No life in his art

This is good: "The Problem of Christian Art"

I am a Christian art snob, and you might as well know that up front. I don’t like most of what is called “Christian” in art, music, or movies. I think I’m in good company here. C. S. Lewis remarked that he too had little to say about so-called Christian literature. Far too often, Christian art privileges message over art, and the result is that no one who doesn’t already share the sensibilities of the community will pay attention.

Oh, and it’s also true that a lot of so-called Christian art sucks.

When I say I'm a theater artist, and a Christian, a lot of people think this means I'm going to spend my life doing productions of things like Godspell. False. I hate Godspell. I like some of the songs, but the book is terrible. It has such a flimsy structure. Which is what happens when you try to put the structure of the Book of Matthew with traditional musical theater.

I plan on doing overtly Christian things. I like them. I have a perspective on them that's pretty unique especially for a theater person. I'm working pretty actively, at this point, on a piece that combines the Song of Songs and the Book of Job. But not all of my theater's going to be overtly Christian. In that blog, he mentions the idea of "Stealth Christian" artists. You may not necessarily know their work is Christian, but it is. I think the stealthiest Christian move was the later career of Alice Cooper. (Yeah, Alice Cooper's a Christian. Yeah, I love him. Though I loved him before I knew any of that, too. I've been a proud metalhead since middle school.) Tongues was my main stealth Christian piece. It was so Christian it was ridiculous.

Anyway. Well said.

I had a class yesterday where we all drew quotes from a pile. I happened to draw this quote:

"No man can stand within these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body."

That would be Charles Darwin.

That would also be the last part of my "why am I a Christian" blog post.

The teacher said, "He was really the most religious man of no religion, wasn't he?" And the discussion following this quote, that I happened to pick up from a giant random pile, was the only time religion was overtly mentioned in the class. I mean, of course I drew the religious quote. What else would I do?

Excuse me, now I'm off to my Intro to Jewish Mysticism class.