What If We Actually Made Christianity Beautiful?

Thursday night, my husband and I saw the Oh Hellos in concert. This harmonizing bundle of ten includes two drummers, a hipster violinist, a skinny mustached bassist, a couple of guitarists and brother and sister vocalist duo. Their music consists of mostly upbeat melodies coupled with poetic lyrics informed by a Christian worldview and accompanied with appropriate “ba da bums” and “o lei o li o lords” adding musical pleasantries. Their performance made me think that I was watching a bunch of hobbits celebrating springtime in the shire, something I genuinely appreciate. In today’s overly sexual music industry, most music is synthetic, lacking truth or intelligence. The Oh Hellos are a breath of fresh air.

As my husband and I ended the night, we were discussing the audience in attendance at the concert. The Oh Hellos’ faith is evident yet their following is diverse. The atheists, agnostics, and relativists don’t seem to care as they dance around to songs that at their core rebuke their unbelief. Bands like the Oh Hellos don’t shy away from their faith but it doesn’t bother many people even though our society is becoming more hostile to Christianity.

Why?

Because their music is simply beautiful. It speaks for itself.

The Oh Hellos do not produce “Christian Music”; they are Christians who produce great music. They don’t preach, they worship. It seems as though they simply wanted to make something beautiful for God and so they put their very selves into their craft from the lyrics to the melodies, to the harmonies to the way they present themselves on stage. If the Christian life is meant to be joyful, the Oh Hellos do not speak of it first. They create an environment of joy and invite others into it. It is only once their audience has experienced the joy of their music that the truth of their lyrics can take hold in the life of their listeners. My friends, this is the only way to win the world.

The God of the universe is Truth, Goodness AND BEAUTY. We can claim to own the truth, we can deem that Christianity is good but we cannot forgo its beauty. People do not fall in love first because someone is good or right. Men and women are attracted to one another first and foremost based on beauty. It is the beauty that then leads to the couple to find the truth and goodness that has always existed in the other.

Believers, we used to own the market on beauty. The most beautiful art, architecture, music was spearheaded by excellent men and women who were Christian. Their lives were integrated and so their worship showed up in everything, not simply at church. When, however, was the last time that the world stood in awe of a new Church? How often do we walk out of a church service feeling as though our soul had been lifted towards Heaven? We have separated church and self and as a result confined our worship to church.

Unfortunately, many things that are dubbed “Christian” often subpar in talent and originality compared to what is produced by the rest of the world. I don’t believe that the world would be rejecting Christianity the way it is if we simply made it beautiful. Jesus deserves more; we must attract more than preach.

The devil knows that we move towards beauty but he cannot create it. He can only twist it. Thus, sin is always clothed in glamor, a perversion of beauty. We commit evil acts because we believe that a good will come from it but the more we commit, the more distorted become our desires and the less we can recognize true beauty.

C.S. Lewis said, “The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature.” We do not to create a “Christian” culture we need to create culture as Christians. Truth and goodness must be graced with charm in every field of work, study, and art in our nation. We can then give an alternative to the distorted glamor of sin. We can offer something better, a chance to enter into joy, the very thing for which our souls crave.

The Oh Hellos, by infusing worship of their God into their craft have reached more ears, more homes and more souls than many of us who spend our lives trying to change the world. Let us learn from them. Let us reintroduce our world to true beauty. I think we would be astonished by what could follow.