A Christian professor of fiction published a piece “To the Christian Writer” in which he recommends good art as a thing separate from Christian faith.

He begins by saying, “there’s no such thing as Christian art.” If someone wants to be a Christian, he should pursue it wholeheartedly, but “bad art comes out when you compromise art-making with some other intent.” Some other intent like Christian morals.

“If your fiction feels like it’s veering toward a moral conclusion, stop.”

I want to understand this professor’s argument and view it charitably, and I agree moralistic fiction is often shallow and ugly. I’m sure if I ever gain the courage to pick up Sheldon’s In His Steps, the novel that gave us the question “What Would Jesus Do?” I’ll regret it. I couldn’t make it past chapter one of The Shack. But separating Christian devotion from art sounds post-modern to me in all the wrong ways. What is art if it cannot be pursued as an expression of Christian truth?

I’m not sure he’s actually saying that, because he also says, “As a Christian person, would you not say it’s a joy to follow God? So follow him through your work. Quit telling him where to stand and how to speak.” That’s good. It calls back to moralistic work which may sound Christian while being far from it. That’s not good art.

“Preconceived moralizing jacketed in fiction aims for the head and the heart. If you want to be a good writer, aim elsewhere.” What does that mean? Aim for the spleen? What is good art if it doesn’t move the heart or elevate the affections (thinking of Jonathan Edwards’s language)? What makes the work of Margaret Atwood, Jack Kerouac, Barbara Kingsolver, Haruki Murakami, Annie Proulx, or Salman Rushdie objectively good that he recommends them over Lewis, Chesterton, and O’Connor?

Could it be we’re actually wrestling over cultural respectability — that our work would find approval in the New York Times Review of Books or Harper’s Magazine?

I think art is its own virtue, like planting and tending a tree, and artistic choices are also moral choices. Some choices are going to be more accessible to the public than others. Some will require greater levels of skill to succeed. In all of these choices, the best ones (though maybe not the most popular) will be true, real, and good. Isn’t that what Christian art is all about?

Photo by Peter Ivey-Hansen on Unsplash