Sacramental Practices

Dan Siedell, “Art and Religion Revisited, Again”” (emphasis mine):

There are many who do not believe in religion. They think it is silly. They do not believe that water is a means by which the Holy Spirit saves or wine and bread the means by which Christ nourishes us. But there are also many who do not believe in art. They think it is silly. They go to an art museum and do not find powerful experiences of beauty and transcendence, they find only clumps of clay with decorations on them, canvas sheets with oil paints smeared on them. Art and religion are sacramental practices. They both require belief on the part of their participants that elements of the material world: water, oil, wine, bread, canvas, clay, oil paint, paper, and graphite are the distinctive means by which the immaterial comes to us. The transcendent appears to us through the vehicle of the immanent.

Siedell’s book — God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art — is currently available from Amazon. Via