The Bad Plus from Where We Were Sitting

| October 8, 2014 | Reviews | 3 comments

bad plus from our seats

The Bad Plus, the Minnesotan progressive jazz trio, just performed in Atlanta for the first time in eleven years,1 and I can tell you it was worth the wait.

My friend Rusty and I arrived in Little Five Points around 7:10 pm, only twenty minutes before the show was supposed to begin. We hadn’t eaten before we got our tickets, but we were prepared to wait until after the show to get food. The ticket office lady at the Variety Playhouse told us there was no reason to rush. Apparently very few people had shown up yet.

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How to be a Gracious Critic When You Love to Hate

| October 6, 2014 | Commentary, Resources for Patrons | 8 comments

Gracious Critic Wrecking Ball

Something has been weighing on me quite a bit lately. I was very gently rebuked recently for how negative I usually am. This wasn’t an attack from some wounded outsider. This was from my closest business partner and friend, Justus. Second only to my wife, I rely on him to keep me in check. He said, in so many words, “I don’t want Renew the Arts to be characterized by naysaying. And you are often very negative. It leaves a sour taste in people’s mouths.” Especially after my article on Left Behind, I wanted to take this opportunity to begin a public dialogue on (some of) my shortcomings, and to ask for help in developing a constructive and gracious program for the destruction of mediocrity and corruption in the church’s arts.

Demolition in God’s Kingdom Plans

First, demolition and critique clearly have a place in God’s redemptive plan. If you look at God’s commission to Jeremiah (Jer. 1:10), two-thirds of it is destructive:

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Why the Label “Christian Art” Needs to be Left Behind

| October 4, 2014 | Resources for Patrons | 5 comments

Left Behind

First, I must say that I won’t be seeing the new Left Behind movie. Ever. I don’t think you should see it either. In fact, I beg you not to see it. It may be “Christian art,” but it isn’t Christian. An article in Christianity Today sums up my perspective on it pretty well:

. . . Hollywood producers now know that American Christians feel that way about their faith [that Christians want their faith included in the mainstream discourse]—that Christians so desperately want to participate in the mainstream, that they’re tired of having sanctioned music that’s like other music and movies like other movies and politicians like other politicians but always still being on the outside, that Christians just want to feel identified without having to carve out little alcoves or niche markets that exist alongside the Big Boys. And, now that they know it—that is, now that they know they can make back 5x their initial financial investment—they want to exploit that, by pumping out garbage (not moral garbage, just quality garbage), slapping the “Christian” label on it, and watching the dollars pour in.

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Biblical Principles of Aesthetics, Part 1: Whatever is True

| September 27, 2014 | Arts & The Bible | 1 comment

biblical principles of aesthetics header

The next few articles in this series compose the fourth chapter of my forthcoming book, According to His Excellent Greatness: The Practice of Aesthetics for Christians Today.

Biblical Principles of Aesthetics

In Philippians 4:8, Paul tells Christians directly what to pursue in art and otherwise. One will notice that, unlike non-Christian schemata of aesthetics and discernment, the Bible does not erect an impenetrable dividing wall between morality and material excellence:

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How Christian Platonism is Killing Christian Art

| September 19, 2014 | Arts & The Bible | 7 comments

sinking titanic christian platonism header

A lot of people ask me what I think is causing the general mediocrity and cultural irrelevance of Christian art today. I usually answer, “It’s complicated.” With a problem this systemic, a single error usually doesn’t deserve all the blame. That being said, I can pinpoint at least one particular error that deserves a very healthy helping of blame: Christian Platonism.

What is Christian Platonism? Put simply, it is the belief that reality is separated into two realms—the physical and the spiritual. This belief is usually accompanied by a denigration of the physical realm, but the separation itself is the definitive marker of Christian Platonism—and its main error. This separation is not a biblical concept. In biblical terms, the physical and the spiritual overlap, and in paradise, they will be fitted perfectly together again. God makes a distinction between them (in the same way he makes a distinction between a man and a wife), but he never intended for them to be separate. Hebrews 11:3 makes it clear:

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