Christian Artists

I wish we didn’t categorise entertainers but we do so… This category, christian, is bothersome to me. Does it raise expectations and impose moral standards? I say it shouldn’t but it really does for most people.

I remember back in the 80′s when I was listening to Christian music exclusively. No secular music at all. I turned off the radio and didn’t watch much TV. I felt I had a responsibility to my family and myself which should restrict my activities to only those “pleasing to God”. I didn’t know then how God can use the world, His creation, to enhance my life. I was living in a box. I viewed each artist with a constant eye toward their “witness” and I justified my judgements by this “pleasing to God” set of rules I had invented. These judgements didn’t include theological differences, those I could agree to disagree with, it was about decisions the artist made about their art, promotion, concerts, alliances and so on.

One of the artists I judged was Amy Grant. Besides not really liking her style I was disappointed when she did some commercials for Black and Decker. I thought she had “sold out” to commercialism and with my blind eye I couldn’t see how God could bless her ministry while she allied herself with a secular endeavour. My first mistake was to call her art a ministry. She’s not a minister, she’s a gifted artist. My second mistake was to assume Black and Decker was some kind of evil entity, hell bent on taking money from people in a destructive manor (where I got that I’ll never know… I have been “helped” by a few of their products… jeeze). What did I expect from them? Ha! Far from my mind was the likelihood that some people who owned or worked for Black and Decker were Christians and God used that business to fulfill their earthly needs. Now my thinking could include the speculation (pure speculation here) that… Some CEO at Black and Decker went to an Amy Grant concert, was moved by her witness and great talent, and returned to work on Monday, called his Ad Agency and told them he’d like to use her in their commercials instead of the bimbo they had previously used. Is that wrong? Not at all.

Now for the art part. I’ll start with this… Art belongs to the artist and is a result of that persons motivation. Artists may produce their art for self expression, promotion of a belief or ideal, some only for comercial gain. No purpose is wrong or should be less important to that artist. While it is true that some art offends us it doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. We are all offended at times by something we don’t understand. Sometimes we’re right about the offensive material and we should avoid it. If you believe in God, and you hear His voice, these decisions will be easy ones to make. I’ll go out on a limb and say none of these things can harm you in an eternal way so enjoy the things you enjoy, question the things which you don’t understand and keep your judgements about the artists to yourself….. Oh, and you can pray to God for them to be saved or enlightened (that could never hurt). Please think like this… The artists own work is between them and God the same as their theology is. We can all agree to disagree.