Guest Speaker: Andy Lucas - "The True, Good, and Beautiful

Redemption Church KC Sermon Podcast

1. In his sermon, Andy shared about the three Transcendentals: The True, the Good, and the Beautiful. He taught that the true is correlated with the practice of Christian apologetics, and that apologetics should be the articulation of the view that Christ is the truth. He also said that much of discipleship in the modern church has been focused on a misapplication of apologetics, in which the focus is more on convincing people that the doctrinal claims of your church are correct.

What’s been your experience with apologetics? If you’ve had exposure to the idea or practice of apologetics, share about it with the group, including ways in which it may have evolved with time. What are your current senses of and feelings about apologetics as you’ve understood it? Consider the pursuit of apologetics as Andy framed it: the articulation of the view that Christ is the truth.” Does that shift anything for you? How so?

2. After he spoke about both apologetics and ethics/justice, Andy spoke about beauty. He talked about Christian Aesthetics and the ways in which they can help to lead us into an encounter with God, using architecture as an example. He also talked about other forms which beauty can take, including nature, theater, painting, sculpture, song, poetry, and literature. Which forms of beauty tend to affect you most? What’s your experience of beauty helping lead you into an encounter with God? If you have any memorable experiences you’d be open to sharing, please do.

Andy reminded us that our capitalist society teaches us that worth and value are connected to function and utility… but that, in truth, beauty doesn’t have a to serve a purpose. How does this reminder impact you? What thoughts and feelings surface? Does this feel like something that’s easy for you to hold onto, or something more easily forgotten? Do you have resistance to it in anyway? What do you think would happen in your own life if you put greater emphasis on having experiences of beauty? What might impact do you think that could have on your faith?

3. Andy put forth the question, “What is Christian beauty?” He gave his own answer as, “Christian beauty is nothing other than cruciform [in the metaphorical shape of the cross], because Christian beauty is found on the cross and in the resurrection.” He went on to say that the cross is beautiful because it is where human sin does its worst and divine love does its best.

Share your response to this idea with the group. What surfaces for you? Does this seem challenging in any way? If so, how?

Now consider spaces in your own life where you experience regular beauty. Do you see cruciformity in those places? How so? Alternatively, where you wish you could experience more beauty? Can you imagine ways in which a cruciform form of beauty could be brought into that space in a greater degree? What might that look like?