Over at Media Salt they discussed Christian Media a while ago.
When you hear a piece of media described as “Christian,” what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? For me, if I’m honest, it’s that it is probably a piece of crap. It’s watered down music that is a poor imitation of pop culture, with different lyrics. It’s a poorly written novel that’s “more acceptable” to read because it’s been sanitized of harsh language/circumstances and deals exclusively with faith. It’s a straight-to-video movie with a cheesy plot and even worse acting. Most of all, I think it couldn’t be further from what God expects us to do with all of our creativity.
Yup. I agree.
But it hasn't always been so. Once, Christian artists were at the forefront of the artistic world: Da Vincci, Michelangelo, Handel, etc.
I say we let people be artists and encourage them to express their faith (and doubt and fear and shame and anger) through their art. It doesn't need to be all sanitized, happy, touch-feely crap.
For preachers: learn to be a good public speaker. Trust me, your preaching skills don't necessarily translate. Join Toastmasters and see what it's like to get your point across in 3 to 5 minutes. I dare you.
1 comment:
Great post as usual. I was thinking about this when I was in NY on my anniversary trip this year. We went to some of the fancy art museums. Man, if you really want your faith to come to life, go look at some of those classic pieces of art. Most of the world's greatest artists have loved recreating scenes from Scripture. Some of them moved me to tears. How sad the day is when the best we can do is come up with logos that look like the ones from pop culture, or with action figures like the one you've shown here.
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