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Aesthetics and Worship in the Reformed Tradition

David Fergusson
University of Edinburgh

At least three problems confront any attempt to articulate a Reformed aesthetics. The first concerns the scruples generated by a commitment to the second commandment. A second problem concerns the abstractness of the key aesthetic concept of "beauty" when applied to God. Descriptions of the divine being often rely on alternative terms that divert us to the intellectual and moral attributes of God. Third, the negative cultural reception of Calvinism is especially problematic in the field of aesthetics.

In the Reformed tradition with its renewed attention to the twin themes of divine transcendence and immanence, there was captured a stress upon divine majesty and its presence in the actions of the worshipping congregation. Much of this was inspired by Old Testament allusion. Forms of worship were also shaped by the emphasis upon the Word of God as preached and thereby heard, comprehended and applied.

What emerges is not the denial of aesthetic qualities but their restatement in forms of simplicity, sobriety, and measure. The aesthetic qualities noted here are rooted in a doctrine of God and an account of the Christian life. Calvin speaks of "integrity" as that quality commended by God as the chief part of worship. Perhaps not surprisingly, the mark of integrity, singled out by Calvin, is close to Aquinas' earlier account of beauty in terms of wholeness, harmony and radiance. In this respect, the Reformed tradition shares with the Catholic an aesthetic realism.

Although hostile to the use of visual art inside church buildings, Calvin did not seek to deny its value as a divine gift. No human work can represent God without violence to the divine majesty but art has a divinely appointed function in depicting histories or events. In this respect, it can have a moral and pedagogical purpose while also being the source of pleasure. However, despite his disapproval of visual representations of Christ, at least in the sanctuary, it is not clear that Calvin's argument fully supports this iconic prohibition.

What happens in the visual arts under the impact of Reformed criticism of idolatry is not so much the suppression of artistic work as its refraction. In the absence of ecclesiastic patronage and no longer required for the adornment of church buildings, works of art continued to be commissioned by private individuals and to be displayed in households and other more secular contexts. This leads to a process of disenchantment by which the arts can be used for a wider range of functions. It is evident in portrait painting, and also devotional literature and scholarship.

In discussing the divine perfections, Karl Barth argues that beauty is to be attributed to God as a subordinate feature of the divine glory. As beautiful, God can convince, delight, and please us. Without this necessary aspect of glory, our apprehension of God would take an entirely different form. Two principal implications follow from this. First, the forms of worship must be made subordinate to its essential content, namely divine revelation. Second, the assessment of public worship must include an aesthetic element by which the church service is evaluated for its capacity to glorify God. There may also be a subsidiary reason for attending to the aesthetics of worship�for many people in today's culture the experience of beauty functions as the gateway to religion.

The gathering of the people, an uncluttered open space for audible speech, the centrality of table and pulpit, and a simplicity of style are all desiderata of Reformed church architecture in different cultural settings. What lessons can be learned from this? The need for a sanctuary set apart for the worship of God with a capacity for facilitating its various elements should caution against the pragmatic assumption, apparent in some quarters, that congregations can worship equally well in multi-purpose buildings. Conversely, the patterns of dissociation that often accompany closure of a cherished building should hardly surprise us. Nonetheless, assessed according to aesthetic criteria including utility, many church buildings today must be judged seriously deficient.

For Calvin, the power of music was recognized for its capacity to express and confirm the faith. This was advanced as a corrective to the coldness of worship in other Reformed contexts. The concerted effort to match word and music reflects earlier renaissance traditions, yet is also borne of a desire to subordinate musical forms to the Word of God. Nonetheless, the historical mismatch of theory and practice in the treasured Genevan Psalter is salutary in cautioning against an austere functionalism. Art is not merely to be appropriated for theological ends. As a work of God's good creation, it has its own rules, standards and ends that are not determined exclusively by their ecclesiastical utility. Nonetheless, some prevalent aspects of the tradition can be faulted in light of earlier ideals. The reappearance of church choirs has led to the preparation of modern hymnals designed primarily for four-part singing. The pitch is thus appropriate to the register of the different sections of the choir, but often disruptive of good congregational singing.

The commitment to felicitous expression and intellectual precision is a feature of Reformed scholarship. This has been manifested also in the language of prayer and preaching. The commitment to prayers that were accessible to the congregation and to devotional practices that could be developed in domestic settings necessitated a use of language that was clear, dignified and employed Scriptural allusions. How successfully today's public prayers engage the minds and hearts of congregations is unclear. This might suggest a need to reconsider in ecumenical context the usefulness of set prayers, responses, and wider participation in the interests of a common ownership of public prayer. In the case of preaching, the stress on rhetorical techniques and communication theory cannot substitute for an informed account of what makes the sermon necessary to divine worship. A prioritising of form over content inverts the Reformed tradition's aim of establishing aesthetic forms that are determined by God's Word.

For Calvin, the physical senses are to be engaged not merely by the spoken word but by the tangible and visible signs of baptism and eucharist. This sacramental seriousness is set in a discussion of how the faith is to be communicated and appropriated. Whether Reformed habits confirm this conviction is doubtful. The presence of more Zwinglian elements in both theory and practice suggests otherwise.

What of the visual arts? The Reformed prohibition on depictions of Christ is advanced on grounds that are not readily defensible. But even conceding this point, we have still to reckon with the historical and moral functions of art, and to enquire whether these may have a role in church buildings, worship and education