"Christian artist"? "Artist Christian"? It’s become a pretty crowded bandwagon with lots of dueling banjos, but there are still a few slapping away at the old twangy topic.
What are we: artists or Christians?
Today, I invite you to go check out a post about the controversial new Christian movie "Facing the Giants" (not yet released) by Dick Staub who’s sounding a lot like me again…
"Why should we be excited that an aesthetically inferior product will be released on over 400 movie screens? The film includes the line ‘We need to give God our best in every area.’ Do they believe this film is our best?"
i’m struggling with this too. part of me does not want to be saddled with all the restrictions of being a christian artist, i’d rather not i think. i’m really not wanting to go there with the industry. the readers, the everyone else who will get out the ruler and measure the size of their christianity against mine.
i don’t know how to be the right kind of christian, i guess is my struggle. so i opt out of the controversy by just being me. this was the tack i took when i went to a secular poetry intensive and it worked for me. i’m not labeling myself as anything other than poet.
suz.
Dick Staub’s article is great. I’ve been thinking about art & Christianity and here’s how it plays out in my mind (speaking in generalities).
Three major types of art I’m comfortable enough to address are music, movies and books. I have no knowledge of fine art (painting, drawing, sculpting) so I won’t comment.
Music: It seems to me that the average Christian pop song or album is not any better or any worse than the average secular pop song that plays on the radio everyday. All of it is candy, very little substance but sometimes it tastes good.
Books: The average CBA book is about the same quality as the average ABA book. Been to Borders lately? Racks and racks of schlock there. Nothing special just because it’s secular. However, if we go beyond average and look at the cream of the crop in both CBA and ABA: I think “great books” in ABA outnumber the “great books” in CBA by probably 10 to 1 (rough estimate).
Movies: The very best Christian-produced feature films do not even come close to the quality of the worst of the secular B-movies. They lag behind in every area including bad writing, untalented actors, and low-to-no budget production values.
Since movies are the most obvious and public display of “Christian art,” it’s a shame that that’s the artform that Christians produce the worst. But it’s a foregone conclusion that whenever you put the “message” ahead of honest artistic expression, the results are likely to show it.