The Role of the Christian Creator: an Exploration of a Sick Culture and the Need for a Modern Renaissance

I watched the brightly lit stage in the large auditorium intently. The worn, synthetic red velvet seats pricked my skin as anxious musicians of all ages from different countries quieted their whispers. There, seated on black benches and metal chairs, were poised figures in shiny and brightly colored clothing. In each of their hands, they caressed their instrument of choice: a delicate violin, a robust viola, and a large-bodied cello. They played with the assurance and elegance of professionals, and yet, the music that came from the pull of each string was something else entirely. The concert hall filled with thin screeches, sudden bursts of detached notes, and abrasive disarray, perfectly echoing the sharp cushioned seats I felt poking against my skin. The detached sounds weren’t unintentional. In fact, each abrasive note was carefully planned, every screech a product of practice. As my gaze turned from the experienced, professional musicians to the audience around me, I saw faces filled with concerned, furrowed brows, skeptical scrunched noses, and apathetic, blank stares. After the professionals finished their contemporary piece and walked off stage, the room was left with a few curious students, but mostly an awkward discomfort hanging over the air. Met with a confusion of my own, I asked my friend sitting next to me for her thoughts on the performance. Politely, the friend shared that she also didn’t enjoy the modern pieces they played and wished they would opt for more traditional compositions.

Even though the musicians played with an incredible amount of skill, there was an obvious lack of enjoyment, motivation, and the rush of dopamine that could typically be found in the audience following a traditional classical concert. If the issue wasn’t the musician’s playing ability, however, then what makes the modern pieces they performed so different from the traditional classical ones? Why did the audience have such a distinct, repulsed reaction to the contemporary pieces? How could the audience enjoy listening to contemporary classical music less than its traditional counterpart?

To answer these questions, it’s best to analyze the distinctive differences in classical music to identify important aspects of cultural evolution, specifically when it comes to the idea of beauty and chaos in creation. With a value of structure and order so deeply embedded and important in the Biblical understanding of the world, we would naturally assume that all of creation emulates the same orderly, beautiful, and purposeful image of God. For the most part, this has been evident throughout the history of classical music. However, as of more recently, all forms of traditional arts have faced challenges with new capricious definitions as to what art and creation is. More than just an artistic experiment, the arts have come to produce confusing and sometimes even ugly or unenjoyable works like the one played by the professional musicians. From chaotic and uncomfortable contemporary classical pieces to disturbed audiences, the modern arts have certainly taken a drastic turn from traditional works of order and beauty described in the bible.

With a biblical understanding of beauty and chaos in creation, as well as the great emphasis placed on the role of creators in the bible, it can be inferred that our creation must also show goodness and beauty that is orderly, purposeful, and structured. Whether it’s composing, playing music, drawing, or sculpting, beautiful human creation typically contains similar qualities and values to biblical creation. If the arts continue to stray farther away from these values, however, it begs the question as to what the consequence will be and why modern art has become something so drastically different in nature from its traditional counterpart.

For a better insight on this issue, Christians can analyze the development of classical music to best demonstrate what went wrong in modern culture and society. More specifically, Christians should approach the modern arts with a curiosity and awareness of its modern shortcomings. By interacting with the art, Christians can uncover the lies and temptations the modern worldly culture preaches and help bring about a modern renaissance rooted in biblically educated values on creation.

First and foremost, it is important to know that art is neither good nor bad; it is simply a reflection of our culture. As authors John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle (2017) wrote in their book A Practical Guide to Culture, “...We make our cultures, and then our cultures shape us.” Stonestreet and Kunkle argue that the process of culture is active and reciprocal of the social environments we create. To better define this process, the two authors summarize the definition of culture by saying, “In its most basic sense, culture refers to what people do with the world: we build, we invent, we imagine, we create...” In short, culture is intertwined with the arts, and the arts are intertwined with culture. Stonestreet and Kunkle further mention how the origins of the word culture come from the Latin word cultura, meaning “agriculture.” Andy Crouch, a prominent author and speaker on faith, culture, and technology, also defines culture in a similar manner.

In his book, Culture Making, author Andy Crouch (2008) writes, “Culture is what human beings make of the world.” Here, Crouch is saying that culture is a transformative and dynamic aspect with which humans use to create. In this sense, the arts do not only reflect culture but also contribute to its continuation and evolution. Culture as a whole holds a very broad, all-encompassing idea of our gift to create in one definition. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, culture is defined as, “the beliefs, customs, arts, etc. of a particular social group, place or time.” It is evident that art reflects this culture. As British-American novelist Salman Rushdie (1990) said, “If the culture shifts...the art will shift, too. You can’t ask art to make social change. It’s not what it’s for.” The arts, with classical music making a large sum of this, are directly influenced by the culture as they reflect its evolving state. Similarly, as Mahatma Gandhi (n.d.) once said, “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.” Not only is art, or specifically Classical music, a mirror of the ever evolving culture, but it is produced by the intents, or the “hearts” and “soul” of the people it is likewise mirroring. From these definitions and the understanding of the evolution of historical cultural periods and musical periods alone, we can infer that something has gone terribly wrong within modern culture for my experience in the auditorium to be so unenjoyable.

American novelist, Andrew Klavan (2015), notes this distinction between traditional and modern art forms. He also affirms that the arts are neither bad nor good. Instead, he claims that modern art is so drastically different from its traditional counterpart because it is being made from a “sick culture.” Klavan says that traditional art, however, “is coming out of a society that is being reborn, it’s having a renaissance.” Because art forms like classical music reflect culture, it would follow that the culture the music is reflecting also affects the art. Contemporary art forms, therefore, are unenjoyable and abrupt because they are reflecting a sick culture.

To better grasp how classical music has drastically changed over the centuries to reflect a “sick” culture, the historical evolution of music and religion helps reveal the trends in our culture and how the standards for beauty have evolved. Historically, music has been heavily intertwined with religion, specifically when it comes to Christianity. For example, many chants – like that of the well-known chant named after Pope Gregory I – were created with religious influence. As composer and author John Bortslap (2017) wrote, “Around the year 600 AD, plainchant was organized and codified by pope Gregory I, hence the name ‘Gregorian chant’. It offered an immense repertory, which was used in the following ages by composers who experimented with simultaneity, which from the 11th century onwards gradually led to the rich polyphony of late Gothic and Renaissance church music.” During the Renaissance period between the 1400s to the 1600s, composers began incorporating harmonies and polyphonies; their compositions containing more complex parts, and often multiple voices or instruments. Composers started to move away from the original system of harmony and began to organize their compositions into minor and major scales instead. Musical notation was likewise developed through the church. The Christian Renaissance period was largely responsible for developing polyphonic music in the form of ‘motets’ (vocally complex, sacred compositions), the Reformation Hymnody, Baroque Sacred Music, and the development of music for God with Christian themes (Pacienza). The Reformation Hymnody in particular was a Protestant movement in the 16th-century promoting vernacular language (language other than Latin) to be used in congregational singing. This time period, like with the Reformation Hymnody, began to emphasize accessibility and truth, making the common public capable of experiencing the uniquely organized and complex beauty of classical music. Similarly, structure (now paired with accessibility), was a pertinent universal component of beauty in biblically founded creative works.

From the Renaissance Period, the Baroque Period of music emerged, characterized by its more colorful, instrumental pieces with the use of string instruments such as the violin, cello, and viola, as well as the harpsichord. Composers such as J. S. Bach and Antonio Vivaldi were notable during this period. Much like the Renaissance Period, religion was still heavily tied with music-making, with many composers having close affiliation with the church or religion. As Bach once said, “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.” Similarly, Antonio Vivaldi was a Catholic priest, and both he and Bach composed music for the church.

Once again, a distinctive intricacy and sequence can be seen reflecting the biblically-based values of the time, like in Bach’s oratorio, St. Matthew Passion. This piece depicts universally understood topics of betrayal, judgement, death, and love. The oratorio displays these topics through Jesus’s last few days on earth as told by St Matthew the Evangelist. In addition to many sophisticated harmonies and musical lines, the story is creatively informative and relevant; it is told by characters such as, “Christ, Judas, Peter, a slave girl, the pupils, the high priests, the people and the soldiers...” and many more (ST Matthews Passion, 2015). As an oratorio consisting of a large ensemble of soloists, orchestras, and choirs with a story typically surrounding sacred religious themes, Bach beautifully weaves the various ensembles into every aspect of the written story. In this sense, St Matthew Passion wonderfully embodies the universal accessibility and complex composing full of meaning and structure found in the early Baroque Period.

In fact, structure when it comes to musical composition is not just a theory associated with earlier time periods. Instead, structure has a great deal to do with how we are able to process the music we hear and decipher whether or not we truly enjoy and get the emotional benefits of this music. For instance, social psychologists and authors of Human Givens, Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell (2021), describe the brain as a “metamorphically pattern-matching organ,” seeking patterns and familiarity. This function of actively seeking out and processing through patterns has allowed us to survive since infants by recognizing what we need and remembering that recognition. This creates a pattern. The brain uses these patterns to describe and comprehend our environment, especially while communicating. This allows for the brain to build on its understanding of the world by enlarging and adapting to what is known, and to purposefully seek out and identify in everyday life.

As discussed in an article published by Scientific American, physicists analyzed J.S. Bach’s music and discovered that his compositions contain mathematical patterns the human brain is able to easily comprehend. Physicists in this study used information entropy to measure these patterns and how the composition’s messages are conveyed. A message, when measured by information entropy, is considered anything which conveys information the human brain can decipher and can be used for sequences, numbers, or, as in this case, music (Cutts, 2024).

In this study published by American Scientist, physicists took three hundred and thirty-seven Bach compositions into webs of interconnected nodes to calculate and assess the information entropy of the resulting networks. They found that the network structures in Bach’s music (of which there are many) make it easier for the human brain to comprehend. Because the human brain processes information by pattern matching, Bach’s music likewise makes it much easier for the brain to remember each network structure (Cutts, 2024). From this, it can be concluded that the vast amount of connections and patterns revealed through information entropy piques our interest while still adhering to the brain’s need for patterns and familiarity. As Griffin and Tyrrell (2021) wrote: “The brain is essentially a metaphorical pattern-matching organ, constantly seeking environmental stimuli to match up to the instinctive and learned responses amassed since conception. Not only does this give us the ability to recognize something we need but it is the means by which we recognize something when we come across it again... Our brains are constantly pattern matching, relating what is new to what we already know.”

Furthermore, by relating what is new to what we already know, this triggers synaptic plasticity. Synaptic plasticity strengthens the brain’s older neural connections and builds new neural connections to add to pre-existing knowledge. This is often enabled by dopamine and allows the brain to seek after enjoyable experiences so it might experience them again (Donato, n.d. ). Because there are so many patterns (or interconnected nodes) in Bach’s music, the human brain is able to build new neural connections to various personal experiences it has already experienced. This excites the brain and makes the classical listening experience enjoyable. The patterns and distinct structure found in traditional pieces play an essential part in how the human brain processes information and how it is able to find enjoyment. This is a unique factor in traditional classical music found in early time periods, such as the Baroque Period.

Following the Baroque Period is the Classical Period. This is where a separation of the church in music can truly be seen. Driven by Enlightenment ideals of individual expression and humanism, hints of secularist themes begin to emerge in the traditional, biblically-rooted compositions. This is one of the most balanced periods between secular and biblical themes in classical music. Here, composers like Beethoven were able to use the same structure and complex sequences like Renaissance composers such as Bach. However, the criteria for religious themes and the locations this music were allowed to be performed at were greatly altered. Where music used to be written primarily for the church, composers began directing their compositions to the general public. The emphasis on religion and the church became more individualistic and accessible while still maintaining the original beauty and structured framework found in traditional religion-based compositions. Classical music continued to evolve throughout the centuries and remained pretty intact with the orderly fashion of past periods while exploring creative liberties. In fact, it isn’t until the Modern or 20th Century Period and Postmodern/Contemporary Period that a clear difference can be noted in the style of the music and the culture it is reflecting. Where music used to maintain order and values rooted in beauty, the Contemporary Period disregarded order and beauty, replacing it with novelty and chaos.

This is evident in the theories and works of Arnold Schoenberg, a notable composer during the Modern Period of music. Schoenberg advocated for large changes in traditional classical music such as removing the “tonic key” or chord meant to resolve a piece and bring it to an end. In this sense, he was attempting to alter the traditional idea of harmonic resolution found in the Renaissance and Classical periods by disregarding the key or chord responsible for doing so. This was a heavy contrast to Bach’s music. In Bach’s compositions, each piece began with a tonic key, or the first note of a scale. The piece would then move to the dominant or sometimes even subdominant key (the fifth or fourth note in a scale), and then eventually return to the tonic key, or the first note of the scale the piece began with. With this structured pattern, Bach’s music mimicked that of a story; it had exposition, a rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Schoenberg’s advocacy for the removal of a resolution often created dissonance or atonality—a key characteristic in Contemporary Classical Period music. Another central idea Schoenberg contributed to modern music is a technique known as “Serialism” (Hutchinson, 2025).

According to the Oxford dictionary, Serialism is “a compositional technique in which a fixed series of notes, especially the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, are used to generate the harmonic and melodic basis of a piece and are subject to change only in specific ways.” This Twelve Note Theory is similar to his theory involving the removal of resolutions. The Twelve Note Theory focuses on disregarding the traditional idea of a resolution by gravitating back towards the tonal key. Instead, this theory gives equal attention to all twelve notes in the chromatic scale, hence the name for this supposition. As a result, pieces began to feel more robotic as they relied on a formulaic-like structure, which removed a lot of the creative liberties established within structure during the Classical time period. With the intention being focused towards novelty and a new type of structures, pieces during this time period ironically also felt arrhythmic and sporadic. This is primarily due to unpredictable rhythms and time signatures paired with Schoenberg’s Twelve Tone Theory.

Similar to traditional classical music, scientists studied how we process contemporary classical music and the effects the genre had on the listener’s enjoyment. This study was conducted by Eric W. Dolan and revealed the emotional and neural effects of atonal music on the human brain. In this article by Behavioral Neuroscience, research was conducted on twenty-five participants of mixed genders. The participants were of the same age and were non-musicians who had no hearing impairments. They were also all right-handed, as left-handed individuals, according to Dolan, potentially process emotions differently due to brain hemispheric specialization variations. After eliminating any possible variables, each participant in this study listened to eight tonal musical pieces played for the same amount of time. The researchers then used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the brain’s electrical activity in real-time, specifically focusing on the frontal and parietal areas of the brain responsible for processing emotions. The results of this experiment showed a clear difference in the perception of tonal and atonal music. In general, tonal music was particularly highly rated in terms of positivity and excitement, whereas atonal music was perceived as less familiar and less pleasurable (Valdés-Alemán et al., 2024).

As cultural values shifted, the arts likewise parted from their traditional theological structures. This began around the 18th Century and the Age of Enlightenment when there was a widespread questioning of religious doctrine. This continued to the mid-19th Century, otherwise known as The Rise of Materialism, when Darwinian evolution was popularized until modern day. As time continued, religion and many of the structural values associated with its theology were being rejected and discouraged. Although there are many great discoveries and milestones that came from this progression until modern times, there has also been a very large gap in cultural values. Where a faith in God and devotion to order and beauty was largely the cultural value in past periods, a faith in oneself and a priority on chaotic nuance and an identity in each person’s own intellect became the modern cultural value accepted by the majority. This focus on individual choice and freedom was later developed into a famous philosophy otherwise known as existentialism. This theory is best encapsulated by 20th-century French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre (1945) said existentialism is when “existence precedes essence.” According to Sartre, humans are born without a pre-defined idea of purpose, and instead must form their own identity through free choice. Existentialism primarily focuses on the idea of finding oneself in a universe that is absurd and meaningless. Although existentialism also upholds many important values such as freedom and thinking for oneself, there is a glaring issue with the philosophy and how it pertains to music. The issue is that the idea of free will and individuality was already a major value in the Bible. The only difference between these values in the Bible and the values portrayed in the idea of existentialism is that it removes the need for a God who gifted this uniqueness in the first place. Individuality and free will were never an issue when it came to the arts. However, by removing God from the arts like in the popularized theory of existentialism, absurd and meaningless creation began to replace the structured and beautiful creation of traditional music.

As a culture, the gap between our past values and our current ones is so vast, it makes sense why classical music has likewise taken such a drastic turn. In tune with this major shift in music styles and cultural values, the enjoyment of atonal music has likewise abated. The Bible, however, has a lot to offer when it comes to understanding the role of beauty and chaos in creative works. Despite this, the roles of the imaginative and creative are often overlooked, even within the Christian Church. In reality, God first revealed himself not as a king or ruler, not as sovereign or as formidable, but as a creator. As it is written in Genesis 1:1,“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (New International Version). One of the most well-known verses in the Bible, Genesis 1:1 and the following chapter address some of the most basic principles in the Christian religion — that God is a creator, and more specifically, God is our creator who crafted mankind to mirror His image. Furthermore, and most importantly, we see that God’s creation is good, orderly, and purposefully made under His power and dominion. Genesis chapter 1 continues by contrasting this order in the second verse: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1:2). We can additionally infer how God has once again brought order to disorder through creation. This is essential in understanding the valuable role of creation and beauty throughout the bible.

From a modern, English-speaking, and Western perspective, the ideas of creation and beauty appear straightforward. However, when looking into the cultural context and original language of Genesis, a clearer insight on biblical creation surfaces. The Bible was originally written in three different languages: Hebrew, Koine Greek, and Aramaic. The book of Genesis was initially written in Hebrew like most of the Old Testament. As it often goes with translations, much of the contextual and descriptive meanings are lost in their translations. Because of this, analyzing a few key words in Hebrew gives readers a more precise and accurate understanding of biblical creation. This is especially true regarding the biblical definitions of beauty and chaos in Genesis chapter 1.

Unlike in the English language, the Hebrew word for beauty isn’t an abstract, all-encompassing idea. In fact, there are over a dozen Hebrew words and variations for the English equivalence of beauty. In this chapter of Genesis, however, there are two specific types of this word that are necessary to understanding biblical beauty in creation. The Hebrew word for beauty, otherwise known as tov, is described as a phenomenon including traits such as excellence, honor, or glory. The idea of beauty in the Hebrew language is based on attractiveness, pleasure, desire, or enjoyment (De Bruyn, 2019). In this sense, beauty is more of an objective and conclusive experience than the all-encompassing English definition. The word “good” used in the English translation of Genesis 1 is actually meant to be a translation for tov. However, the word “good” was used because we naturally associate the word beauty with aesthetic standards in English.In reality, tov is best defined as “beneficial” (Briggs, 2025). When paired with the all-encompassing Hebrew description of beauty, God’s creation is seen as both excellent, pleasurable, and “beneficial” or functional. Therefore, God’s remark on His “good” creation is not a simple observation or declaration. Rather, it is a statement encompassing this beautiful excellence, glory, and functional order of creation. These characteristics are clearly seen in early, traditional classical music like that of J.S. Bach.

On the other hand, the Hebrew word for chaos, also written as toehoo is translated to confusion, formlessness, unreality, and emptiness (Henrion, 2014). Figuratively, toehoo also carries the meaning of being morally empty or purposeless. This definition is a direct dichotomy of the purposeful, structured nature of Hebrew beauty. Beauty gives shape and meaning to chaos, as seen in Genesis chapter 1 when God brings light out of darkness and beauty out of chaos. Chaos, in this sense, is the absence of structure and beauty, which is a distinguished characteristic in God’s creation. In the same sense, humans are also a part of God’s creation. We
are designed out of an unstructured, purposeless, and unorderly chaos into a structured, purposeful, and orderly beauty reflecting God’s image. From chaos, or from toehoo, we were transformed into a creation that is tov, or beautiful, structured, and beneficial.

This contrast between beauty and chaos is further reinforced in the Bible through personified depictions of chaos. Chaos is depicted negatively through the biblical monster Leviathan, a chaotic, disruptive, and evil entity which is eventually defeated by God. The monster is mentioned in Job, Isaiah, and Psalms, Leviathan is ultimately an evil symbol for the untamed natural world. Conversely, beauty is represented by the perfect will of God. As written in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” This verse is emphasizing the idea that the Lord brings ultimate beauty and order to all of creation, according to his perfect time. Because of this, we too, when creating, should bring ultimate beauty and order to all of our creation to reflect his perfection. Similarly, it is important that we do not move backwards towards the chaotic toehoo as contemporary classical music likes to advocate for. By moving towards the chaotic values of the world, the beauty and structure will be lost, and with it, enjoyment, as seen in the studies on modern, atonal compositions by Behavioral Neuroscience.

Beauty or tov is not the only thing prioritized in the Bible when it comes to creation. In fact, the Bible places a great emphasis on creatives and even uses them to serve a great purpose in His plan and kingdom. In each story, every one of God’s creations reflect tov and move away from toehoo. Humans, as a product of God’s creation, were likewise made in God’s image and reflect that tov. Because we are made to reflect God as a part of His creation, we become active players in creating this beauty, not just receiving it. For instance, Exodus 31:1-6 demonstrates this through Bezalel by saying, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge of all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts’” (New International Version). God places a huge importance on these creatives in the Old Testament by making sure they are cared for. In this specific case, he even filled them with wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and the Spirit of God. In addition to Bazalel, there are also many wonderful biblical musicians and poets. This includes but is not limited to creators like King David, builders and craftsmen like Noah, designers, storytellers, and a plethora of other creators demonstrating how our roles as creators in Christ are a vital part of human identity that is divinely exalted.

Beauty and chaos, therefore, are antonyms and cannot coexist according to God’s will. Where tov is structured, meaningful, beneficial, and beautiful, toehoo is unstructured, meaningless, chaotic, and ugly. Once culture moved away from biblical values founded in tov, the consequences of toehoo replaced it. These consequences are found in all contemporary art reflecting this toehoo, as displayed through the abrasive performance in the auditorium and lack of enjoyment found in participants who listened to atonal contemporary music compared to traditional classical music.

As long as we adhere to the biblical definition of beauty that requires structure and order, true enjoyment and pleasure follows that engagement. Truly, it isn’t that one time period is better than the other, or that one art form is better than the other. It is simply that traditional classical music is structured, beautiful, meaningful, and rooted in tov, which aligns with the function of our pattern-matching brain, whereas contemporary classical music is rooted in toehoo, which is not aligned with our brain’s innate function. A culture rooted in toehoo is what American novelist Andrew Klavan called a “sick culture.” The moment classical music became
unenjoyable as demonstrated through studies and by the general public was the moment the arts shifted from reflecting a culture emphasizing the transcendentals of goodness, truth, and beautiful order in Christ’s image, to the unstructured chaotic confusion of immorality, falsehood, chaos, and ugliness. As our culture continues to embrace sin and promote a prideful independence from God, so the art and music reflects that sinfulness.

In his work “Little Gidding,” poet T. S. Eliot writes, “We shall not cease from exploration/ and the end of all our exploring/ will be to arrive where we started/ and know the place for the first time” (Klavan, 2023). Eliot’s poem is discussing how Christians should live, explaining that humanity’s exploration intellectually or spiritually leads to an insightful discovery of ourselves. This self-exploration, according to Eliot, will allow us to return to our beginnings with a wiser understanding and new perspective. In this sense, our life is a circle, where our exploration eventually concludes at our beginning. Therefore, even throughout our cultural wanderings, to truly bring spiritual enlightenment and the rediscovery of truth, it is necessary for us to reconnect with our foundational roots.

If God’s creation brought order out of chaos and creative beauty to what once was formless and chaotic, it ultimately reveals how the contemporary arts are a deeper reflection of our prideful desire to reverse what God intends by falling further into our sins. Typically, this occurs after we realize our longing for Eden, or longing for perfection, does not give us our desired results. Because of this, Christians are called not to take a passive stance in the arts but instead to actively participate in our vital roles as creatives reflecting the perfect structure, order, and beauty of God’s image.

The arts shouldn’t have to beg its listeners or viewers to see its beauty, just as God didn’t have to say outright He was king and ruler, sovereign and formidable, for it to be known. All that had to be shown was the product of His creation, which spoke for itself. Just as God’s creation speaks for itself to reveal beautiful truths, so our creation should also speak for itself and reveal a culture that likewise reveals beautiful truths. As Christians, our responsibility when it comes to engaging with the arts is clear: to be active participants in the arts as creatives, reflecting a living culture founded in the structure, order, meaning, and excellence of biblical beauty and Christ’s image. Christians should take charge of the unique gift we’ve been given to create in God’s image to bring back a Renaissance that preaches the values of true biblical beauty, not worldly chaos. In this sense, creation is meant to be beautiful in the sense that it is reflecting the Lord’s image of what is good and true and orderly. This is confirmed by His own creation. Part of our humanity is that we are beautifully made in God’s image, which we could logically conclude that it is necessary for our creation to likewise be beautiful according to His will. By both engaging in art forms like classical music and by paying attention to how they reflect a culture that is either sick or healthy, we can see a clear call to action. To truly bring about a modern renaissance, Christian creatives are called to restore the broken culture contemporary classical music reflects by upholding the biblical values of tov. By bringing about a modern renaissance rooted in biblical values, there is the hope of auditoriums that are filled with curious, delighted faces, trusting, relaxed expressions, and interested, engaged eyes while listening to music that is both traditional and modern.

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