A Case for Color: Reclaiming Beauty in Reformed Worship

Anyone who journeys to the remarkable medieval cathedrals of Europe cannot help but be in awe of the remarkable array of colors all around. The stain-glassed windows of the Chartres Cathedral in France feature the remarkable “blue of Chartres.” Depending on the time of day, light flows through the windows of Cologne’s over-500 feet tall cathedral bouncing off, among other architectural features, the gold and hundreds of other gems of the Shrine of the Three Kings, creating an ever-changing colorful display. With their icons, reliquaries, and the like, Catholic cathedrals are vibrant, color-filled houses of worship. 

Many of the Protestant Reformers rejected much of the theology behind such worship spaces. Fear of the idolatry warned against in the second commandment, the redefining of saints, and concerns about pure worship versus superstition, as only a few examples, caused Protestants, including those designated as “Reformed,” to physically alter the worship spaces they occupied. Reformed Christians in the Dutch Republic, for example, occupied formerly Catholic cathedrals and promptly rearranged. This included moving the focal point from the front (the altar at the front of the nave) to the center aisle where a pulpit was installed so all worshippers could hear the preacher. It also meant removing statues and literally white-washing the colorful interior spaces. Stained-glass windows were sometimes replaced, though the great expense of doing so often meant they were spared.

A quick step inside many churches today, especially Protestant ones, reveals the on-going influence of those Protestant efforts. Protestant worship places continue to be remarkably bland spaces. Even the exterior of many of our churches is consistently a standard white color. While there are certainly good theological reasons for Reformed Christians to resist mimicking Catholic worship spaces, our white-washed worship spaces might inadvertently limit our appreciation of God’s colorful creation. For Reformed Christians, reclaiming color in our worship spaces and in our experiences with God reflects God’s own colorful revelation in the Bible and can awaken us to awe and wonder at the glorious works of our Creator God.

In pursuing colorful, beautiful places of worship, we follow God’s self-revelation in the Bible. In Exodus 25 the Lord instructs Moses to collect offerings from the people for the construction of the tabernacle. Included in those collections are gold, silver, and bronze as well as blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and ram skins dyed red. Evidently, the Lord desires the place associated with his dwelling to be colorful! God’s preference for color is repeated in the construction of the temple. As in the tabernacle, gold featured prominently in the temple. But, a multitude of other colors were also incorporated. For example, the curtain for the Most Holy Place was made of blue, purple, and crimson yarn and fine linen. 

Colorful places of worship associated with God’s presence are not only Old Testament phenomena. Revelation 4 and 5—chapters that describe the heavenly throne-room of God—are resplendent with color. The apostle John describes the one sitting on the throne as having the appearance of jasper (likely, emerald-green) and ruby. Around the throne is shining, colorful rainbow. In the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21 John describes the infamous streets of gold but also city walls decorated with every kind of precious stone, meaning colors of all different sorts. What a magnificent, colorful sight to behold!

The biblical emphasis on colors in places of worship is striking, but what does it mean? For now, at least two points are worth considering, helping Reformed Christians today live more intentionally and appreciatively in relation to God’s creation.

First, God’s emphasis on colors in places of worship emphasizes God’s love for aesthetic beauty and God’s invitation for Christians to do the same. To put it bluntly, the Bible is clear that the places in which God will be worshipped should be beautiful. This is reflected in the colors of the temple and the visions of the New Jerusalem as well as in the proclamations of praise in the Psalms and Jesus’ words about the lilies of the fields. God has declared that His creation is very good, the dazzling incandescence of a hummingbird to the magnificent colors of a sunset over Lake Michigan or the prairies of the Midwest. God’s appreciation for the beauty of the colors of His creation is reason enough for us to celebrate colors, too, in our lives and in our worship.

Christians of all sorts—but maybe particularly in Reformed, North American contexts—might be tempted to sacrifice aesthetic beauty in the name of efficiency and economy. Constructing buildings “Christianly,” including constructing churches, should, of course, consider proper stewardship of resources. Reformed objections might also include theological ones, drawing from those early Protestant impulses to emphasize worshipping God in “Spirit and in truth” with less concern for the physical spaces in which that worship occurs. Both practical and theological cautions, however, may impoverish Reformed Christians in unintended ways.

Beauty is also essential because God is beautiful and has created and loves His beautiful creation. From a Reformed perspective, the role color plays in beauty and, thus, in constructing our places should not be ignored. Personally, I know virtually nothing about how to utilize color and space to create beautiful spaces, so I won’t attempt to make recommendations here. But, the Bible seems clear that the places in which we worship should be colorful and beautiful.

A second point to consider is the relationship of color with light. Scientists have long been fascinated with the relationship between color and light, and we know recognize that color is really our experience of our eyes seeing light waves of various lengths. Because each person’s eyes are unique, each of us experiences color slightly differently, a phenomenon evidenced most clearly in people with “color blindness” or color vision deficiency (CVD). Simply put, color is light.

The Bible’s emphasis on colors, then, is an emphasis on light. Light is a key theme throughout the Bible. God creates light in Genesis 1, and Jesus declares himself to be the light of the world in John 8. Revelation 22 promises that in the new heaven and new earth God’s light will make all other lights needless. God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If color is light and light is God, then, in a way, the Bible shows us that God is color. Of course, that is not a scientific statement but a theological one.

Colors remind us that the God who has created, redeemed, and loved us is light. Colors remind us that in the midst of a dark world filled with violence and hate and poverty and natural disasters, God’s kingdom is a light that cannot be hidden. Colors remind us that as we gather around Word and sacrament, we receive a light to our paths of life—even when those paths lead through the valley of the shadow of death. Colors remind us that The Light has come into our world, taken on our flesh, and brought us from darkness into His glorious light. 

For us Christians—Reformed and otherwise—colors and the beauty that flows from them is not something of which to be afraid, resist, or view as unnecessary. Instead, the colorful images of the Bible can remind us of the beauty our God delights in and has established all around us and provide vivid reminders that Jesus Christ is the Light of the world. Thanks be to Him!

Footnotes:

1. https://www.cathedrale-chartres.org/en/cathedrale/monument/the-stained-glass-windows/
2. This shift is still evident in many European churches that were converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, St. Bavo’s in Haarlem, Netherlands serving as a good example. See, Mia Mochizuki, The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm, 1566-1672: Material Religion in the Dutch Golden Age (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008). These shifts are also noticeable in many early modern paintings. See, for example, Emanuel de Witte’s works: https://www.mskgent.be/en/collection/1907-g.