Sermon Illustrations
Francis Schaeffer on Compassion for Today's Artists
Many Christians find themselves put off by the different forms of modern art. However, whenever I witness modern art or listen to depressing modern music and am tempted to write it off (or worse, to find it amusing), I think of the words of Francis Schaffer:
These paintings, these poems, and these demonstrations which we have been talking about are the expressions of men who are struggling with their appalling lostness. Dare we laugh at such things? Dare we feel superior when we view their tortured expressions in their art?
Christians should stop laughing and take such men seriously. Then we shall have the right to speak again to our generation. These men are dying while they live, yet where is our compassion for them? There is nothing more ugly than an orthodoxy without understanding or without compassion."