Has God Really Called You to be an Artist?

| December 8, 2014 | Arts & The Bible | 9 comments

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Renew the Arts is regularly asked how we decide which Christian artists we support. Our criteria are actually quite inclusive:

  1. You profess Christ as your Savior and your life does not obviously contradict that profession.
  2. You believe you are called by God to be an artist or artisan.
  3. We believe your art is not likely to be served by the current art market.
  4. We believe we are able to provide something to you that you can’t provide yourself (e.g., production assistance, studio space, materials, etc.).

If you meet those four criteria and you want our assistance, we will do everything we can to support you in the way we think will best serve your art, benefit the church at large, and steward our limited resources.

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Does Artistic Purity Ever Demand Vulgarity?

| November 24, 2014 | Arts & The Bible | 2 comments

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This is the fourth installment in the “Whatever” series on a biblical view of the arts, drawn from Philippians 4:8. If you missed the last three articles, you can read them here: Whatever is True, Whatever is Honorable, and Whatever is Just.

Whatever is Pure: Set Apart Art

Something pure (ἁγνός hagnos) is set apart or holy; such a thing is “free from ceremonial defilement.” This word indicates two main things about Christ-honoring art: it should not glory in sin, and it should not be tainted by unbiblical worldviews.

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Is There Such a Thing as Unjust or Just Art?

| November 5, 2014 | Arts & The Bible | 0 comments

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Is it possible for art to be unjust? In this installment of our “Whatever” series on aesthetics (drawing from Philippians 4:8), I discuss how to make just art. Because we can’t just make art. We need to make just art. (Groan.) But what does it mean for art to be just or—as most translators put it—right?

The word “right” (δίκαιος dikaios) used in Philippians 4:8 is mostly translated “righteous” or “just” in the rest of the Scriptures, and it indicates guiltlessness or innocence. For our purposes, the phrase refers to art that defends and promotes God’s legal perspective. The first and most obvious denotation of law-keeping would be that just art does not break, or encourage breaking, any of God’s Law(s). But the criterion drives deeper than that.

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Should We Care if Unbelievers Hate Christian Art?

| October 25, 2014 | Resources for Artists, Resources for Patrons | 0 comments

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Last night, I watched the movie God’s Not Dead, and it was a little better than I was expecting. Sure, it had many of the problems most Christian movies have: an “emotional” score that undercuts actual emotion, underwhelming “celebrity” appearances, poor to middling acting throughout, bad writing at times, and an acceptable but unremarkable degree of overall technical craft. But it was also occasionally moving (when the music got out of the way), not incessantly preachy, and every once in a while believably written (i.e., some of the dialogue actually sounded like someone could have said it in reality).

Most unbelieving critics have much the same perspective. Here’s an excerpt from an average review by Teddy Durgin from Screen It:

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One Simple Way to Choke Good Art and Starve Good Artists

| October 12, 2014 | Arts & The Bible, Resources for Patrons | 3 comments

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In just a moment, I’m going to reveal my one simple trick for choking good art and starving good artists, but first, I just wanted to say… Congratulations. We’re already doing it!

How? By declaring with our dollars that entertainment is the main purpose of art. In the course of this article, I will unfold why this is not a biblical idea, how it suppresses good art and harms good artists, and what we can do to undo the damage we’ve done with our “entertainment” budgets. Unless you were really here to learn how to destroy good art. In which case, good news—all you need to do is carry on as usual.

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