spirit of it, in its wisdom and the understanding of reality it reflects. — Hans Rookmaaker

Art does imitate life, it has to come from somewhere. To put boundaries and limitations on it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. — Christian Slater

Rigid geometry forced in varied curves is "mother," / is "nature," is systematic violation." Muy Bueno. / This device is for you, the mutilated of no art. — Christian Peet

It becomes one who is called to be a soldier, and to go a warfare, to endeavor to excel in the art of war. It becomes one who is called to be a mariner, and to spend his life in sailing the ocean, to endeavor to excel in the art of navigation. It becomes one who professes to be a physician, and devotes himself to that work, to endeavor to excel in the knowledge of those things which pertain to the art of physic. So it becomes all such as profess to be Christians, and to devote themselves to the practice of Christianity, to endeavor to excel in the knowledge of divinity. — Jonathan Edwards

Oments of transport, and of comfort, and of a bracing vastness of possibility. That was all there for me sometimes when I plunged my mind into the Bible's puzzles; and it was always there in the music of church. I wouldn't have said it this way then. But I would feel all the cells in my body as I sang hymns that connected my little life with the grandeur of the cosmos, the Christian drama across space and time. This was my earliest experience of breath and body, mind and spirit soaring together, alive to both mystery and reality, in kinship with others both familiar and unknown. That's one way I'd define the feeling of faith now. — Krista Tippett

When we look at a painting, or hear a symphony, or read a book, and feel more Named, then, for us, that work is a work of Christian art. But to look at a work of art and then to make a judgment as to whether or not it is art, and whether or not it is Christian, is presumptuous. It is something we cannot know in any conclusive way. We can know only if it speaks within our own hearts, and leads us to living more deeply with Christ in God. — Madeleine L'Engle

A day is too precious a treasure to forfeit. — Eric Samuel Timm

It is one of the arts of a great beauty to heighten the effect of her charms by affecting to be sweetly unconscious of them. — Christian Nestell Bovee

The Word that will change a man must first show the man who he really is. — Christian Michael

H.L.Mencken's war aims, according to the handful of observers who deigned to notice his conflict, were the overthrow of American Democracy, the Christian religion, and the YMCA. He was also credited with trying to wipe out poets and luncheon orators. — Ben Hecht

Sometimes the answers you need to hear aren't the answers you want to hear. — Eric Samuel Timm

A peculiar work in any art must not be too hastily judged. New styles have to create new tastes. — Christian Nestell Bovee

I am born for God only. Christ is nearer to me than father, or mother, or sister - a near relation, a more affectionate Friend; and I rejoice to follow Him, and to love Him. Blessed Jesus! Thou art all I want - a forerunner to me in all I ever shall go through as a Christian, a minister, or a missionary ... — Henry Martyn

Every type of destruction that human philosophy, human science, human reason, human art, human cunning, human force, and human brutality could bring to bear against this Book, and yet the Bible stands absolutely unshaken today. At times almost all the wise and great of the earth have been pitted against the Bible, and only an obscure few for it. Yet it has stood. — R.A. Torrey

It seems that the appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost, as the desire for ones that show bodies naked. For many centuries, in Christian art, depictions of hell offered both of these elemental satisfactions. — Sontag, Susan

Art is so often better at theology than theology is. — Christian Wiman

Protect the ears of your heart, rather than being drawn in each day like the fading tides that dance daily with the moon. — Eric Samuel Timm

The noise distorts the truth but we can break through, we need to base our foundation upon the Rock. — Eric Samuel Timm

That the arts are corrupt does not mean that Christians can abandon them. On the contrary, the corruption of the arts means that Christians dare not abandon them any longer. — Gene Veith

Thou art beaten that thou mayest be better. — John Bunyan

One of the aims of Budo is the suppression of fears. — Christian Tissier

Strength of my heart, I need not fail,
Not mind to fear but to obey,
With such a Leader, who could quail?
Thou art as Thou wert yesterday.
Strength of my heart, I rest in Thee,
Fulfil Thy purposes through me. — Amy Carmichael

Writing is the only art form where a good number of the artists make a slice of their living criticizing one another in print, in public. — Christian Bauman

I admire the abstract expressionists and pop artists so right now I'm referencing American '60s art and at the same time referencing Japanese manga culture. — Christian Marclay

It is possible for music to be labeled "Christian" and be terrible music. It could lack creativity and inspiration. The lyrics could be recycled cliches. That "Christian" band could actually be giving Jesus a bad name because they aren't a great band. It is possible for a movie to be a "Christian" movie and to be a terrible movie. It may actually desecrate the art form in its quality and storytelling and craft. — Rob Bell

Take heed of driving so hard after this world, as to hinder thyself and family from those duties towards God, which thou art by grace obliged to; as private prayer, reading the scriptures, and Christian conference. It is a base thing for men so to spend themselves and families after this world, as that they disengage their heart to God's worship. — John Bunyan

In the stillness I find my heart growing hot while I seek the person I have already found. God is so much more than I know. — Eric Samuel Timm

This pointing-hand gesture - with its index finger and thumb extended upward - is a well-known symbol of the Ancient Mysteries, and it appears all over the world in ancient art. This same gesture appears in three of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous encoded masterpieces - The Last Supper, Adoration of the Magi, and Saint John the Baptist. It's a symbol of man's mystical connection to God." As above, so below. The madman's bizarre choice of words was starting to feel more relevant now. "I've never seen it before," Sato said. Then watch ESPN, Langdon thought, always amused to see professional athletes point skyward in gratitude to God after a touchdown or home run. He wondered how many knew they were continuing a pre-Christian mystical tradition of acknowledging the mystical power above, which, for one brief moment, had transformed them into a god capable of miraculous feats. — Dan Brown

Through His Word we fall in love with Him more, and because of this we love more. — Eric Samuel Timm

Little decisions over time make a big impact on our lives. — Eric Samuel Timm

It will be well for him if at such times he listens only to his Master's word, for other and evil advisers come with their suggestions. Despair whispers, "Lie down and die; give it all up." But God would have us put on a cheerful courage, and even in our worst times, rejoice in his love and faithfulness. Cowardice says, "Retreat; go back to the worldling's way of action; you cannot play the Christian's part, it is too difficult. Relinquish your principles." But, however much Satan may urge this course upon you, you cannot follow it if you are a child of God. His divine fiat has bid thee go from strength to strength, and so thou shalt, and neither death nor hell shall turn thee from thy course. What, if for a while thou art called to stand still, yet this is but to renew thy strength for some greater advance in due time. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Not only do they offend thee, O Lady, who outrage thee, but thou art also offended by those who neglect to ask thy favors ... He who neglects the service of the Blessed Virgin will die in his sins ... He who does not invoke thee, O Lady, will never get to Heaven ... Not only will those from whom Mary turns her countenance not be saved, but there will be no hope of their salvation ... No one can be saved without the protection of Mary. — Bonaventure

To look at a work of art and then to make a judgement as to whether or not it is art, and whether or not it is Christian, is presumptuous. — Madeleine L'Engle

Shigemori's body of work is a compelling manifesto for continuous cultural renewal. — Christian Tschumi

Christian art is the expression of the whole life of the whole person as a Christian. What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life. Art is not to be solely a vehicle for some sort of self-conscious evangelism. — Francis A. Schaeffer

The consensus seems to be this: we should be deeply Christian artists. But that doesn't mean we should be something called Christian artists or that whatever we produce should be called Christian art. We should simply focus on our craft, on making the best art we can. We should understand that people will and should resonate with our work not because it is Christian but because it is good. Above all, Christians should make good art, true art; art unafraid of exploring mystery, portraying evil, and looking for truth wherever it appears. — Brett McCracken

What is dangerous about the far right is not that it takes religion seriously - most of us do - but rather that it condemns all other spiritual choices - the Buddhist, the Jew, the Muslim, and many others who consider themselves to be good Christians. The wall of separation between church and state is needed precisely because religion, like art, is too important a part of the human experience to be choked by the hands of censors. — Barbra Streisand

Few Christians go into media or the arts today, or see it as a primary mission field or battlefield. But it is. — Peter Kreeft

I don't believe in "laying to rest" the past. There are wounds we won't get over. There are things that happen to us that, no matter how hard we try to forget, no matter with what fortitude we face them, what mix of religion and therapy we swallow, what finished and durable forms of art we turn them into, are going to go on happening inside of us for as long as our brains are alive. — Christian Wiman

We are at home here. Alienation is unnecessary. Contact with reality at a deep level is part of the Christian's life. He enters into reality, rather than escaping from it. The flight from reality is a mark of Eastern and classical mysticism, not of Christianity. — Hans Rookmaaker

Christian love is the only kind of love in which there is no rivalry, no jealousy. There is jealousy among the lovers of art; there is jealousy among the lovers of song; there is jealousy among the lovers of beauty. The glory of natural love is its monopoly, its power to say, 'It is mine. ' But the glory of Christian love is its refusal of monopoly. — George Matheson

No work of art is more important than the Christian's life, and every Christian is called to be an artist in this sense ... The Christian's life is to be a thing of truth and also a thing of beauty in the midst of a lost and despairing world. — Francis Schaeffer

Well, then, Lord Jesus! I will creep if I cannot walk; I will take hold of Thy word. When I stumble, Thou wilt support me; when I fall, Thou wilt hold out Thy cross, and help me with it to rise again, until at length I reach the place where Thou art, and with all my weaknesses and wants, cast myself into Thy bosom. — Christian Scriver

It happened very providentially, to the honor of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were at their height. — Joseph Addison

Hollywood movies of the Fifties, like The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, with their epic clash of pagan and Judeo-Christian cultures, tell more about art and society than the French-infatuated ideologues who have made a travesty of the best American higher criticism. — Camille Paglia

Seriousness is the very thing wherein consisteth our sincerity. If thou art not serious, thou art not a Christian (279). — Richard Baxter

Christian art, like obscene art, is surface level. — Anonymous

St. Hierotheos, the great teacher quoted by Dionysius in his book on Divine Names: "As form giving form to all that is formless, in so far as It is the principle of form, the Divine Nature of the Christ is none the less formless in all that has form, since It transcends all form.... — Titus Burckhardt

In art there are two principal schools between which each aspirant has to choose
one distinguished by its close adherence to nature, and the other by its strenuous efforts to get above it. — Christian Nestell Bovee

Art is all in the details. — Christian Marclay

All too often people say to artists, 'To be an artist is fine if your art can be used for evangelism.' And art has often become a tool for evangelism. But let's be precise. As such there is nothing against this. But we must be aware that art cannot be used to show the validity of Christianity; it should rather be the reverse. Christianity is true; things and actions and human endeavor only get their meaning from their relationship to God; if Christ came to make us human, the humanity and the reality of art find their foundation in him. So art should not be used to preach even if it can help. Yet there is another way that art can be or is meaningful. — H.R. Rookmaaker

We are fighting the greatest battle of all time with the most untrained army on earth. If strict discipline is necessary in art and athletics, how can we expect to be advanced Christians and stay in kindergarten? — Vance Havner

The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature. — C.S. Lewis

I think Christians should be leaders in art, science, philanthropy, charity, and all kinds of good works. We should be good examples for everyone. Unfortunately though, that's not often the case. — Matt Smith

No wonder the summer solstice had been such a fun day in northern Europe before Christian missionaries arrived from the sunny south. If priests had not driven sex underground, what would the north have been like? Would art have flourished in the absence of sexual repression? What about artillery and fortification? The Reformation? The Thirty Years War? The French Revolution? The final perfection of murder as blood sport at Verdun and Dresden and in the Gulag?

In short, where would we be without Jesus? — Charles McCarry

In every work of art, the artist himself is present. — Christian Morgenstern

God is not interested in your art but, your heart. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Rumors and reports of man's relation with animals are the world's oldest news stories, headlined in the stars of the zodiac, posted on the walls of prehistoric caves, inscribed in the languages of Egyptian myth, Greek philosophy, Hindu religion, Christian art, our own DNA. Belonging within the circle of mankind's intimate acquaintance ... constant albeit speechless companions, they supplied energies fit to be harnessed or roasted. — Lewis H. Lapham

If we want to know our God-given gifts, we must know the giver. — Eric Samuel Timm

Education is the art of helping young people to completeness; for the Christian, this means education is helping a young person to be more like Christ, the model of all Christians. — Basil Moreau

The art of humility begins with a recognition of our dependence on others and an appreciation of God's gift of life. — Wilferd Peterson

Art can model the more difficult dynamic of transfiguring one's life, but at some point the dynamic reverses itself: life models, or forces, the existential crisis by which art - great art - is fully experienced. There is a fluidity between art and life, then, in the same way that there is, in the best lives, a fluidity between mind and matter, self and soul, life and death. Experience seems to stream clearly through some lives, rather than getting slowed and clogged up in the drift-waste of ego, or stagnating in little inlets of despair, envy, rage. It has to do with seizing and releasing as a single gesture. It has to do with standing in relation to life and death ... owning an emptiness that, because you have claimed it, has become a source of light, wearing your wound that, like a ramshackle house on some high exposed hill, sings with the hard wind that is steadily destroying it. — Christian Wiman

The Christians to the lions sold out every night. — Ray Davies

Our bodies are simply our shells, the package for the spirit and the soul. — Eric Samuel Timm

Liberal humanists now seem to dominate the fields of art, journalism, and communication, which are powerful and uniquely able to spread anti-Christian thought. — Tim LaHaye

Actions speak louder than words, in fact. When we don't take action, we foster the mistaken reality of our old identity. — Eric Samuel Timm

It's neither and it's both. That's the perfect kind of art. Labels only detract from the artist's intention. — Ted Dekker

In truth, nothing could be more opposed to the purely aesthetic interpretation and justification of the world which are taught in this book than the Christian teaching, which is, and wants to be, only moral and which relegates art, every art, to the realm of lies; with its absolute standards, beginning with the truthfulness of God, it negates, judges, and damns art. — Friedrich Nietzsche

So perhaps the reason I shuddered at the idea of writing something about 'Christian art' is that to paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary, who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says 'Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.' And the artist either says 'My soul doth magnify the Lord' and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessicarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary. — Madeleine L'Engle

However, they have not acquired a perfect mastery of the art of lying; they lie so clumsily and ineptly that anyone who is just a little observant can easily detect it. But for us Christians they stand as a terrifying example of God's wrath. — Martin Luther

In Turkey, ancient drawings that are two thousand or more years old show djinn in half human-half reptilian forms with horns, scaly skin, lizard-like eyes, and claws for hands. This depiction is similar to the Christian description of devils and demons. It is also interesting to note that Islamic art dating from only eight hundred years ago shows the djinn as more human-like. — Rosemary Ellen Guiley

A lot of people, especially Christians, want to put you in this box of being a Christian actor, and I don't believe in it. You do yourself and everyone else a big disservice when you start thinking about it as 'Christian art.' That's why most Christian art is bad. They don't put a premium on the 'art.' — Zachary Levi

Internationalism on the other hand admits that spiritual achievements have their roots deep in national life; from this national consciousness art and literature derive their character and strength and on it even many of the humanistic sciences are firmly based. — Christian Lous Lange

I consider Memphis to be a cultural center, and I think that if you put a giant redneck hub in the middle of it, you're going to dilute all of that," said Christian Dalton, 20, a worker at Real 2 Reel, an art gallery on the hip South Main Street. "But I think it's better than having a giant empty paperweight downtown. — Anonymous

Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods 'where they get off', you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith. The — C.S. Lewis

The hidden child wants to be able to participate and to co-create in art, rather than being simply an admiring viewer. — Christian Morgenstern

I'm beginning to see that there's a difference between art that trusts beauty's simple power to point people to God and Christian art that's consciously propagandistic. My Uncle Kenny, with whom I spent most of my time in Italy, said something profound
that you can make art about the Light, or you can make art that shows what the Light reveals about the world. — Ian Morgan Cron

I think that if you are going to be successful as a Christian in the arts, you have to be successful in your Christian life. — Cliff Richard

It is the Lord's work, and it must be done; my Lord has bidden me do it, and in his strength I will accomplish it." Christian, art thou thus "with all thine heart" serving thy Master? — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Until cubism, all art, all pictures, could be 'read' by anybody. If this hadn't been so, the Christian message wouldn't have been seen by peasants and its importance would have been diminished. — David Hockney

Growing up going to Christian school and the concept that you're born a sinner and you don't really have a choice to change who you are has been hammered into my head and created the entire reason why I made art and made a band and made records called 'Antichrist Superstar.' — Marilyn Manson

I once asked a distinguished artist what place he gave to labor in art. "Labor," he in effect said, "is the beginning, the middle, and the end of art." Turning then to another
"And you," I inquired, "what do you consider as the great force in art?" "Love," he replied. In their two answers I found but one truth. — Christian Nestell Bovee

By being natural and sincere, one often can create revolutions without having sought them. — Christian Dior

It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God? — Voltaire

From the 9th to the 15th centuries, the area which is now modern Spain was home to the greatest peaceful agglomeration of cultures ever known in the post-literate worldEven more remarkable than the flowering of art itself was the confluence of cultures that produced it: under the rule of Islam, Muslims, Jews and Christians lived and worked together in relative harmony. — Maya Beiser

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise. — Christian Bale

"Let the dead bury the dead." There is not a single word of Christ to which the Christian religion has paid less attention. — Andre Gide

Conceptual art might be, for better or worse, (definable as) the art most susceptible to lossy compression. — Brian Christian

The Word of God makes use of poetic imagery when discussing ... formless intelligences but ... it does not do so for the sake of art, but as a concession to the nature of our own mind. It uses scriptural passages in an uplifting fashion as a way, provided for us from the first, to uplift our mind in a manner suitable to our nature. — Pope Dionysius

Advertizing, television and film all wield mighty powers to visually seduce us, while much fine art leaves us indifferent, confused or, at worst, repulsed. There is a desperate need for creative Christians to redeem the visual arena from both forms of excess, cutting through all the false glamour, tawdry baseness and dense obfuscation. — John Walford

The greatest art in life is to believe in Christ. That art is learned only in the Holy Spirit's school. — Christian Scriver

What makes art Christian art? Is it simply Christian artists painting biblical subjects like Jeremiah? Or, by attaching a halo, does that suddenly make something Christian art? Must the artist's subject be religious to be Christian? I don't think so. There is a certain sense in which art is its own justification. If art is good art, if it is true art, if it is beautiful art, then it is bearing witness to the Author of the good, the true, and the beautiful — R.C. Sproul

A nation lives by its myths and heroes. Many societies have survived defeat and invasion, even political and economic collapse. None has survived the corruption of its picture of itself. High and popular art are not in competition here. Both may help citizens decide what they are and what they admire. In our age, however, high art has given up speaking to the body of its fellow citizens. It devotes itself to technical displays that can appeal only to other technicians. — E. Christian Kopff