From a conversation on Christian artistic expression:
Sacred/secular is horizontal, not vertical, that is, not Greek. How we handle a subject makes it holy or profane. Take every thought captive? Francis Shaeffer’s little book on art was one of my first Christian philosophy reads. Revolutionizing. Timothy Dwight, the last evangelical president of Yale, gave a commencement speech on literary arts in the Bible, always the most excellent expressions. He observed that the Bible doesn’t primarily appeal to the intellect or the emotions, but rather the imagination. A godly imagination!
I once asked an applied-faith Christian artist about high art. He replied that high art is merely folk art refined and elevated.
This much distinguishes godly art from art where the artist thinks he is god. I have found this true of every discipline, as with a discussion I had with a math prof at Hillsdale College. Though teaching in an essentially Christian school, she held to the view that mathematicians are literal creators of every kind of abstraction without limit, rather than working derivatively with God’s purposeful creation. I have always hoped I planted a seed otherwise.
Applied faith. I love it.