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EVANGELIZING FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF BEAUTYJoanmarie Smith aa Methodist Theological School in Ohio , 3081 Columbus Pike, Delaware, OH 43015Published online: 10 Jul 2006.

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EVANGELIZING FROM THE PERSPECTIVEOF BEAUTY

Joanmarie Smith

Methodist Theological School in Ohio3081 Columbus PikeDelaware, OH 43015

This article offers Christians a way to reconcile their apprecia-tion for the diversity of spiritual traditions with the biblical in-junction to spread the Good News throughout the world.

Introduction

In its Guidelines for Dialogue, the World Council of Churchesassures its partners in dialogue that it comes "not as manipulatorsbut as fellow pilgrims."1 Questions not answers are to be the sub-ject of the conversations. Some evangelical denominations,however, have another view of dialogue. "In true dialogue, weseek both to disclose the inadequacies and falsities of non-Christian religions and to demonstrate the adequacy and truth,the absoluteness and finality of the Lord Jesus Christ."2

In these two views of dialogue we find the nub of currentdisagreements among missioners. It hinges on the truth claims ofChristianity, especially those that claim a radical uniqueness inChristianity and the finality of Christ. Leslie Newbigin, a re-vered missionary, puts one side of the debate succinctly:

"How and where is God's purpose for the whole of creation and thehuman family made visible and credible?" That is the question about

1 Guidelines on Dialogue (Geneva: World CouncU of Churches, 1982), no. 11.2 John Stott, "Dialogue, Encounter even Confrontation," in Faith Meets Faith: Mis-

sion Trends No. 5, Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stransky, eds. (New York: PaulistPress, 1981), 168.

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the truth — objective truth — which is true whether or not it coincideswith my "values." And I know of no other place in the public historyof the world where the dark mystery of human life is illuminated, andthe dark power of all that denies human well-being is met and mea-sured and mastered, except in those events that have their focus inwhat happened "under Pontius Pilate."3

The title of a collection of essays reflects the position of thosewho hold a diametrically opposed view: The Myth of a ChristianUniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions. The au-thors explore the ramifications of "a move away from insistenceon the superiority or finality of Christ and Christianity toward arecognition of the independent validity of other ways."4

Others offer different explanations of the explicit claims ofuniqueness and finality found in the scriptures and tradition.One is the paradoxical universality of that claim.5 The sense ofchosenness, of uniqueness, can be found among all peoples. Theword Bantu, for example, means human. Anyone not Bantu wasnot human. The earliest Europeans in North America consideredthemselves to be chosen people in a promised land. As the worldshrinks, as chosen people keep meeting other chosen people, theclaim becomes hollow.

Another explanation holds that the Graeco-Roman empire'sview of itself as universal and containing the one true humanisticculture may have contributed directly to that claim in scriptureand tradition.6 Yet another explanation of the exclusivist languageof scripture is that it is the rhetoric of love. "It is the sort of lan-guage a husband uses when he tells his wife that she is the most

3 Leslie Newbigin, "Religious Pluralism and the Uniqueness of Jesus Christ," Interna-tional Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 13, No. 2 (April, 1989), 54.

4 Paul Knitter, Preface to The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Towards a PluralisticTheology of Religions, John Hick and Paul Knitter, eds. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,1987), viii. It is interesting to note this conference also included critics of the positiontaken in the published papers (John Cobb, Schubert Ogden, David Tracy) who felt thatthe pluralist move is either "unwarranted, unnecessary or ill-timed." Ibid.

5 Walter Buhlmann, Courage Church, trans. Mary Smith (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1978), 82.Gabriel Moran helpfully explores the paradox of uniqueness: "Anything can be con-ceived in two ways: (A) as a thing that excluded other things in its exclusive possession ofspace and time; or (B) as a thing that exists only because of the web of relationships thatconstitute its life." "Is the Holocaust Unique?" Journal of Ecumenical Studies Vol. 26,No. 1, 211-216. See also his Uniqueness, forthcoming.

6 Rosemary Radford Ruether, "Feminism and Jewish-Christian Dialogue," in TheMyth of Christian Uniqueness," 138.

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beautiful woman in the world or when a wife tells her husbandthat he is the only one for her."7

Whether one embraces Newbigin's position (Christianity isthe one true religion) or that of the authors of The Myth of Chris-tian Uniqueness (there are many true religions, or another ver-sion, there is one religion which takes many "true" forms), onemust simultaneously embrace an essentially Platonic notion oftruth, which I maintain is no longer tenable. There is another ap-proach, however, which restores the centrality of evangelizing(proclaiming the faith as opposed to propagating it)8 withoutdeemphasizing preparations for the kingdom, witness, or dia-logue. I believe that studying the missionary commission (ourcommission) to evangelize from the perspective of beauty caninform the quality and depth of our commitment.

Evangelizing from the Perspective of Beauty

Evangel literally means "good news" as, of course, does gospel,its English translation. This very designation lends itself more tobeauty than to truth. The refrain that accompanies the first crea-tion story, "And God saw how good it was," and concludes theaccount, "And God saw everything that had been made, and be-hold, it was very good!" (Gen. 1), refers to a "good" which is aes-thetic, not moral. There are not good or evil skies or moons orfish. It must be the good that means beauty. Then, "Behold itwas very good" could be translated, "And God said, 'Ahh!'" Al-though the Good News of the gospel has obvious moral and,therefore, political dimensions, an aesthetic approach to thesedoes not compromise these dimensions.

Yet, a number of reservations surface at the prospect of con-sidering religious traditions from the perspective of beauty ratherthan truth. First there is the obvious argument: it is only reallygood news if it is true. But the awesome — and even awful —

7 Robert B. Sheard, "Interreligious Dialogue in the Catholic Church Since Vatican II,"Toronto Studies in Theology, Vol. 31 (Lewiston/Queenston: Edwin Mellon Press, 1987),305.

• "Today, implantation of the church as a primary task of mission has been sup-planted largely by other tasks because of the presence of the church in nearly all parts ofthe world, an experience that opens up new insights [as noted earlier] about what consti-tutes mission." Mary Motte, F.M.M. A Critical Examination of Mission Today, ResearchProject Report, Phase One (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Mission Associa-tion, 1987), 17.

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claims of the Christian tradition are acquiring credibility. Theyare proving their trustworthiness through time. Only at the escha-ton will we know that in fact they correspond to reality. As Wil-liam James says, "There are no conclusions. For what hasconcluded that we may conclude about it?" Moreover, the truthin either the correspondence or the dependable theories is not in-trinsically desirable. It may always be useful, but we can sympa-thize with someone who says, "I do not want to know the truth; itis too painful." Since beauty is always life-enhancing, it would beharder to conceive of someone saying, "I don't want to see thebeautiful." Truth is instrumental; beauty is consummatory. Weuse truth, but we rest in beauty. Beauty is a form of the good; it isthe good perceived. To put it in a Thomistic context: Beauty is toknowing what the good is to desire.9

That beauty does not, at first glance, have the energizingpower of truth and falsity might be another reservation. I am in-clined to say that is not so bad. The atrocities committed in thename of religious or political truth make me think that we arewell rid of that energy. On the other hand, the discipline, evendeprivation, to which artists submit in their pursuit of beauty isaxiomatic. Perhaps more to the strain of our discussion is the rec-ord that a whiff of beauty has launched innumerable scientistson the scent of a theory or project that consumed years of theirenergy — often in the face of disconfirming evidence. Diracwrote, "It is more important to have beauty in one's equationsthan to have them fit the experiment."10 Not that scientists aredisinterested in the "fit." Rather, as one commentator concluded:

These scientists express essentially the faith that what the mind per-ceives as beautiful finds its realization in nature, that is, the beauty ofa scientific theory implies its truth. [And in fact] Theories which theycreated on what were considered primarily aesthetic grounds werelater confirmed experimentally.11

That beauty is purely subjective is a classic reservation. "Inthe eye of the beholder," we say, the implication being only inthat beholder's eye. Beauty like that other great place-holder in

9 Summa Theologica Ml, q.27, a.l, ad 3.10 Cited in Gideo Engler, "Aesthetics in Science and Art," British Journal of Aesthet-

ics, Vol. 30, No. 1 (January, 1990), 24.11 Ibid.

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our language, love, seems to frustrate our attempts to define it ina way which secures general agreement. As a result, the conceptof beauty has been neglected in our century where we wouldexpect to see it — in aesthetic theory. In the major indexes, mostof the citations under the subject of beauty have to do with cos-metology. I am indebted, therefore, in this section to the work ofMary Mothersill, a philosophy professor at Barnard College, par-ticularly as found in her aptly named Beauty Restored.121 wouldlike to back into a more extended discussion of beauty, however,by first exploring an analogy for religious traditions.

An Analogy for Religious Traditions

Let us think of a religious tradition like the score of a master-piece as well as the musicians who perform the music, interpret-ing and playing the score. What they make possible is our experi-ence of the music. It is the music that is beautiful, the music welove. We may cherish the composer, appreciate the musicianshipof the performers, acknowledge that both the score and perfor-mance are the conditions of experiencing the music, but it is stillthe music whose beauty arrests us.

As with all analogies, there are limits to how far this one cantake us.13 A musical masterpiece is, after all, not a religious tradi-tion. Yet, similarities present themselves. For example, all reli-gious traditions exist to put us in touch with God. It is the realityof God in which we are called to revel, not the tradition. The"Good News," therefore, is the God whom we touch or, better,who touches us in the Christian tradition. The tradition is consti-tuted by the score (scriptures, creeds, and rituals) performed bydifferent peoples with different interpretations for more than2,000 years.

I will not explore every aspect of the analogy, as fruitful asthat might be. I will confine myself to those aspects which ad-dress some current issues of mission, hoping to provide a freshand effective perspective on our own commitment as Christians.

12 Mary Mothersill, Beauty Restored (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).13 In The Analogical Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1981), David Tracy offers a

criterion for good theological use of analogy: "the ability to preserve the tension of theoriginal symbolic language within clarity of the concept." 439. Idem Pluralism and Am-biguity (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), 20-21.

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First, what should the musician (the missionary) do? Performthe score, of course. The notations of a musical score may notkill, but they are certainly lifeless. They exist to be performed.

The analogy speaks to the issue of relativism. Not every in-terpretation of the score or every performance is uniformly ad-mirable. Interpretations that wander too far from the originalscore court criticism from the musically informed; the grossly ill-performed is often recognized even by non-musicians. Yet, novelarrangements, or the use of new or different instruments, canjoin the canon of good performances over time. The point is thatthere are standards of interpretation and criteria for performancethat proscribe "anything goes." But they do not rule out thenovel, or an agreement upon new standards and criteria that thenovel frequently generates.

The analogy of religious traditions with performed master-pieces illuminates the issue of dialogue in mission. What musi-cian worthy of the name is not open to hearing the beauty ofother masterpieces or other interpretations of familiar works? Intheory at least, musicians are open to critiques of their perfor-mances as well as critiques of their judgment about a master-piece. Yet, their very familiarity with and practiced performanceof a beloved masterpiece is what can engage another to see thebeauty they see, to hear the beauty they hear — perhaps to rec-ognize it as a masterpiece. The other may recognize that factthough never contract to perform the piece.

The analogy of the performed masterpiece also sheds somelight on denominational affiliation and the issue of transcendingcultures. One can treasure a particular masterpiece, and a par-ticular interpretation and performance of that masterpiece forall kinds of personal reasons, which are no less providential forbeing personal. We are born into a particular time and place withits culture and its variations on our block and in our house. Thatfact both discovers and conceals the world to us. It conditionswhat foods we will enjoy, how we will be educated, whom wewill marry, even if we will marry. The conventions of a cultureshape what we will find agreeable and disagreeable, what wewill pursue, and what we will not notice or, having noticed, dis-miss out of hand.

So, musicians are more likely to treasure a masterpiece fromtheir own culture. They are pre-disposed, as it were, to discernbeauty there. As they grow in their knowledge of music and in-

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crease their skill in performing a masterpiece, they will continueto get fresh insights into its unique beauty if it can bear that sus-tained familiarity. If it cannot, they may look to another master-piece for experience of the sublime.

There is no doubt that we are culturally conditioned to reso-nate to certain chords, certain kinds of melodies. But perhaps wemake too much of that conditioning. If our cultures distinguishus, even separate us, our common humanity defines and con-nects us. If we eat different foods, we all have to eat; and we allneed the same nutrients to sustain us, no matter their form. If weall have different languages, we all have languages. If we allhave different wedding customs, we all marry. And we all makemusic. And we all have gods — or at least ultimate concerns.Cultural oppression exists where we try to make people taketheir nutrients in our form, speak our language, use our marriagecustoms, dance to our rhythms. We, in the North Atlantic com-munity moving toward the third millenium of the Common Era,sometimes forget that the notes that constitute the motif of ourmasterpiece come from an old Middle Eastern tribal melody. Itsadaptability into thousands of languages and cultures stems fromthe fact that it strikes notes common to the human condition:birth, death, life after death, love, and God. Is beauty anothercommon note?

Beauty

Let us consider beauty as an aesthetic quality whose apprehen-sion in itself causes pleasure and inspires love.141 will examineeach of these elements in turn, beginning with aesthetic quality.

John Dewey has mapped the nature of quality in a helpfulway. For him, the notion of quality is identical with aestheticquality.

Quality is the affectional and emotional hue that pervades an expe-rience making it this experience. In what is.termed a situation, an im-mediate quality pervades everything that enters into that situation. Ifthe situation is that of being lost in a forest, the quality of being lostpermeates and affects every detail that is observed and thought of.The "parts" are such only qualititatively.15

14 This is an adaptation of Mary Mothersill's descriptions of beauty. She in turn adaptsthe works of Aquinas, Kant and Arnold Isenberg in constructing her descriptions.

15 John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (New York: Henry Holt, 1938), 128-129.

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We are more used to the term referring to the arts. We speakof a musical piece as being Brahmsian or of the Titian quality ofa painting. Dewey again:

The word thus used certainly does not refer to any particular line,color or part of the painting. It is something that affects and modifiesall the constituents of the picture and all of their relations. It is not any-thing that can be expressed in words for it is something that must behad.18

Mothersill describes apprehension as a "cognitive success,"17

an accurate grasp of an object — as opposed to a misapprehen-sion. "Sufficient acquaintance"18 is another description for ap-prehension. But "in itself" is the essential note. Apprehension ofsomething as beautiful may include many elements that causepleasure and inspire love — the poem was dedicated to me, mybest friend is conducting the symphony. But, when apprehensionitself pleases, anyone apprehending the object can expect to bedelighted. It is beautiful.

The pleasure derived from the apprehension of beauty ismarked by intensity, duration, and fecundity. The intensity ofdelight or force of pleasure endures extended and extensive ap-prehension of the subject (person, poem, or God). Moreover,such apprehension fosters creative activity. "We know a man fora poet," says Mothersill quoting Coleridge, "from the fact hemakes us poets."19

Finally, and wonderfully, beauty inspires love of what is ap-prehended as distinct from the pleasure of apprehending. Inother words, this intense, enduring, and fecund pleasure is thesignal that we are in the presence of beauty; but it is that which isbeautiful we love, not the signal of its presence.

This last aspect gives us another point of entry into the dis-cussion. When we speak of a beautiful person, as distinct from abeautiful-looking person, we are referring to some quality thatpervades her or his being. Were we asked why we make thisclaim, we might describe a variety of actions that indicate care;words that are consoling, wise, challenging; attitudes of healthy

16 Ibid., 70.17 Mothersill, op. cit., 324.18 Ibid., 332-335.18 Ibid., 380.

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self-depreciation. Yet no one of these descriptions or their ag-gregate captures the quality, because beauty is the way the per-son is; it is an adverb that modifies the person's be-ing in theworld.

We simultaneously imply in our claim that continued acquain-tance with this person will only foster the conviction of beauty.We also imply existence is enhanced by knowing this person. Weare saying, in effect, "This person is lovable." To know (appre-hend) this person is to love him or her — apart from anythinggratifying that the person does for us. (A peculiar feature of theGood News God is that this God finds us intrinsically beautiful.We are loved unconditionally, loved apart from anything we door say.)

There may not be a word for beauty in every language, butcertainly there are experiences the qualities of which please inthemselves apart from every other consideration, a pleasurewhich endures extended apprehension and fosters creative activ-ity. Unfortunately, there are those whose intense pain, whetherof hunger, oppression, or personal tragedy, drastically constrictstheir capacity for this kind of pleasure. In our mission, they areour priority. If, as the World Council insists, "Everyone is en-titled to hear the Good News,"20 they are first entitled to the ca-pacity to hear it. Moreover, everything in the score dictates thatpriority.21

The point of the discussion so far has been to make a case forevangelizing, not only as dialogue but as proclaiming the GoodNews, the God revealed in the Christian tradition. For that, thedefinition of beauty may not seem helpful. Quality by definitionis ineffable; God by definition is ungraspable.

Although quality cannot be expressed in words, it can be al-luded to in ways that help others to experience it similarly. Goodart critics are those who have mastered that power of allusion.They say things like, "Look at the grace of that line." "See howthat color expresses the peace of the scene." They hope by theirwords, by their directions for perceiving, to enable us to see the

20 "Mission and Evangelism," No. 10.21 The Third International Synod of Bishops stated "Action on behalf of justice and

participation fully appears to us as constitutive of the gosepl and of the Church's missionfor the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppression." Justicein the World (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 1972), 34. Italics mine.

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beauty they see. Mothersill says that "critical exposition is an artakin to pedagogy and, like pedagogy, takes training, practice,concentration and skill."22 So does evangelism.

Another way of evoking the recognition of quality that evan-gelists might consider is the flip side of consciousness-raising. Inconsciousness-raising, by means of conversation, exposure toprogrammed experiences, and the study of history, people aremade aware of the pervasive quality of oppression in their livesdue to racism, sexism, or classism — sometimes all three. Similarmethods might be used to make people aware of the beauty ofGod in their lives.23

But if God is ungraspable, the question of method is moot.God is ungraspable, of course, if graspable means holding some-thing over which we can close our mind. Very little in life isgraspable in this way. And whatever is, is boring by reason ofthat fact. The theologian Frank Sheed was wont to say that mys-tery is not something about which we can know nothing butsomething about which we can never know everything. The Di-vine Mystery promises an inexhaustable source of delight, aBeauty ever ancient, ever new.

From another perspective, the God of the Good News isuniquely graspable. This God is God-with-us. The Incarnationreveals that our planetary "stuff" is drenched with Deity. TheEucharist is not an exception to the rest of reality, but a clue to it.The score tells us that we grasp God when we grasp anyone.This very graspability reinforces the priority of mission as theovercoming of injustice. The passion and death of Jesus convinc-es us that anyone's passion is God's pain, that God's Beloved iscrucified by any injustice. But justice is not simply the absenceof injustice. We are commissioned not only to eliminate injusticebut to establish justice. Matthew Fox artfully defines justice as"the structured struggle to share the pleasure of God's goodearth."24 Evangelism is the structured struggle to share the plea-

22 Mothersill, op. cit, 167.23 John F. Haught, What is God (New York: Paulist, 1986), 71-82. Haught has a section

on God as Beauty. While he does not use the expression "Consciousness raising/'.his sug-gestions lend themselves to that analogy.

2< Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion and the Healing of the Global Vil-lage and Us (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1979), vi.

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sure of the good earth's God. Evangelizing still makes wonderfulsense in an age of pluralism.

Joanmarie Smith, C.S.J. is the William A. Chryst Professor of Pastoral The-ology at Methodist Theological School in Ohio.

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