Christian kitsch and false spirituality

One of the saddest things that happened to much of Christianity in the USA has been the way in which spirituality has been replaced by the purchasing of Christian kitsch. We buy our thin volumes which promise us easy ways to become spiritual and easy ways to witness to others. We purchase our cheap “Jesus trinkets” and think that putting them on our cars or wearing them is a substitute for a life that expresses the likeness of God into the culture. If you click on the image above, it will take you to a very impressive article on Internetmonk that speaks much more in depth about this issue. But, let me give you two of the quotes to entice you to go read the article:

For the past ten years or so I have worked in Christian publishing. I am going to let you in on a dirty little secret. Most publishers do not care in the least what is between the covers of a book. And when someone says, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” you need to remind them that is the only way someone judges a book they have never heard of before. That’s why a potential author’s “platform” is so important. If you write a manuscript that is so great, so unique that I feel every true follower of Jesus needs to read it right away, but you are not a TV personality or pastor a megachurch, I won’t even be able to get a publisher to return my phone call about you. On the other hand, if you pastor one of the nation’s twenty largest or fastest-growing churches, and you have a slick and smooth delivery on TV, bingo! You and your agent can get a strong six-figure multiple book deal. What will your book be about? Who cares? It just doesn’t matter. You won’t be writing it anyway. That will be the job of a ghostwriter hired by the publisher. Your job is to protect your pretty face and your good reputation. And that pretty face on the cover is what will sell the book, not the content (or lack thereof) inside.

It would be tempting to claim sour grapes on this executive, except that what he says has been verified by Christian writers, such as Sue Dent, and others. She has been one of the more vocal advocates of changing the publishing system, but she has not been the only one. But, the article on Internetmonk makes more comments. I will only quote one more:

We keep Christian stores in business, buying water bottles that say “Seek the living water.” T-shirts with ripped-off corporate logos like “Things go better with Christ.” And books and music that are such inferior examples of their media they would be laughable if their effects weren’t so horrible. So much Christian art causes us to become people who cannot think for ourselves, cannot determine what is solid food and what is baby food, cannot distinguish between what is beautiful and what is a very poor imitation of beauty.

In my next essay, I and some of our other writers will take a look how we can get away from Selling Crap To Christians For Profit and get back to what brings God glory: Art that is beautiful for beauty’s sake.

Back in the 1970’s, I was trained in Christianity at a place that is now called Grace Haven Ministry Center in Mansfield, Ohio. At that time, an elder and artist called Tim Barber helped to encourage and coordinate arts conferences over several years. Both Grace Haven and Tim Barber were strongly influenced by the ministry of L’Abri in Switzerland. There was a desire to have the expression of art and creativity in all its forms be part of an expression of a truly conservative and evangelical Christianity. The God who created the lilies in the field certainly wanted us to express that same creativity in our art and in our lives. I can remember attending various of the conferences both thrilled by the art that was performed, written, expressed, painted, silk screened, carved, and also envious that I had no such artistic gifts (or so I thought). But, those conferences helped open me up to the expression of the creativity of God through the medium of the arts.

Sadly, as Internetmonk points out, the L’Abris, the Grace Havens, the Christians who spoke for that type of expression of God’s creativity did not win their point. Sadly, as Sue Dent, Internetmonk, and others point out, most Christian writing struggles under a formulaic writing formula that will not let an author be published unless the book follows certain plot lines. The visual arts have been reduced mostly to either a Norman Rockwell cheap knockoff or a greeting card approach to “inspirational” art. Sadly no Michaelangelos would rise today to carve or paint challenging works, for they would never be permitted to do so or would be denounced as heretics and/or pornographers for daring to paint in that way. I hear many sung ditties, but few (or almost no) works on the level of a Beethoven Mass or a Tchaikovsky Trisagion or Divine Liturgy. And, no, I am not saying that modern composers must write classical music. On the Roman Catholic side, John Michael Talbot has been one of the few to attempt to regularly write more sonically complex works.

But worse, it is hard to tell whether our Christian kitsch has influenced our modern USA shallow spirituality or whether our shallow spirituality gave rise to the strong desire for Christian kitsch. I suppose it does not matter, because it appears that the two are locked in a vicious circle. And that vicious circle is harming our witness. If you read many of the critiques of non-Christians, they boil down to accusations of shallowness on the part of those who most claim to be Bible believers. In the early centuries of the Church, a fully philosophically trained Justin Martyr would rise up to dispute those accusations. Back then a John Chrysostom would rise up and use his classical training in oration to clearly explain our faith. Back then a Leo the Great would write a tome to refute the heretic. Today we get a simplistic quote from Saint Paul about preaching only Christ crucified as though that meant that Saint Paul would simply have called them all fools and refused to answer them. Yet Saint Paul wrote the whole theological/philosophical treatise called Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, and Saint John writes the deeply mystical Gospel of John.

And, yes, lest you think that only “Protestants” are prone to that, see the cartoon below from Pithless Thoughts, in which he pokes fun at a certain type of Orthodox devotion to the externals of the faith in a way that shows that they are not integrating the externals and internals of the faith in order to continue growing in the likeness of God. (The Orthodox love the externals of the faith, but in a proper balance in which the externals of the faith become windows that lead us both internally and to heaven.) I think that one solution is for individual Christians to make a commitment to truly learn and truly read more deeply. Even more, there needs to be a commitment by Priests and pastors to preach sermons that are more than merely moralistic tales or simplistic and misleading encouragements. We need to pray for Christian artists to truly rise up and be recognized. And, we need to encourage Christian artists in our churches. I could say more, but I still agree with Tim Barber and L’Abri on this subject.