Today the Church comes up against a bevy of problems. As a community, we are experiencing the large scale overshadowing of our doctrine and fundamental principles by the influence of the world. This is revealing itself in various shades of pharisaism and liberalism, and there seems to be a special blend of the two that each community within the Church must fight against. We are also battling against forces that seek to destroy Christians or anything even associated with us or our values. Naturally, then, we must triage by setting aside the role of the Church in the arts and design in order to focus on the delivery of doctrine, right? After all, it does not matter what the aesthetic or artistic values of Christian art or design are as long as the correct message is appropriately conveyed by the creator and received by the audience.
Actually, this is dangerous thinking. Beauty and creativity actually matter. People of all tastes in art and design, as well as all ideologies, tend to flock to whatever satiates their craving for these things. The Church has a strong opportunity here to minister to various audiences by earnestly creating works that are Scriptural, beautiful, and creative. The problem is that the Church has had a largely mixed approach to this over the last century after being, for the most part, heavily involved in the creative and artistic elements of wider culture. This is especially problematic because of the drastic changes in the spreading and adoption of culture. Culture has become nearly completely globalized due to the mass availability of multiple recorded media (paper, film, audio, digital), quick and easy transportation, radio waves, and the internet. The rise in fundamentalism in the United States saw certain members of the Church rousing fear and contempt of the arts and design. The most loathed of the arts have been music, storytelling, and decorative ornamentation- the most commonly referenced art forms in the Bible. At a time when American art became the most prominent in the world, the American Church decided to withdraw from art and design and focus exclusively on creations that were edifying and educational without an emphasis on beauty or creativity. Even as Christians have sought to amp up cultural relevance through the formation of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and the creation of popular literature and movies, the efforts have largely fallen flat due to a stronger urge to emulate trends in the larger culture than on originality. Original Christian artists and designers exist, but they have clearly had difficulty being promoted in Christian culture over the years, as the most successful creators have largely been emulators of secular makers. The overall impact reduced evangelical impact and permitted widespread ignorance of what Christianity, Christ Jesus, and Christians even are to begin with.
Throughout this multipart series Focus on Christian Culture, I will explore the present nature of Christian art and design, how we got to this point, what the impact is, and what we can do moving forward as a Church.