Jesse Carey, "12 Francis Schaeffer Quotes That Will Challenge the Way You Engage Culture", RelevantMagazine.com (29 January 2016)

I would like to have been able to reproduce this article at TMR, but I can't for copyright reasons, and I can't even ask permission without writing to their postal address; so that's that. (In a way, it's a bit of cheek considering the bulk of the article is a collection of quotations from Francis Schaeffer's writings.) Whatever...

...the Christian thinker Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer had a huge impact upon me, especially during the time when I wrote music for a living (many moons ago!). Some at the time questioned why I, as a Christian, was engaged in the world of the arts. I even asked myself that question from time to time. But Schaeffer helped me see what I was doing in a broader context: this is God's world, we are created in His image, and we may celebrate His Lordship over All That Is by exercising the creativity He has given to us. So, maybe this collection of 12 Schaeffer quotes will help someone else.

“Christians . . . ought not to be threatened by fantasy and imagination. Great painting is not "photographic": think of the Old Testament art commanded by God. There were blue pomegranates on the robes of the priest who went into the Holy of Holies. In nature there are no blue pomegranates. Christian artists do not need to be threatened by fantasy and imagination, for they have a basis for knowing the difference between them and the real world "out there." The Christian is the really free person—he is free to have imagination. This too is our heritage. The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars.” *

* This is a quotation from Francis Schaeffer's book Art and the Bible (emphasis added).

Image: Copyright © L'Abri Ideas Library, all rights reserved, appearing on TMR with kind permission.