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.