Christians have largely ceded the arts to the secular world, and the secular world has not been a good steward of that inheritance. State of the Arts: From Bezalel to Mapplethorpe by Gene Edward Veith Jr. and Marvin Olasky makes the case — historically, theologically, and aesthetically — that this abdication has been catastrophic, and that recovering a distinctly Christian vision of beauty is not optional but essential.

Veith begins with Bezalel — the craftsman filled by the Spirit of God to build the Tabernacle — and argues that the call to create beautiful things in worship of the Creator is as old as Israel itself. Christian civilization produced Chartres Cathedral, Bach’s cantatas, Rembrandt’s portraits of ordinary saints in ordinary light, and Dostoevsky’s tortured novels about sin and redemption. This is not coincidence. It is the natural fruit of a worldview that takes creation seriously and understands beauty as a reflection of divine glory.

The title’s arc from Bezalel to Mapplethorpe is the arc from the sacred to the obscene — a cultural trajectory that Veith traces with clarity and appropriate grief. But the book is not simply lament. It is instruction. Veith helps readers develop criteria for aesthetic judgment, understand what makes art genuinely excellent or genuinely degraded, and reclaim their role as discerning participants in culture rather than passive consumers of whatever the market produces.

A great historic understanding of art, creativity, and their place in Christian culture. If you have ever felt vaguely guilty about caring about beauty — as if aesthetic sensitivity were somehow less spiritual than doctrinal precision — this book will liberate you from that false dichotomy.

📚 Purchase: Available used on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

Book Details: Publisher: Crossway Books | April 1, 1991 | 272 pages | ISBN-13: 978-0891077800 | Turning Point Christian Worldview Series, Vol. 13