And perhaps part of the problem is that such a thing as “Christian art” exists. There is no such thing as Christian art. It’s a convenient label with disastrous consequences. There are Christian artists, in the sense that there are Christians called to the arts, but the art that they make should not be constrained by some external, superficial idea of what “Christian art” should sound or look like.
Michael Minkoff is one of the hosts on the (sporadic… please don’t complain to me, I’d love for them to do more podcasts and have told them so) podcast, Movieology. I know I’ve been talking about and linking to stuff about the film Left Behind a lot, but it’s important. Most of you know I am a Christian. Many of you, my readers, are probably also Christians (many of you may have found your way here because of my association with Joe Darnell, formerly of The Movieology Web Show). That’s why I’m bringing this up and why I think it’s important. Left Behind represents so much that is wrong with modern Christian culture surrounding entertainment and art. We’ve created this separate category for Christian art. It’s come to the point where we think we need to have Christian alternatives for everything. Christians can’t make movies you see, Christians should make Christian movies. Christians can’t just make music, they should make Christian music. We’ve created this subculture of second class garbage. We’ve created a dividing line: that stuff over there is secular, this stuff over here is sacred. No such line should exist. We should be in the culture, making culture, influencing culture, defining culture. But we should not be making a subculture of lower quality alternatives. Please take this to heart, Christians.