Why Most Christian Art Sucks

Lately there have been some prophetic voices proclaiming that God is moving to bring real artistic expression through his people into his kingdom.  I believe this.  I also believe that much of the church will miss it, and most of those who don't miss it will see it and cringe.  Because, to paraphrase Frank Zappa, the Industrial Church wouldn't know good art if it bit them in the ass.  Sometimes good art does that, you know ...

You see, in the Industrial Church, everything serves a purpose.  A "greater" purpose, we sometimes say.  This just means that we can put it to use.  The Industrial roots of our society have taught us that everything is only as valuable as its role in production of goods, provision of services, and - most especially - gathering of wealth.

It is not hard to examine our American church society and see how much it looks like our American industrial society.  We flatter ourselves that this is because the church has so shaped the development of American culture.  Sadly, this is rather like looking at the tread marks on a roadkill and thinking how much that dead critter must have shaped the tires of the semi that ran over it.

In the Industrial Church, art - like architecture, people, theology (and God Himself, for that matter) - is only as good as the extent to which it "builds the ministry."  (Hmmmm - is there some way I can possibly rephrase that last sentence to also include a semicolon?)  And so, art is not typically particularly artistic in Christian circles.

For me, the biggest downfall of current mainstream Christian painting, Christian storytelling, and other Christian artistic expressions, is how poorly they deal with ugliness.  Great art elevates ugliness to tragedy.  A pietà interprets the violent death of the Lamb of God - ugliness beyond human comprehension - through a mother's broken heart.  A good story doesn't always end with the "sinner's prayer" ensuring they all live happily ever after ... or, as we prefer to phrase it, ensuring they all inherit eternal life.  Great art does not pretend that there is nothing ugly in the world; it does not simply address the beauty of all it surveys.  Great art finds and displays the beauty of a greater theme in ugliness.  It finds the holy that lives in the profane.

Much of today's Christian painting is just pretty pictures - because that's the drill-your-dimple-with-a-forefinger, false-as-a-three-dollar-bill pack of lies the Industrial church demands.  Christian fiction is bland, boring, tasteless, worm-eaten, soggy biscuits of stories filled with half-characters and caricatures that look about as much like real people as a chunk of broken asphalt does.  And without even a tenth of the interest.  500 years ago, architecture and music were considered sister arts, and people worked hard at raising both to lofty achievements.  Today, the ugliness of the average church building is matched only by the colorless clothes of its impoverished musical sister as together they endlessly repeat cookie-cutter tunes over and over, like a cheap music box made of concrete and glass.

The ugliest attempts at art that the world has ever seen are those that refuse to recognize ugliness, pain, and dissatisfaction.  Beauty bursts forth uncontrollably when those realities become themes of tragedy, triumph, and yearning.  Sucky art doesn't know this.

But there's a time coming, and is even now dawning, I believe, when the Body of Christ will begin to express the artistic character of the Head, and not just attempt to emulate the intellectual.  To release the beauty and awesome power of God's feelings, and not just his thoughts.  To be sure, the expressions of this reborn art will sometimes be muddled.  Some emotional untruths will flow from our orchestra pits, art displays, and book readings.  This is to be expected - it won't really be much different from all the intellectual untruth that has poured freely and unchecked from our pulpits for many years.

It'll just be scarier for some, because seminaries won't control these truths.  CEO pastors won't dispense them.  Spiritually-numbed sheep won't hear them and sit still - they'll break for the house of the Lord.  And in so doing, they'll flock away from the corrals built by false shepherds, as they hear the voice of the real Shepherd.  It could get ugly.  And in ugliness, true art will find irresistible beauty.