EVENT: Art and Wonder Festival, Belmont University, Nashville, September 26, 2026: “The Art & Wonder Festival is a free event at Belmont University showcasing art and music that celebrates the Christian story. Experience live music, film screenings, art exhibitions, hands-on art activities, kids zone, food trucks, and more!”
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SUBSTACK SERIES: “A Vision for Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness” by Wesley Vander Lugt: “As a part of my role directing the Leighton Ford Initiative in Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I am tasked with shepherding a vision for integrating the story of God, the gift of the arts, and their educational and missional impact,” Wesley Vander Lugt writes in this excellent, short four-part series. Using the biblical metanarrative framework of Formation–Deformation–Transformation–Re-formation (or, as some Christians phrase it, Creation–Fall–Redemption–New Creation), he explains how “God’s grace makes it possible to receive the arts as a gift for expressing embodied worship, deepening spiritual formation, reshaping emotions, grasping complex truth, cultivating keystone habits, nurturing community, and effectively contextualizing the gospel.”
Part 1, “The Arts and Formation,” looks at the ways in which God’s work of creation and formation influences our affirmations of art, beauty, materiality, and the human body. Part 2, “The Arts and Deformation,” explores how the deformation of sin and evil impacts human creativity and artistry. Part 3, “The Arts and Transformation,” unpacks the role of the arts in God’s transformative mission to make all things new in Christ by the Spirit. Part 4, “The Arts and Re-formation,” shows how hope and the future of God informs human artistry and creativity.
The arts of all kinds—music, visual art, literature, dance, film, theatre, architecture, and more—are a gift for deepening our engagement with God’s Word, enlivening teaching methods and environments, attuning our imaginations to the ministry of God, forming the whole person toward Christlikeness, preparing students for effective cultural engagement and presence, and strengthening our vision of God’s redemptive work in the past, present, and future.
—Wesley Vander Lugt
Some of the affirmations of the program include:
- “We affirm that the materiality and embodied nature of the arts is exceedingly good as an extension of God’s delight in the physical world he made.”
- “We affirm the goodness of the human body, established in creation and upheld in Jesus’ incarnation and resurrection, and therefore the place of the naked human figure within artistic tradition and practice when treated with honor and respect.”
- “We affirm the ability of the arts to help us grapple with the brokenness of the world and the gravity of sin, and we commit to avoiding the opposite errors of sentimentality and gratuitousness.”
- “We affirm the integral role of the arts in the process of education, discipleship, and mission by virtue of the arts’ ability to engage the whole person and the whole church with the whole gospel. As such, we lament that the Church has often viewed the arts as playing a mere decorative or illustrative function.
- “We affirm the educational value of the arts while also affirming that the arts should not be reduced to their instructional function. While an artwork can communicate a powerful message, that message often remains allusive and multivalent, and art offers much more than propositional content.”
- “We affirm the role of artistic portrayals of God, particularly the Word who became flesh, not as objects of worship as prohibited by the second commandment (Exodus 20:4-6), but as aids for deepening our devotion to the God who is beyond our capacity to imagine.”
I have been a beneficiary of the program, having attended some of its events, and am thrilled to see it growing—they recently announced an online, six-course Graduate Certificate in Theology and the Arts! Vander Lugt’s approach to the arts in seminary education is very well thought-out and executed. For those considering launching an art program at your church or other Christian institution, I encourage you to read these posts that provide justification for such, laying a strong biblical foundation.
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SONGS:
>> “Let It Shine,” performed by Davóne Tines and The Truth: Blending music and testimony, REVIVAL is an interactive concert experience created by the acclaimed bass-baritone Davóne Tines and his ensemble, The Truth, which debuted May 25, 2026, at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. “Centered on themes of memory, community, and spiritual renewal, REVIVAL invited audiences to consider the question, ‘What needs to be revived in us?’ Through music, spoken reflection, and collective participation, the performance drew upon the traditions of the AME Church and the revival service to create a shared experience of contemplation, remembrance, and hope.” “Let It Shine” [previously] was the concluding song—a powerful expression of resilience, faith, and communal witness.
REVIVAL was presented by the Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts in partnership with Spoleto Festival USA.
>> “Bloom Before the Lord Forever” by Conner David McCain, performed by the Choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, dir. Peter Latona: The lyrics of this a cappella choral piece are primarily from the Song of Songs (2:1, 11–13; 4:1). The title line, which appears in the Sanctorale Catholicum (Book of Saints) in reference to Wiborada of St. Gall, echoes the garden imagery of the Song of Songs as well as Psalm 92:12: “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”
I am the flower of the field.
I am the lily of the valley.For winter is now past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers have appeared in our land,
the time for pruning is come.
Arise, my love, my beautiful one.Bloom before the Lord forever.
You are beautiful, O my love,
my heart, my lily of the valley.
The composer told me “Bloom Before the Lord Forever” was the first work he completed after the birth of his first child, Lily, in February 2023. The title line, he said, “sums up what I want the piece to be: a prayer that my daughter may bloom before the Lord for all time.” As for the other lines: In the Song of Songs, they are spoken between two lovers, but the church has also long interpreted them as voicing the passionate desire between God and the human soul, or Christ and his church. Knowing that McCain set this poetry to music with his newborn daughter in mind, who shares her name with the flower of lines 2 and 10, I now also hear the piece as an expression of an earthly parent’s love and blessing for their beautiful little girl, wishing her a life of flourishing.
Purchase the score at https://www.connermccain.com/product-page/bloom-before-the-lord-forever.
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LECTURES:
Run by St. Philip the Deacon Lutheran Church in Plymouth, Minnesota, since 2003, “the Faith & Life Lecture Series exists to create welcoming and accessible public forums for members of the Twin Cities community to hear nationally known speakers reflect on how Christian faith is related to different dimensions of everyday life.” The talks—five per year—are always free public events, and most are video-recorded (browse their YouTube page). Here are two from last season that I especially enjoyed and that relate to the work of Art & Theology:
>> “Faith and Imagination: Art for the Soul” by Lanta Davis, October 9, 2025: Lanta Davis [previously] is a professor of humanities and literature at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana. Here she discusses ways that historically, Christians have trained their imaginations: (1) merging story and image in designing their spaces (catacombs, house churches, cathedrals, chapels, baptisteries), (2) using art to help us see the stories of scripture as alive and unfolding, and from new perspectives (e.g., Daniel in the lions’ den, Bathsheba at her bath, the near-sacrifice of Isaac, the Annunciation, the Crucifixion), and (3) making abstract theological concepts and virtues, such as hope, visible (e.g., through allegory). The Q&A starts at 52:25.
>> “Faith and Illustration: The Art of Visual Storytelling” by John Hendrix, November 13, 2025: The New York Times best-selling illustrator and author John Hendrix presents an overview of his creative work and the bigger ideas behind it, from the comics and board games he made in high school to his most recent graphic novel, The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. He also shares samples from his children’s books, his client work (for, e.g., National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Christianity Today) and reportage, and his sermon sketchbook—and about being invited by Disney to draw a Star Wars “memory wall” using attendee input at a D23 convention! I enjoyed learning more about what a career in illustration could look like. During the Q&A, which starts at 53:38, Hendrix is asked, among other things, how he knows which ideas are worth investing time in, what he’s currently working on (a project I’m excited about!), and which artists inspire him.
Art & Theology 
