Beauty Will Save the World: Rediscovering the Allure and Mystery of Christianity
In today’s world we have technology, convenience, security, and a measure of prosperity, but where is the beauty?
For thousands of years, artists, sages, philosophers, and theologians have connected the beautiful and the sacred and identified art with our longing for God. Now we live in a day when convenience and practicality have largely displaced beauty as a value. The church is no exception. Even salvation is commonly viewed in a scientific and mechanistic manner and presented as a plan, system, or formula.
In Beauty Will Save the World, Brian Zahnd presents the argument that this loss of beauty as a principal value has been disastrous for Western culture, and especially for the church. The full message of the beauty of the gospel has been replaced by our desires to satisfy our material needs, to empirically prove our faith, and to establish political power in our world--the exact same things that Christ was tempted with and rejected in the wilderness.
Zahnd shows that by following the teachings of the Beatitudes, the church can become a viable alternative to current-day political, commercial, and religious power and can actually achieve what these powers promise to provide but fail to deliver. Using stories from the lives of St. Francis of Assisi and from his own life, he teaches us to stay on the journey to discover the kingdom of God in a fuller, richer, more beautiful, way.
Top Highlights
“To be born in America is to be handed a certain script. We are largely unconscious of the script, but we are ‘scripted’ by it nevertheless. The American script is part of our nurture and education, and most of it happens without our knowing it. The dominant American script is that which idolizes success, achievement, acquisition, technology, and militarism. It is the script of a superpower. But this dominant script does not fit neatly with the alternative script we find in the gospel of Jesus Christ.” (source)
“By evangelical I mean the expression of Protestant Christianity characterized by a dual emphasis on the authority of Scripture and a personal conversion experience—this is evangelicalism at its best.” (source)
“The temptation is to accommodate itself to its host and to adopt (or even christen) the cultural assumptions of the superpower.” (source)
“We do it in the name of church growth, but it is really the betrayal of a sacred trust.” (source)
“We are not the architects of the faith; we are the trustees.” (source)
"Brian Zahnd is blunt, bold, and biblical—an authentic prophetic voice in the lineage of Elijah and Amos." —Eugene H. Peterson, Professor Emeritus, Regent College, and Translator of The Message
Product Details
- Title : Beauty Will Save the World: Rediscovering the Allure and Mystery of Christianity
- Author: Zahnd, Brian
- Publisher: Charisma House
- Publication Date: 2012
- ISBN: 9781616386412