by Michael Winters
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” - Philippians 4:8, NIV
In my early years of arts ministry, when I came to this verse and tried to reconcile it with my interest in art, I felt inner conflict. Now, I think I get it.
In those earlier days, Philippians 4:8 suggested to me the imagery of the Christian book store I visited in the 90’s. It was located on Shelbyville Rd. in St. Matthews, around the corner from Lazer Blaze. When you walked from the hard landscape of asphalt and concrete through the front doors of the Christian book store you entered a soft space with wall-to-wall carpet and golden fixtures holding small sculptural lighthouses and etched glass plaques with images of praying hands. The artworks they had available for sale, if not prints of actual Thomas Kinkade paintings, were in the same genre.
“The Light of Peace” by Thomas Kinkade
I passed through this Christian kitsch to visit a back corner of the store where they kept items of a very different aesthetic sensibility. I was there to see which Christian punk and hardcore albums they had in stock. Here, I bought No Innocent Victim’s Strength on tape and later Strongarm’s Advent of a Miracle on CD, which I would still argue is a fantastic album.
The front of the store felt overly interested in a surface-level loveliness that felt dishonest to me. It didn’t account for the difficulties of life on planet earth. The Christian visual culture there felt dismissive of reality. But in the “alternative” music I found in the back corner of the store, a radical aesthetic spoke to me of the radical lifestyle Jesus lived and taught. It felt “real” to me, but I wouldn’t have said the music was “lovely” or “pure”, and my mom certainly didn’t think so. So, again, what to do with Philippians 4:8?
It’s worth noting that Paul wrote Philippians while on house arrest in Rome. He’d come through a series of serious hardships and now was in chains and with few friends nearby. It would have been easy for him to grumble and complain, to think depressing thoughts, but in chapter two he writes, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’” Again, there’s a push from Paul toward the good. Don’t get dragged down with complaining. He admits the context is warped and crooked, but he doesn’t want his readers to think crookedly. Despite hardship and hard truths, think about what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.
"Stacking the de-limbed trunks of an immature ’harvest,’ Columbia County, Oregon," from Turning Back by Robert Adams
More than anything else, one quote from the photographer Robert Adams really helped me reconcile a reality-based aesthetic with Paul’s admonition. In Why People Photograph, Adams says what we’re all trying to do is “affirm life without lying about it.” For whatever reason, this declaration unlocked the division in me that kept loveliness separate from truth. In my arts education, serious art was truthful and often ugly. Loveliness was suspect. After reading Adams and paying attention to his photographs, somehow I was able to shift my taste to greatly appreciate the lovely, as long as it was honest.
Now, for me, Philippians 4:8 no longer conjures up images of baby-faced angels in my mind. Instead, it encompasses a broad range of thinking. The values I hear now in this verse align with a pursuit of justice and beauty I unapologetically seek. Maybe my tastes are becoming more traditional as I get further from my youth, but I know it’s more than that. I think the years of Christian spiritual formation are changing my tastes. I still recoil from any art that purposefully bypasses reality. I’m also no longer attracted to art that’s all harsh “truth.” I now long for art that is aiming to reveal true loveliness and righteous excellence.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” - Philippians 4:8, NIV