Whether a Christian enjoys high church, low church, or something in between, aesthetics in the Church are not about any one individual person and their particular tastes. Aesthetics are, fundamentally, not a matter of legalism, but of edification—that the Gospel of Christ might be preached and taught to all peoples, unhindered by its medium.
Let us live by walking with Jesus, so that our Neo-Pagan neighbors, the witch, and frankly a lot of us Christians, can put down our crystals, our superstitions, our vision boards, and our bound sage in order to live out a liturgy of life, with rituals, practices, and behaviors that reflect who we are as followers of Christ.
As Jesus hung on the cross there would be no last second escape. No Greek goddess would swoop in to rescue him. He suffered alone. And yet even in that suffering he declared his victory on the spiritual battlefield to be your victory.

All Articles

The redeemed are dressed in white robes.
Every Christian is abundantly rich through baptism.
It's easy to forget that today, just like then, most people who laud Luther publicly as a reformer, revolutionary, and so on, secretly reject his teaching because it's too much to take.
The church is God’s flock. Jesus is both a lion and a lamb. The zoo turns out to be as packed with theology as a seminary, if not more.
by Philip Melanchthon, translated by Scott L. Keith, Ph.D.; edited by Kurt Winrich
This evening we will together take a very abbreviated look at what led Luther down the long road to the discovery of the Gospel.
The same can be said of the Reformation. I have often heard both Roman Catholic and Lutheran brothers and sisters bemoan the celebration of the Reformation.
The Word of God wrecked the room. The wise and seasoned pastor along with the smart mouth vicar were all silenced in the fear and awe of a God who can seem so absent at times.
Over and over, generation after generation, sinners repeat the same mistake. "How is it possible that God can be a man," we ask.
Many Christians (including preachers) have succumbed to the idea that good preaching must be about practical living, and so most sermons are geared to scratch this pragmatic itch.
I once heard an old, retired Lutheran professor give in interview on a podcast. He was asked by the interviewer why people should bother going to church if they could just be saved through a personal relationship with Jesus?
We who fall within the Protestant camp of Christianity have longstanding issues with ritual. I get that. Ritual is often abused. Idolatrized. It can easily devolve into a hollow act of religious farce.