The Christian, the Arts, and Truth: Regaining the Vision of Greatness by Frank E. Gaebelein

The Christian, the Arts, and Truth: Regaining the Vision of Greatness Reviews

• 
  Christopher Rush

  I wanted to give this 5 stars, since I agree with so much of it, but some structural deficiencies and thinness in some of the later essays warrants this at least a strong 4 stars. Bruce Lockerbie is partly to blame: after a fine biographical sketch of Frank Gaebelein, he lets us know his disappointment this is not the book Gaebelein wanted to write. Gaebelein wanted to write a cohesive, extensive book about Christianity and the Arts (apparently), but the twilight of his life prevented it. Instead, we have a collection of essays apparently gathered from throughout Gaebelein's life. That wouldn't have been so bad if 1) Lockerbie hadn't made such a big deal about how this book wasn't what Gaebelein wanted (setting us up for concomitant disappointment) and 2) Lockerbie had bothered to indicate where, when, and why these essays originally sprang into existence. He mentions the origin of two or three of them but not all, which seems a bit of a failure on his editorial part. These are small irritants; the content of what Gaebelein has written is mostly impressive and refreshing work.
  
  It has been sitting on my shelf for some time (as many thousands of works have been doing), but the time arrived when I needed to read it, mainly because I am soon speaking about this very topic (Christians and the Arts) and because I needed to read something I knew would be good, as my literary diet has been mostly disappointing New 52 releases and even-more-so disappointing "Christian" works. Gaebelein delivers trenchant, timeless (mostly - one gets the feeling he is writing some of his disparaging remarks about the plight of "contemporary" Christian music in Keith Green's direction) thoughts about Arts, Beauty, Truth - the usual worthwhile material. He does a pretty good job of defining these "controversial" themes and defending his positions, all the while reminding us how thoroughly facile living a Bible-centric life is (including, as it does, a life of hard work). Some may scoff at his upbringing and "breaks" he had in life as if they preclude one from attempting to raise one's family to believe what is true the way he did: delighting and immersing oneself and one's loved ones in the "things that matter" and not time-wasting nonsense.
  
  Gaebelein gives us no room for excuses for not living an Art-focused, Beauty-driven, Truth-immersed, Bible-centered life. Don't waste time lamenting "Oh, what might have been had Gaebelein been able to write something better than this!" This collection is quite stupendous. In the collection it remains (for me to read again, perhaps, but definitely for my children to read someday soonish).