The Beautiful and the Grotesque

How do we value beauty? What does our evaluation of beauty tell us about nature of reality? And can we find beauty in the seemingly grotesque? The evaluation of beauty led Charles Dickens to eviscerate what was then a new art movement, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The conventions of what beauty constituted had stagnated into rote forms, so said the small band of English artists who looked back on the early Renaissance masters — figures such as Leonardo, Brunelleschi and Michelangelo — as their inspiration. The humanistic impulse of the Pre-Raphaelites matched that of the early Renaissance painters, meaning there was a penchant for emotional expressionism and an attention to realistic detail. For Dickens, the break from accepted norms was too much to bear, something he calls “the lowest depths of what is mean, odious, repulsive, and revolting” (Charles Dickens, “Old Lamps for New Ones,” Household Words 12 (1850), 12).

Consider how Dickens describes one particular painting:

“You behold the interior of a carpenter’s shop. In the foreground of that carpenter’s shop is a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed-gown, who appears to have received a poke in the hand, from the stick of another boy with whom he has been playing in an adjacent gutter, and to be holding it up for the contemplation of a kneeling woman, so horrible in her ugliness, that (supposing it were possible for any human creature to exist for a moment with that dislocated throat) she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest ginshop in England. Two almost naked carpenters, master and journeyman, worthy companions of this agreeable female, are working at their trade; a boy, with some small flavor of humanity in him, is entering with a vessel of water; and nobody is paying any attention to a snuffy old woman who seems to have mistaken that shop for the tobacconist’s next door, and to be hopelessly waiting at the counter to be served with half an ounce of her favourite mixture. Wherever it is possible to express ugliness of feature, limb, or attitude, you have it expressed. Such men as the carpenters might be undressed in any hospital where dirty drunkards, in a high state of varicose veins, are received. Their very toes have walked out of Saint Giles’s.”

Charles Dickens, “Old Lamps for New Ones,” Household Words 12 (1850), 12-13

Now Dickens is known for his censure of industrial society, searching through the gritty streets of London for stories of genuine humanity. He can tend to exaggerate certain details and is given to biting sarcasm. So what shall we make of this particular painting he highlights for contempt? Christ in the House of His Parents by John Everett Millais was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850, where Dickens first set eyes on the painting. In fact, it was Dickens’s scathing review that put the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood on the map. Queen Victoria herself, in response to Dickens, requested a private viewing of the painting at Buckingham Palace. I can’t help but be reminded of Pope’s lines in “An Essay on Criticism:”

“But you who seek to give and merit fame,

And justly bear a critic’s noble name,

Be sure your self and your own reach to know,

How far your genius, taste, and learning go;

Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,

And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.”

Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism”

The Millais, looked at afresh, has many qualities worthy of our consideration. Perhaps Dickens was too hasty in his judgment. (In fact time has been on the side of Millais.) The Christ figure, central in the painting, is garbed in all white. He holds up a hand that has been pierced. Why know not by what, but with the many sharp object and fragments of wood around the shop, one can only imagine cuts and nicks occur frequently in this space. Mary kneels down to kiss Jesus on the cheek, but it is hard to know whether the mother is comforting the child or the child comforting the mother, such is the ambiguous arrangement of their faces. The four figures encircling the scene of mother and child are all in some state of bowing. True, they are all bent over their work, but note how their eye lines all focus on the Christ child. The scene is unified by the earthy tones of the wood throughout the shop. The work bench, the door frame, and the lumber set aside is all rough. The bare feet of all the figures brush up against the wood shavings from the carpenter planing the wood upon his bench.

There is a rustic beauty in this scene. It is not the stylized beauty of aristocratic portraiture. Instead, we have a view into the domestic life of a carpentry shop. The real beauty comes in part from the masterful realism of Millais, but also in part from the theological insight Millais provides. Beginning with the cut on Jesus’ hand, we are reminded that this child’s journey will lead to pierced hands and feet. That same journey will see him bear the rough wood of the cross to the hill called Golgotha, the same kind of wood scattered around this carpentry shop. The wood and nails in the carpentry shop foretell the crucifixion of Christ. Outside the door of the shop, one sees two more theological reflections. One item is the rose bush beginning to bloom, which anticipates the crown of thorns. The other is pasture full of sheep, a reminder of the lamb who was slain.

Millais has provided a theological paradigm that enables us to consider the grotesque as something beautiful. The cross of wood is the epitome of the grotesque, being a torture device. Today we wear beautiful crosses around our necks. But this painting reminds us that there is pain, suffering and sadness associated with the cross. We would not be inclined to embrace a heavy beam of rough wood whose splinters would get under our skin. And yet that is exactly the call, to embrace the cross and follow him. A profound kind of beauty is found in the grotesque as we embrace that which the means of our salvation.

Cruciform Christianity

Western Christianity, particularly in its North American iteration, has at times tended toward the triumphalistic. We live in light of the resurrection. We anticipate our future glory. We emphasize the “already” of God’s heavenly kingdom more than the “not yet.” This creates a framework for our perspectives on economics, politics and culture. I am mindful, though, of the centrality of the cross and the alternative perspective this brings.

Paul embraced the cross wholeheartedly. He writes to the Galatians, “far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). Is Paul triumphalistic? Yes. But his boasting centers on the cross, which gives a very different kind of framework for viewing the world. How much would our perspectives on economics, politics and culture change if we were to view the world as dead to us and us dead to the world? Morbid, yes. And yet there is a beauty, profound and invigoration, that opens to us through this perspective.

Despite generations of dispute over the nature of the atonement, Evangelicals of the past few centuries have largely agreed that the cross is central to our Christian faith. David Bebbington in his work Evangelicalism in Modern Britain spells out the lines of dispute and debate:

Learn more about Christian worldview training in the article Educating for a Christian Worldview in a Secular Age

“The Evangelical ranks were riven in the eighteenth century by controversy between Methodists, who were Arminians, and most others, who were Calvinists. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, this debate was dying down. Most Evangelicals were content to adopt a ‘moderate Calvinism’ that in terms of practical pulpit instruction differed only slightly from the Methodist version of Arminianism.”

David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 16.

I think this assessment of British Evangelicalism holds true broadly for North America as well, inasmuch as we have seen the rise of reformed Baptists and the like over the past few decades. What I find interesting about this historical perspective is that the cross itself is the point of commonality in different theological systems. It is where we come together in our Christian faith. By embracing the cross we draw closer together to one another.

Much of the dispute and debate of our current moment in the West has little to do with theology as we see the pull of politics sweeping into matters of faith. It could be that in a post-Christian society, politics becomes the new religion, which means that we must be ever vigilant to keep the realms of politics and faith separate. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Here is where I think embracing the cross offers a solution to the hostile divide we have experienced in society. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). How much impact could we have on society if this were our fundamental orientation? In the face of identity politics, we become the people who lay down our identity to embrace the cross and follow Jesus. For Christ to be our identity, though, is not an easy road. We are reminded of the raw lumber, full of splinters, that must be carried daily.

The Cross and the Good Life

Embracing the cross implies the loss of our lives. But the deeper truth – what we might call the “deeper magic” in the vein of Narnia – is that embracing the cross leads to a life of flourishing. Last year I reviewed Jonathan Pennington’s book Jesus the Great Philosopher in which he compares Christian philosophy to alternative philosophical traditions, including Stoicism. I admit that Stoicism has its attractions. Yet all the attractions of Stoicism have their analogue in Christianity. In addition, Christianity answers the problem of sin through the cross of Christ. The Stoic works to have a dignified death, whereas the Christian dies to self to have a right relationship with God. On the difference between Stoicism and Christianity, Pennington writes:

“But I believe there is a philosophy of the emotional life that is more comprehensive and effective than even the best of Stoicism – the Christian philosophy. And beyond practicality, the Christian philosophy also has the distinct advantage of being true – rooted in the historical and theological reality of the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. It is a philosophy for the whole of life rooted in a metaphysic more comprehensive than Stoicism.”

Jonathan Pennington, Jesus the Great Philosopher, 122-123.

Emotions are a significant part of life. Pennington’s claim is that whereas Stoicism promotes detachment from emotions, Christianity views emotions as controllable. His view is that Christianity as a life philosophy “recommends a measured and intentional detachment from the world and its circumstances for the sake of living a tranquil life” (114). To put it another way, our emotions are plugged into a higher reality and in this framework emotions are good and valuable. This higher reality is connected to the cross. To embrace the cross is to direct our passions toward something visceral that is both tragic and triumphant at the same time.

One of the mantras of the Stoic philosophy is memento mori. It means “remember that you will die.” The Stoic takes on a mindset that life is short and meaning is derived from fully embracing the present moment. There is real power in this kind of mindset because it snaps into focus what is meaningful from what is trivial. However, a more profound mantra for the Christian comes from Paul: memento mortui. True, this is a bit manufactured from the Vulgate. In Colossians Paul exhorts his audience to “set their minds on things above, not on things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2). Then he reminds his congregation that “you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:3). The Vulgate translates the Greek (ἀπεθάνετε γὰρ) with mortui enim estis, both meaning “for you have died.” As Christians, our philosophy is not based on a view of our own future death, but a remembrance of our death with Christ on the cross followed by our new life in Christ in the resurrection. Thus, our mantra can truly be memento mortui, “remember you have died.” Being hidden in Christ takes us to Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” When we embrace the cross of Christ, making it our own, we follow in the footsteps of Christ in the ways that Paul advises the churches under his care.

The Beauty of the Cross

There are many ways in which the cross, a tool of torture, is beautiful to those who embrace it. To begin with, the cross is the place where our atonement was accomplished. Repeatedly Jesus told his disciples that he would be delivered up, killed and then rise again in three days (Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:33 and parallels). His life and teachings were crucially oriented toward this objective, to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins. There is something beautiful in the act of sacrifice, especially as the crucifixion of Christ is the most profound expression of God’s love for us.

I find in the cross another aspect of beauty, which is intermingled with the grotesque: the mortification of the flesh. We are called as followers of Christ to “put to death the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13) such as immorality, evil desires, covetousness, etc. (Col. 3:5). The cross is emblematic of this, with Christ laying down his life and inviting us to follow him in this manner. If we are to be his disciples, we are to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him (Matt. 16:24). There is something freeing in this radical discipleship. We confront the worst parts of ourselves and in so doing we see ourselves transformed into the image of Christ.

Read more about discipleship in the article, Christ Our Habitation.

Finally, the beauty of the cross is found in they way the cross serves as a beacon to all believers. In many, and perhaps most, of our churches, there is a cross raised up usually at a focal point such as the altar. The act of entering church moves us closer to the cross. I am reminded of the hymn Lift High the Cross, which speaks about how the Lord, “once lifted on the glorious Tree, As Thou hast promised, draw men unto Thee.” The cross becomes the gathering point for believers. When we embrace the cross, we share in an ingathering of the saved, in the knowledge that this splintered wood is where our sins were forgiven.

In a sense, Dickens was correct to comment upon the grotesque in Millais’s painting of the boy Jesus in carpenter’s workshop. Yet, beauty is often intermingled with the grotesque. The Millais shows us this dichotomy and in this way serves as an apt meditation on the very tactile nature of what it means for Jesus to suffer on the cross for our sins as well as for us to bear our cross daily. My hope is that during this Eastertide, we may have a renewed sense of how our embrace of the cross places us at the intersection of the grotesque and the beautiful.

The post Embrace the Cross: An Easter Vigil Homily appeared first on .

But will they? How will families adapt in such a crisis? And how will they ensure their children’s learning continues while at home, far removed from the influence of their teachers?

The Stoics, a philosophical school originating in ancient Greece, gained a place in the annals of history for their fierce resilience in moments like these. Stemming from their determinist outlook on life and commitment to holding personal affection at arms-length, they refused to let the storms of this world throw them off-kilter. Rather than viewing obstacles to their plans as indestructible barriers, they instead saw them as signposts pointing toward a new way forward. As the great Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, wrote:

“The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way” (Meditations, Book 5.20).

As inspiring as this response may be, most readers of this blog are not Stoics. But many of them are Christians. And like Stoicism, Christianity contains the conceptual apparatus to receive life’s curve balls, even crises, with peace and mental fortitude. What is more, Christians can continue to live their daily lives amidst challenging circumstances with faith (a virtue the Stoics do not share), as they trust in God’s faithfulness and sovereign will over all situations.

With this quiet but stable confidence in God Almighty, Christians need to remain focused on the present calling on each of our lives, which for parents at this time, includes the oversight of the education of their children. Whether a parent of public, private, or home school education, this article will offer both vision and encouragement for what this period of education can look like at home.

The Call of Parenting

While it may be difficult, parents should embrace the reality that supporting the continuation of their children’s learning while at home during this period is a great calling and opportunity. This calling is found in scripture, for example, when the apostle Paul instructs fathers in the Ephesian church to bring up their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4 ESV). Discipline, or training, requires dedicated effort and intentionality on the part of both parent and child. It does not come by accident. And effective instruction, the meeting of minds around wisdom and knowledge, requires the instructor “to know that which he would teach,” as educator John Milton Gregory put it in The Seven Laws of Teaching (26). Most importantly, the discipline and instruction Paul refers to is to be “of the Lord,” that is, God-centered and in line with scripture.

In Parenting: The 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family, Paul David Tripp provides some clarity for what God-centered parenting looks like in contrast to human-centered parenting. In particular, he identifies two contrasting parenting mindsets: ownership parenting and ambassadorial parenting.

Ownership parenting begins with the premise: “These children belong to me, so I can parent them in the way I see fit” (13). As Tripp observes, this tends to be the perspective most modern parents fall into. It is motivated by what parents want for their children and from their children. It is fundamentally rooted in a subtle form of selfishness. As a result, this approach tends to distort how parents think about self-identity, work, success, and reputation. Too easily, they begin to locate their self-identity and inner-sense of well-being in their children. They view their work as harnessing the power to turn their children into something, be it their own image or the image of someone else.  

Over time, their view of parenting success morphs into whatever the world deems as success. Popular options include academic achievement, athletic accomplishment, musical ability, or social likeability. Ultimately, this mindset leads parents to fuse their reputations to the “final product” of their parenting: their children become trophies. Needless to say, ownership parenting is not God-centered, biblical parenting and it will ultimately lead to frustration, disappointment, and inevitably, a relational fracturing between parent and child.

Tripp contrasts this human-centered approach of ownership parenting with the God-centered approach of ambassadorial parenting. In international relations, the purpose of an ambassador is to represent the message, methods, and character of the one who sent him (14). In the case of parenting, God has given parents the mission of disciplining and instructing his children. Tripp summarizes it well:

“Parenting is ambassadorial work from beginning to end. It is not to be shaped and directed by personal interest, personal need, or cultural perspectives. Every parent everywhere is called to recognize that they have been put on earth at a particular time and in a particular location to do one thing in the lives of their children. What is that one thing? God’s will. Here’s what it means at a street level: parenting is not first about what we want for our children or from our children, but about what God in grace has planned to do through us in our children” (15).

Parents who adopt the ambassadorial mindset of parenting can rest in the fact that they are not autonomous but instead report to a higher authority. They are therefore not obligated to create, develop, and execute a self-proposed plan for their children, but instead need simply to follow the marching orders of God as presented in scripture. I use the word “simply,” but don’t mistake simplicity with ease. Biblical parenting is far from easy. It requires rigorous training, instruction, and the pursuit of godliness.

But when parents can reach a place in which the leadership of their homes ultimately is dependent on and rooted in the grace of God, incredibly blessing is the result. It allows parents to support their children in all sorts of worthwhile pursuits and cultivation of skills, including music, sport, art, and crafts such as carpentry, from a posture of confidence in God rather than a spirit of anxiousness.

Now that I have laid out the calling for God-centered parenting, let me know turn to the topic of education, which is particularly relevant at this time when so many parents are unexpectedly finding themselves responsible for continuing their children’s education at home.

Rather than offering parents guidance on how to educate (see other articles on our website), I want to instead offer some motivation for why education continues to be so important in the modern world. It therefore is not a responsibility parents should take lightly, but instead should seize as an exciting opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of their children.

Educating for the 21st Century

In Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm of Classical Learning, authors Robert LittleJohn and Charles T. Evans remind their readers how much is at stake in equipping students to face the unique challenges they will encounter in the 21^st century (see Patrick’s Review). In particular, Littlejohn and Evans identify three major developments in the world today that engender the need for both an enriching and strategic education. They aren’t referring to developments that have merely emerged in the last few weeks, but rather, in the last several decades. These developments are important for parents to be aware of as they begin to temporarily step into the role as home educators.

The first development is an economic one. While there will always be a need for men and women to work particular trades, the majority of the workforce today can be characterized as “knowledge workers,” a term coined by management expert Peter Drucker. This sort of work calls for highly creative and adaptable individuals who are able to pick up new skills quickly and teach themselves new concepts without much guidance (11). These individuals need to be able to think on their feet and outside the box, and not be intimidated by a field of knowledge they have not yet studied. Moreover, with the unprecedented rise in technological advancement, the economy calls for not a small minority of these men and women to be fluent in the languages of math and science, computer programming and engineering (12). In other words, the need for sharp minds and piercing intellects is arguably greater than ever.

The second development in the world today which requires a unique education to face it pertains to morality. The explosion of economic progress in the West has brought with it a host of corporate scandals fueled by unrestrained greed and shameless deception (12). At the same time, traditional assumptions regarding marriage, sexual ethics and gender identity have been called into question. Over the last century, the western world has undergone various iterations of secularization, leaving its constituents to figure out for themselves which moral compass, if any, they will choose to follow. If the sociologists are right, then Gen Z, the generation of students born between 1997 and 2012, truly is the first post-Christian generation.

The third development LittleJohn and Evans identify as significant for educators to consider today is the broad philosophical movement from modernism to postmodernism. In modernism, particularly with the dawn of the Enlightenment, truth was assumed to be objective and knowable. While there was certainly debate over the most reliable source of truth (science, history, economics, psychology, or religion), it was hardly called into question whether objective truth was out there and accessible. In the present moment, however, what some cultural analysts have called postmodernism, it is no longer generally assumed that objective truth exists, much less whether it is knowable. The intellectual hubris of modernism has been replaced with an unexpected humility, though it is a humility rooted in an apathetic, insidious relativism: “You believe your truth and I’ll believe mine.”

In light of these three developments, parents need to be strategic regarding the education they choose, and in some cases provide, for their children. In particular, Christian parents who desire to equip their children to be culture makers, and not simply cultural critics, need to take seriously what tools are needed to face the unique challenges this third millennium poses. As ambassadors of God, heavenly envoys called to represent and embody his mission, parents have a real opportunity to shape the lives of their children in a God-centered direction. This opportunity begins, first and foremost, in the home.

Life Together at Home

So far in this blog, I laid out a vision for parenting from a biblical perspective and planted some seeds for thinking about the sort of education parents should seek for their children in the 21st century. Of course, for us at Educational Renaissance, this education is going to be Christian, classical education. Now I would like to close by offering a practical place for parents to start: the cultivation of Christian community in the home.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian-turned-spy during the Nazi regime, actually wrote a short treatise on the significance and contours of Christian community, called Life Together. Reflecting on his own experience in Finkenwalde, the seminary Bonhoeffer led amidst opposition to Hitler, Bonhoeffer reminds us that Christian community should never be taken for granted or perceived as human-earned. Bonhoeffer explains:

“It is easily forgotten that the community of Christians is a gift of grace from the kingdom of God, a gift that can be taken from any of us any day…. Therefore, let those who until now have had the privilege of living a Christian life together with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of their hearts. Let them thank God on their knees and realize: it is grace, nothing but grace, that we are still permitted to live in the community of Christians today.” (30)

Bonhoeffer penned these words after Finkenwalde had been finally shut down by Nazi occupation. He had experienced authentic, life-giving Christian community and now understood what it is like to live on the other side of it. Parents likewise should not take this opportunity to shape Christian community in their home for granted. While it will be difficult, no doubt, especially during this period of home isolation, it remains a channel of blessing, a vehicle through which parents and children alike can experience the goodness of God. In fact, one example of Christian community Bonhoeffer has in mind as he writes this is family life. He explains that God gives various measures of the gift of visible community and that one example is “…the privilege of living a Christian life in the community of their families” (30). 

So what does Christianity community look like for Bonhoeffer?

It is a community centered around Jesus Christ in which the Word of God rules. It is characterized by service and agape love rather than self-centered ambition. The sort of service he has in mind is simple and humble, rather than occurring in a searching, calculated fashion (38). It entails mutual submission to one another rather than the pursuit of subjugation over others. 

Ultimately, of course, it is a community of grace that is received, not earned, through Jesus Christ. As Bonhoeffer puts it,

“Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our community is in Jesus Christ alone, the more calmly we will learn to think about our community and pray and hope for it.” (38)

Of course, we must not conclude that, because community, like other elements of grace, is an unmerited gift from God, there is no injunction or personal responsibility on our part to cultivate it. The apostle Paul, who adamantly teaches that salvation is a free gift from God simultaneously enjoins the Philippian church “…to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12 ESV). It is the responsibility of each parent to lead their home into this community of grace and instruct their children how to live life together. We should not expect this to be easy. There will be conflict, acts of unkindness, and moments of selfishness that surface from time to time, every day even. But amidst these challenges, there will also be moments of forgiveness, love, joy, peace, patience, and all the fruits of the Spirit.

My prayer for families during this extended period of home isolation is that they would grow closer together as they learn to love, serve, and teach one. For parents who now find themselves in the surprising role as home educator, remember, you are first and foremost an ambassador, called by God and equipped to complete his mission. So do your best, train your children in good habits, teach them living books through the practice of narration, and leave the results to God.

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