The Cedarville Review 2020

EDITOR’S FOREWORD | 7 stumbling still occur. As we learn to walk, Christ forming in us, bold and honest Christian art can help us navigate complexities in life in the same way bold and honest fellowship does. Christian artists are capable of depicting the minor theme through the appropriate lens of the major. We acknowledge waywardness, but we do not celebrate it. We depict fallen nature, but we don’t become gratuitous in doing so. The Christian artist can examine life truthfully, both its darkness and light. G.K. Chesterton wrote that “fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.” In this spir- it, the Christian artist depicts life as it often is, because he knows the fullness of what it can be. In addition to the edification that comes by honestly entering a shared human struggle, art and literature also offer the opportunity to imaginatively empathize with others whose struggles we do not necessarily share. C.S. Lewis wrote, “In reading great literature I be- come a thousandmen and yet remainmyself…I see with a myriad of eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, inmoral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never moremyself than when I do.” The art of bearing with another as he walks and grows—perhaps especially if he is not yet where he ought to be—is of critical importance to establishing a compassion response. Christian art does not always depict the ideal state of man. It depicts characters and scenes as they are sometimes found in this world: Broken, in progress, hungry for a redemption only the Christian knows. We invite you to enjoy the breadth and honesty of the works within. They are bridges and imag- es, depictions of humanity in its various states of falleness, salvation, and sanctification. The works provide opportunities for community, edification, compassion, and forbearance.