“Christian” art

Sep 29, 2014
By stlukesattic
In Uncategorized
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What I am writing below is a reaction I had to a blog post by Peter Chin about why he really dislikes Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) but listens to it anyway. (You should probably read that first if you would like anything I have to say make sense.) This article made the rounds where I work and I reacted to it. I suppose it was partly because I have heard variations on this argument so many times about why it is okay for Christians to make bad artwork. I originally sent this to friends, so it is written with a smile on my face! Anyway, here are my thoughts:

Sorry [fantastic colleague], I can’t follow you down the road of liking this article. If loving “secular” music is wrong, I don’t wanna be right. What is the sense of listening to (pop) music that everyone concedes is no good? There is no joy in it. The best – the absolute best – the author can say is that it is not as disagreeable as “secular” music. (I think he sets up a huge false dichotomy here, by the way.) It’s sort of milquetoast neutral lyrics set to highly produced music. It’s bland, shallow and simplistic. If that’s all there is, then I’ll choose silence. At least there is a very long tradition of Christians (and Old Testament Jews) recommending silent meditation as a spiritual discipline.

I will not concede that it is difficult to be creative within a discipline. If anything the opposite is true. Try being creative without any structure at all – I’ve never been able to do it. Not to mention, it doesn’t seem like John Donne, Dante, John Bunyan, Tolkien, Lewis, Gerard Manly Hopkins, George Herbert, St. Francis, Anne Bradstreet and others had difficulty in being creative within the strictures of thousands of years of Christian thought. Of course those people all had things to say that were shaped and seen through their experiences of living a Christian life. I doubt very much if they gave a great deal of thought about systematic theology as they were writing their poetry and stories (Bunyan aside); rather, I would bet that since they were orthodox themselves, their work was naturally orthodox as well. (And don’t think that “secular” artists have any less of an orthodoxy that they have to stick to. They will fail as commercial acts the moment they apostatize. Their orthodoxy is just a lot newer and is only as current as the spirit of the age.)

I will also take issue with the idea that CCM is a ministry beyond the sense of what any of us do as Christians simply living our lives. I do not think that I am under any kind of proscription against writing, as he calls it, authentically in order to write infantile prose, poetry or music so as not to cause someone to “stumble”. That is why we are given pastors. It’s the job of the local church to foster spiritual formation, to help immature Christians to lose their illusions and to experience mature Christian life. Musicians do not have a para-church ministry as if they are, by definition, lay ministers. They are artists and they are to make good art. And good art is sometimes very difficult stuff. Holy smokes! For heaven’s sake, I’ve actually read the Psalms! Talk about causing people to stumble! “The book of Psalms … spits piss and vinegar at God in praise…”* David would never get a record deal today, he’s just too hard. I suppose contemporary songwriters should look elsewhere than the Bible’s songbook when they are composing their own tunes.

I think the real problem is how to make a marketable product. He’s right that evangelicals are a thin skinned bunch. I would also say that for the most part they reflect very nicely the content of their music. Record labels are concerned with how to make a product that will meet all the criteria listed in this article as they are selling a product that reflects their market of consumers. Musicians need not be concerned with these issues – at least they don’t as artists.

Maybe the problem is that there is such a thing as CCM in the first place. If you’ve been reading about it at all, the music business is in a lot of trouble. The money does not flow like it used to – at least not from record sales. In fact, U2 just released their new album as a free download. It think the problem of insipid CCM may vanish in the near future as music becomes more easily available to listeners (almost) directly from the artists via online streaming websites. If musicians who are Christians want to write great songs with challenging music they will not have to deal so much with record labels as they will with a smaller but more discerning public. Lay it all out there! Let us hear about your dark night of the soul, how God has forsaken you, how you thirst for vengeance against the enemies of God; let’s hear just how good and challenging of a musician you are – learn a 4th or even a 5th chord!

I have only reacted this way because I have been given this argument about a million different times in regards to “Christian” art. The excuses for bad art masquerading as somehow “Christian” are myriad and they are infernal. Geez, if making art or music to the glory of God were easy, everyone would do it! It’s making a buck while doing it that seems to be the real issue.

*http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2013/08/the-egoism-of-god.html#ixzz3EeXKdIwa