In 2008, photographer David LaChapelle did a series titled “Jesus is my Homeboy” which was displayed in a Protestant French church in St. Moritz. I’d be curious on your thoughts? Do these offend you? are they appropriate? Do they work?

LaChapelle’s art forces us to ask several questions such as:

what might Jesus’ twelve disciples look like today?
Who are the people that Jesus would be reaching out to?

As per my previous post “What is a Christian Artist?”, I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t favor an artist creating specifically for the body of believers. It is absolutely necessary that musicians write music for worship and praise; songs used as a vehicle to bring the believer into the presence of God. There are many artists that are called to do this, and do this well. Some of which come to mind would be Crowder, Tomlin, Casting Crowns, etc…

The way I see it, is there are two types of artists operating from the Christian worldview. There are those that ‘create’ for the believer as a source of encouragement, teaching, and inspiration. There is sometimes a sense of awe and wonder about God that cannot simply be taught with words but through other aspects of our senses. Sometimes it is through brush strokes, songs, a camera lens, video, etc… that engages us in different ways. The believer is taken to a place of worship, seeing God in fresh new ways.

The other type of artist creates for everyone else. The purpose is to plant a seed, challenge, and bring to light:

“Art tends to show rather than to tell. It allows people the opportunity to experience another way of seeing the world. But if we are not there, people are denied the opportunity of encountering our perspective. The Christian artist will often be an irritant, disturbing the anthropocentric view of the world that fallen nature naturally gravitates toward. Just as people think they have removed God from all consideration of a particular question, the Christian annoyingly puts him back on the agenda in some way. And when God is back on the agenda, people are forced to deal with him, even if only to try to marginalize him again.”
– Steven Turner, ‘Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts’

This type of artist expresses parts of reality that helps the recipient relate, and in a sense respond to the experience. Sometimes it can take a song, or a movie, or perhaps a novel to awaken the senses to something bigger in life. This, in turn can begin the process of questioning: what is the source of this wonder? The intention is not always to evangelize, but sometimes to simply place a stone in someone’s shoe. Let’s face it, the prophets and priests of society are not the preachers of the church, they are the songwriters, actors, movie stars, and filmmakers of our culture. I grew up learning about thoughts in life through Led Zeppelin, Rush, Alfred Hitchcock, and George Lucas.

The artist of this second type I call the ‘missional artist’ but if you have a better word, I would love to hear it. I’m thinking about the likes of U2, Pete Docter, JR Tolkien, and the band Switchfoot. These artists are sometimes shunned by Christians because they don’t explicitly mention the name of Jesus in their body of work, but that’s not the point. They are the touchstone for society’s seekers. They bring creative excellence into the public forum and force you to respond outside of the branded category of ‘christianeeze’ language.

“U2 has expertly created a body of work which draws from the best traditions of modern music, adds something unique and incorporates a vision clearly rooted in the Bible. More than any other act in the history of rock, they have forced God, Jesus, the Bible and a christian worldview on to the agenda. Rock critics could ignore the Jesus rock of the 1970s (and they did), but they couldn’t ignore U2; they had to voice an opinion about the values they stood for.”
– Steven Turner

The Missional artist is one who through his talent, can create art that engages the culture in a unique way, transcending the christian stereotype and categories of the critic, and connecting to the recipient in a way that prepares the way of the Lord, making straight in the culture a highway for our God.

I don’t really favor using the ‘Christian’ adjective, such as Christian music, Christian movies, Christian books. To me, it feels like its directed more to the ‘target audience’ rather than anything else. So, for example, if I want to make music that I want Christians to listen to, I define it as Christian music.

However, I would suggest that a subject has a broader and more accurate expression if it wasn’t branded by its ideology, philosophy, or belief system (branding by style makes sense). If I am a painter who happens to portray elements of a Christian worldview in my paintings, am I a Christian painter? or a painter expressing my beliefs using an artistic medium? Are there such things as Atheist painters? Marxist painters? Vegetarian painters?

Nevertheless, we live in an information age where everything is categorized (so it can be found of course); we tag everything, and we brand everything. Everything is packaged into bits so we can easily manage them. But does it diminish the objective of the artistic outcome?

I would say that the more generalized and less descriptive a subject has been defined, the more impact it has. Simply because our processing of the categories pre-assumes it’s message. You see this all the time, if I am associated with a specific political party, then I am categorized to favor every aspect that party supports. People, by nature need to categorize ideologies into black and white understandable parts.

This is not about trickery or de-valuing the name of Christ. If the Christian artist is attempting to reach the masses with his art, then his ‘Christian’ brand will work against him. From an incarnational perspective, an artist creates from within the culture, using the language and common models to best express his message. Of course it doesn’t ‘have’ to be this way, I am just offering my opinion on what someone may refer to as a ‘missional’ artist.

I realize that a lot of this is just terminology, but in many ways, communication is an integral part of the artistic endeavor.