The ancient Greek philosophers, and later the early church fathers, spoke of three prime virtues: truth, goodness, and beauty…
Early Christian theologians located the source of these prime virtues as proceeding from God himself—truth, goodness, and beauty are virtues because God is true, good, and beautiful. Thus this trinity of virtues becomes a guide to Christian living as we seek to believe what is true, be what is good, and behold what is beautiful…
But it is this third virtue, the virtue of beauty, that has been most marginalized in the way we understand and evaluate Christianity. As a result, Christianity has suffered a loss of beauty—a loss that needs to be recovered. With an emphasis on truth, we have tried to make Christianity persuasive (as we should). But we also need a corresponding emphasis on beauty to make Christianity attractive…
That the Roman cross, an instrument of physical torture and psychological terror, could ever become an object of beauty representing faith, hope, and love is an amazing miracle of transformation. Every cross adorning a church is in itself a sermon—a sermon proclaiming that if Christ can transform the Roman instrument of execution into a thing of beauty, there is hope that in Christ all things can be made beautiful! This is precisely the claim that the Christian faith makes concerning what Jesus accomplished in his death—and it is an astounding claim!
– Brian Zahnd
Beauty Will Save the World: Rediscovering the Allure and Mystery of Christianity
The beauty of the cross
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