Artistic genius has a habit of only being recognized after the artist is dead.

We might have to wait a while.

I am thinking of English and Scottish songwriters such as Fanny Crosby, Charles Wesley, and worst of all William Booth; all three of whom were peddling crap, and all of whom have something in common with the current crop of American Christians; their art was wholly in the service of evangelism alone, and was, as Cali says, lacking in a personal and independent vision.

American Christians always bemoan the poor quality of modern Christian art and performance, but they have no answers. They seem to have inherited a multi-generational puritanism. Since the Awakening (as they call the revivalism of the colonial period and soon after) it has been thought that a focus upon the quality and aesthetic strength of art arises out of sinful pride, and that only the advance of doctrine and the spread of the message should be central to the effort. Instead of seasoning true talent with spiritual inspiration, these tack-masters have viewed talent itself as a problem, as though human effort and ability get in the way of the Holy Spirit's mission to glorify God alone. Therefore it is not the quality of the art that serves the gospel, but the centrality of the gospel that sanctifies the art.

And it comes out looking and sounding like shit.

pelfdaddy wrote:I am thinking of English and Scottish songwriters such as Fanny Crosby, Charles Wesley, and worst of all William Booth; all three of whom were peddling crap, and all of whom have something in common with the current crop of American Christians; their art was wholly in the service of evangelism alone, and was, as Cali says, lacking in a personal and independent vision.

American Christians always bemoan the poor quality of modern Christian art and performance, but they have no answers. They seem to have inherited a multi-generational puritanism. Since the Awakening (as they call the revivalism of the colonial period and soon after) it has been thought that a focus upon the quality and aesthetic strength of art arises out of sinful pride, and that only the advance of doctrine and the spread of the message should be central to the effort. Instead of seasoning true talent with spiritual inspiration, these tack-masters have viewed talent itself as a problem, as though human effort and ability get in the way of the Holy Spirit's mission to glorify God alone. Therefore it is not the quality of the art that serves the gospel, but the centrality of the gospel that sanctifies the art.

And it comes out looking and sounding like shit.

Now that explains a hell of a lot. And in one sense, I'm kicking myself for not recognising that love of doctrine above all else would be as toxic to artistic endeavour as it is to discourse and learning, given how much I've posted on the subject in those other areas. But then, any myth that may have arisen about my omniscience is precisely that - a myth.

The sad part being, of course, that whilst viewing anything that inspires, arouses passions, or instils awe and wonder in those beholding it, is somehow "wrong" if that inspiration, passion, awe and wonder are not reserved for the Beloved DoctrineTM, pretty much kills off at source anything that would make the love of the doctrine anything other than hollow or sterile. Indeed, seeking "ideological purity" in any enterprise is pretty much a guarantor of quality elimination. See just about any art form, in which absolute conformity to an aesthetic doctrine pretty much kills off that vital spark, without which the entire artistic enterprise is itself pointless.

Weaver wrote:Cali, I think you're putting the cart before the horse here.

It isn't that Christians cannot produce anything except shitty music and art - it's that people producing shitty music and art cannot make a go of it anywhere except the brain-dead Christian audience who will buy anything approved by Jebus.

I was thinking the same thing. The standard for "Christian art" here is so low, that anybody who can draw a stick figure or can barely sing in tune, will be accepted and marketed.