The Importance of “Thinginess” (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 5)

The following is part of a series on American evangelicals, considering why American Christian artists who produce high quality work tend to Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox or other high church denominations. In a previous post, I argued that evangelical culture is essentially suburban, and averageness tends to be a central feature in suburban cultures. A related problem …

Create Wonder (Building a Better Christian Novel Pt 4)

I review Christian books, mostly nonfiction ones but I do get a Christian Fiction novel or two each month. Occasionally I’ll get one that I enjoy, and frequently I’ll give 3 or 4 stars just because I know the author means well and it’s not too terrible. However, most of the time I’m just not …

The Need to Do Art Well (Why Art Can’t be Strategized Pt 2)

In Part 1 of this series, I suggested that artists can't ultimately control which spiritual themes people see in their work. This raises an interesting question: if making art is ultimately about leaving room for God to speak to peoples' hearts, then why do art well? Can't he use bad art as well as good …

God in Nature (God in Film Pt 8)

This blog series started by arguing writers may not be able to show divine encounters in a movie without it seeming cheesy. One way to get around this is show God or angels but focus the film on our inability to fully understand him. We can talk about how strange or even funny holy beings seem …