Christian, Make Better Art

Let’s make better art, and let’s make art better. 

It is popular for Christians to recall our rich artistic heritage. It is also popular to bemoan the current state of Christian art. The phrase itself, “Christian art,” conjures little good response. Adding “Christian” before so many such words–“art” or “music” or “author”–almost always draws skepticism, if not snickering. It doesn’t have to be this way.

We have of course seen public Christians break in to the old glory in our day. Walker Percy, Flannery O’Conner, and J.R.R. Tolkien, the great Catholic writers, ascended in the culture and the kingdom. Sufjan Stevens, Chance the Rapper, and Lauren Daigle have made music as Christians engaging the world. Wendell Berry and T.S. Eliot wrote striking, and strikingly popular, poetry. But why not more?

One easy, more palatable answer is simply that there are many more non-Christians making art, it is more easily shared, and more culturally acceptable to propagate. That’s fair. But another part of the answer, the harder, less palatable part, is that a lot of Christian artists are either not good Christians or not good artists. 

The critiques of Christian art are legion. You know them well enough. Bland. Fake. Uninventive. Uncritical. Uncool. 

There has been an attempt as casual separation–“I’m not a Christian artist; I’m a Christian who makes art.” But perhaps we should reject such a disclaimer, such a softening. Being a Christian artist need not be a put-down or a dismissal. It can be so much more.

I heard Vito Aiuto describe our discomfort with discussions and ponderings over “Christian art” as similar to our discomfort with discussions and ponderings over “Christian kissing.” It’s a thing that’s meant to be beautiful and real and “authentic” and full of life and weight, but it can also be embarrassing, put-on, forced, a trope, a mockery, and less-than. 

I don’t want to make art exclusively for Christians. And I don’t want to make art that is exclusively counter-cultural. I want to make art that moves and shapes and expands culture. I want the same thing for you. Here are some ways I’m thinking to do this.

Be Original — Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but who and what are we flattering? Too many Christian artists are imitated–flattered–because of their Christianity, not because of their art. That’s why so much worship music and Christian rock and Christian fantasy and Christian film is the same, and not very good. Let’s not reduce ourselves to a generation of flatterers. Let us be innovative. Let us be original. Let’s not simply mimic what others have done, especially what they’ve done unexcellently. Christian art is readily called “soulless,” but I want to argue Christian art can be the most “soulful” of all art. And part of that is looking inside our sanctified selves, looking into the reality of the world, and looking to the infinitely creative God for inspiration. Inspiration is a very Christian word. Originality and creativity are not. But there’s no reason they can’t be. Do a new thing, care deeply about it, and do it well.

Be Visionary — We have seen where Christian art has been. Can we see where it’s going? Maybe, or maybe not. But as the artists, we can envision a future for Christian art, and for art in general. There is a lot of Christianese about being culture-builders and “agents of change” in the world. It’s fodder for satire, but there’s also a lot of truth in it. Especially as people indwelled by the Holy Spirit, catching and casting vision for the future–and vision that will resonate and reveal and reinvigorate–should be exactly in our wheelhouse. What do you envision for your field of art in five years? In ten? Go for it. Lead the way in your art, that you will be the one others want to imitate. 

Be Unafraid — Christians are pretty good at staying inside the lines. This serves us well in a lot of areas of life. Following rules, playing it safe, knowing our limits is often good and healthy. It can also kill creativity. There are ways for art to be truly real without being basic; to be heartfelt without being Hallmark; to reckon with sin and brokenness without being sinful or broken. Let’s not allow fear of man or fear of sin to squash our art into ordinariness. Take risks in your art. Are you always comfortable in your artistry? What have you been afraid to do in your art? Conquer fear and let the conquest be your art.

Be Honest — Lots of Christian art just feels fake. Lots of Christians feels fake. Because they can be. Because the life and art of faith can become an act, a charade, a forced fake-it-to-make-it thing. But it doesn’t have to be. Is your art a lie you tell yourself or one you want to tell others? Why? Is that really want you want for it? Earthiness is real. Doubt is real. Wrestling is real. Art should deal in these things–the real. And sometimes, maybe most times, Christian art should, at least through some small open door if not in the whole grand scheme, point honestly upward.

Be Hopeful — Here’s the upwardness. For me, I do not need happy endings in my art. I like “Lord of the Flies.” I like my endings to be real, even if they aren’t happy, just like my art. The feelings art evokes depend on a variety of factors–the artist, the audience, the context–and I think it can all be valuable. But I think ultimately, Christian artists can and should be hopeful. This doesn’t need to be reflected in all our art, but it should be there. Because our art, as our lives, not only resonate with the world as it is, but also with the higher world from whence our citizenship comes (Philippians 3:20). Heaven can be the point of all your art, but it need not be; it may be but a brushstroke, a note, a punctuation mark in but one grand poem. But it should be there, somewhere, as a redeeming crack under the tiniest Hobbit door or a gaping wormhole toward glory. 

Now go. I’m going too. If you’re a writer, write. If you’re a painter, paint. If you’re a music-maker, make music. If you dance, sculpt, or stick to sidewalk chalk, go to it. 

Christian, make better art. And make art better.