The distributor?
The words?
The attitude of the artist's heart and his or her faith?
Was DC Talk Christian and Bruce Cockburn not?
Now I ask the same thing of Christian comics. What makes them Christian?
Is it that they're advertised and marketed as such?
Is it that they're published by Christian publishers?
Is it that they're blatantly evangelistic?
Or can mainstream comics written by Christians like Chuck Dixon and Roland Mann be included?
It is the attitude of the writer and/or artist's heart and faith?
I figure that this group, if any, would be able to help hammer this out.
Personally, I'm a bit more liberal in my definition. (I must be to write for the Gene Simmons line at IDW, right, and particularly to write a book called Gene Simmons Dominatrix, or to be hard at work on so many horror-tinged books at the moment.)
But I feel that almost any story, no matter the language or content (to a large degree) can be a story of redemption. Taking my cues from the Bible, it seems that almost no subject is taboo, from revenge, bloody wars, genocide, sex, incest, you name it. It's all in there, and I'm hoping that gives us earthly creators a grace-filled free reign to tackle almost any subject redemptively. I guess that's my definition at the heart. If it's a genuine redemptive story, it can be called a Christian one, because that's what Christ came to do, redeem.
But feel free to differ.
Comments
That quote has been one of my driving forces for a long time. I tend to avoid anything that smacks of Christian subculturism. Heck, I even debated with myself whether or not to join here.
Mind you, as an artist, I need to be responsible for the work I create. I don't want to draw material that's going to cause someone else to lust, for example. Whether my work is being done for an all-ages book or for mature audiences, I know I will be held responsible for it, and rightfully so. It's just that I think it's far more important that we offer not safety and complacency, but truth, challenge, and hope.
In fact, Sherwin was on a convention panel on Spiritual Themes in Comics, featuring adherents of different religious beliefs. He can relate the story more accurately, but he mentioned that one of them said he wanted to see more Christians speaking openly of their beliefs through their work; that the comics industry thrives on confrontation, on controversy. I don't see any reason we should be holding back.
As for the Church's reaction to our work, Jesse Hamm once warned me that the Church would be my most ardent critic. I'd already had the experience of being a [roleplaying] gamer in the Church, so I think I should have expected that. As much as I care about the Church, they're not the ones we need to be reaching out to in Jesus' name.
As C.S. Lewis said, "The world does not need more Christian writers - it needs more good writers, and composers, who are Christians."
And Greg, thanks for the "feature" linking. That's cool.
The main page will only show the first part of the the original post though, so I don't know if others will realize how active a conversation it's become.
Regardless, this is a great topic.
If we want to move the conversation over to the FORUM area of our network, (You'd just have to start a Topic under the same question) then we can feature that on the main page and people will probably be more readily aware that it is an ongoing conversation which they can join in on.
Your argument about nc-17 made me think about God's sanctioned genocide (city-cide) of Jericho and Sodom and Gomorrah.
We forget, most pastor's skip over it, that the Lord demanded the Jews to annihilate a whole city. Women and children included.
Gives me chills.
Christian is a verb: those who FOLLOW Christ Jesus.
I tend to take the side that Christian is a noun, not an adjective. As such there is no Christian music (I like to call it "so-called Christian music"), only music. No Christian comics, only comics. No Christian books, only books.
I like the point about our work being for the glory of God, as Bach demonstrated. I firmly believe that's our line in the sand, not whether or not our work is evangelistic in tone. If it is created to bring glory to God, then while people disagree with our content or our willingness to take risks in storytelling, they can't argue with our intent to glorify God.
To me this is what makes so much "so-called Christian art" distinctly NON-Christian from the get go. How much of it is created for marketing rather than to glorify God? To meet a market niche rather than creation as an act of worship?
We've turned "Christian" (as an adjective, bleh!) into a marketing word because we've created a subculture within Christendom to sell stuff to.
As for storytelling, Christ was liberal with his stories. They rarely featured religious protagonists, and when they did, rarely in a good light. I'd say never, but I know there are probably a few parables I can't remember at the moment. They simply were the stories of average people. Farmers, vineyard owners, servants, etc.
That's why I love the writing of Flannery O'Connor so much. She told stories about the salt of the earth people being themselves and let the reader glean any religious subtext for themselves. She didn't spell things out. "For him who has ears to hear."
Sadly, I think the need to spell out analogies, stories, songs, and dumb them down to the lowest common denominator among the churched (mind you, I didn't say Christians per se), is killing the freedom for Christians who are artists to create.
Apparently there are fewer with "ears to hear" than we think because nothing can be picked up by a Christian (as a marketing term again) publisher unless it is explained to death so as to kill the artfulness of it or fits some sort of religious stereotype.
I've spoken to many writers and artists who live in fear that if they include something "offensive" or honestly questioning or doubting or revengeful or heartbroken rather than showing how following Christ solves all our problems and makes us shiny happy people, or creates something specifically for the purpose of (typically boomer-focused) logical progression evangelism, then they are basically disowned by their church family as worst, or treated as some sort of back-sliding heathen at best for their willingness to let their art show the truth. I think any quick read through the Psalms will find more than enough revenge songs, doubting songs, angry songs, hurting songs, songs with no easy answers, songs that would honestly cause someone to question faith more than seek it. And if that was acceptable for the Bible, why is it not acceptable for the church? I mean, honestly, the Bible is my guideline for storytelling, and if God saw fit to include it in Scripture, then it must be okay for Christians to write about it too. That includes: violence, human sacrifice, sexual love, nudity, incest, revenge, betrayal, self sacrifice, redemption, etc. The list goes one. (I've long held that to do a fair movie version of the Bible AS WRITTEN, if would have to be NC-17 at best.) Now, if the reason is just to see how far we can go, what we can get away with, we're already wrong before we begin. But if the reason is to glorify God, then those are all fair game. The point is the motive, not the content, regardless of how much it might upset your grandma or your pastor or your buddy from church. (Unless you're specifically looking to write for the Christian market, then you must cowtow to the market rules.)
And on that note, I read a book by Mike Yaconelli (sp?) in which he addressed the idea of offending others. He said that his language, smoking or drinking was only offensive to the church, not the world, and that it never caused anyone outside the church to question following Christ, or caused anyone inside the church to question their salvation, only his.
I think he captures the heart of that argument that is thrown up about content quite well. If we become stumbling blocks to people's faith, then we should watch out. But if we only cause them to question ours, as long as our hope is in Christ and not the religious status quo, then we're still truckin' along on solid ground.
Granted, this is just my understanding from seeking God's truth through Scripture on this matter, and as a fallen creature redeemed by grace, I reserve the right to be wrong, but still wrapped in grace.
-
1
-
2
-
3
of 3 Next