(Excerpt from Introduction and Chapter 1)

What do you experience as an artist in Christ, working in secular culture? 

In my question, I’m not asking what people say about you being one.
I’m asking what you experience.
Inside.

INTRODUCTION

I was invited to lead a workshop at a worship arts retreat. After the session, a young man (let’s call him Michael) caught up with me as I was walking over to the dining hall. Michael is a hip-hop dancer. He told me how much he enjoyed the session and began to share about his love for dance. He told me how he feels so alive in the pure adrenaline of taking class and working hard on new steps and combinations. But he felt guilty for enjoying it so much because he didn’t understand how taking a Hip-Hop class glorified God. And if it didn’t glorify God, he didn’t know if it was something he should be doing, let alone enjoying. 

I met another artist (let’s call her Amy) who loved fantasy gaming. Amy and I were having a conversation while enjoying the sun on a beautiful terrace in Spain after another session I’d taught. As we were talking, she began telling me about this fantasy world she started designing for Dungeons and Dragons. She told me how she loved being a Dungeon Master, and that she wanted to design worlds and environments for fantasy games. She actually wanted to create a video game franchise! Fascinated, I asked Amy what she was doing to work toward it. I asked her when she was going to finish the game world she had started. She went on to tell me that she’d stopped designing it because she was conflicted about being a Christian in fantasy gaming. She knew about other Christians who had ventured in fantasy, like Lewis and Tolkien, but she wanted to work in a different facet of the genre. She didn’t see how her faith could be integrated with the type of gaming she liked in a way that would be acceptable for a Christian. Since she couldn’t imagine how her faith and gaming career could coexist, she stopped. She didn’t want to dishonor God.

I could tell you about many other artists I’ve met who share similar stories and battle similar dilemmas. What did they all have in common?

None of them felt truly liberated to just be the artist they felt drawn to be.
They all loved God and wanted to live honorably before Him.
They were all artists with (or pursuing) careers in secular culture.
They were Christians, but they didn’t make art about faith or the Christian walk; nor was their art created to be used for evangelism, doctrine, or leading people in worship.

And because of this, they struggled with the place of their art life in their faith walk. They wrestled with the disconnection they believe exists between their faith, career, and artistry. And they wondered if these three could actually live and thrive in the same space. And if so, how?

I asked you about your experience. If you’re where I suspect, you, too, are wrestling in some way with the relationship between your faith and “secular” art career. 

If that’s true, I’m way too excited about the opportunity to encourage you! I’m downright giddy that I get to let you know that is not the experience you should be having.

Yes, I know where you work.
I know the kind of art you create.
I know who you work with.
And yes, I’m aware of the absence of Christian reference and vocabulary in your work. 

Still…

that’s not the experience you should be having.
Let me tell you why.

When addressing the seven things the Lord hates and finds abominable, Proverbs 6:19 (NKJV) lists one of them as being “he who sows discord among his brethren.” This phrase jumps out at me: discord among his brethren. The term brethren speaks to related parts, things in relationship, things related to one another, sharing the same parentage and origin.
As an artist in Christ working in secular culture, Christian, creative, and cultural participant are each a part of you that are related to one another within you. Not only are they related, but they originate from the same Source. 

You are a Christian, an identity He gave you through your relationship with Him.
You create art, a gift and ability He gave you.
You work in secular culture, a context into which He drew you.  

All aspects of your life, as an artist in Christ working in secular culture, have an origin and initiation in Him, and by Him. If that’s really true—and it is—then they do not exist in conflict. If they’re not in conflict, you shouldn’t feel conflicted about being all three of them at the same time, in the same space.

So, why do you feel conflicted? That’s what we’re going to tackle in the conversation that follows. 

This book is part of a larger discipleship program I’ve created called the Kingdom Artist Institute (KAI). The mission of my work is to help you become unapologetic about your “secular” art career.
Not disrespectful.
Not dishonorable.
Not without accountability.

Unapologetic.

What do I mean by that?

Well, on a basic level, I mean being in a place where you don’t feel the need to justify or apologize for the kind of art you make, who you make it with, or where it lives. But on a deeper level, I mean being unapologetic as a Christian having this kind of career, working intimately with “those” people in this context.

How do you get there?

One, by being able to account for where God is and is at work in your career life. And two, by understanding how your kind of art career is a valid, God-honoring way to participate in Kingdom citizenship, building, and representation.

See, you don’t have to apologize if you know that your art is for your life, not just your Christian service. 

You don’t have to apologize if you know your art life has relevance, how it’s relevant, that it makes a contribution, and what its contribution to the Kingdom is. 

And, you don’t have to apologize for your art career if you know it, too, has a place in Christian community and Kingdom purpose. 

Now, we’re going to tackle all of this through the KAI Freedom Formula:
Liberty + Harmony = an art life without apology

Basically, you have to be freed from some things.
You have to be rooted in some things.
And, you have to know how to walk in some things.

This is a conversation about you, my friend. So be ready to chime in, push back, and give an answer. 

Well, let’s get to it.

 

In Our Defense

This whole idea of being unapologetic is only possible under one conviction: that any art life can be a vessel for worship, serve God, and leave a Kingdom footprint in culture. 

Yes. You read that correctly.
ANY art life—no matter what you make art about, who you make it with, or where it lives.
ANY!

Now, I know what you’re thinking. 

At least, I think I know what you’re thinking. How is that even possible?

Well, let’s answer that by first looking at why you think it’s not possible. Let’s look at why any of us feel the need to be apologetic about our “secular” art careers at all.

Why does anyone feel the need to apologize? 

Essentially, one apologizes as an acknowledgement that they’ve wronged someone or committed some improper act. 

I have two questions in response to that: 

1. Where have we gotten the idea that having a “secular” art career is wrong or improper? 
2. What wrong are we supposedly committing that would need an apology?

According to whom?
I believe there are several players that contribute to this apologetic narrative, but the root lies with one. Unfortunately, it’s the church. 

Let me explain what I mean.

As religion has grappled with the place of believers in culture, it hasn’t always had the most gracious, informed, or at times, even Spirit-led response. The Spirit of God draws us out into culture. Yet, religion says if you’re truly His, your life and art belong in the church, and to the church. And oh, by the way, here are the only acceptable ways to use your art here. There’s an institutional fear of contamination and dilution—a deep-rooted, inherited legacy of dividing “sacred” and “secular” that has left many Christians ignorant about how to live out their faith in their everyday lives among people who are different from them. From that place of fear and dividedness, religion has marked out a very narrow set of acceptable ways to engage in faith, and in culture. 

Even in churches where this isn’t an issue, the residue of that mindset excludes discussion about life beyond the church service from most of the conversation happening within the church.  This beyond-the-church conversation is often relegated to the fringes, leaving scores of Christians who never hear anyone talk about engaging in secular culture in a spiritual and favorable way. Still, even when Christians are encouraged to seize their ambassadorship in culture, they’re rarely taught how to actually do it. This is problematic because our church experience heavily forms the norms and mindsets we carry into our individual Christian walks. In essence, our spiritual upbringings have made tension the default mode of interaction between our faith, our giftings, and the cultures in which we live. 

That’s where the thinking comes from. Now, what are the wrongs artists with “secular” careers are supposedly committing?

But what did I do?

In answering that, let’s look again at the artists our conversation is referencing.

They don’t make art about faith or the Christian walk.
Their art is not created to be used for evangelism, doctrine, or leading people in worship.
They work closely with non-Christians.
Their art explores subjects that would most likely be deemed unacceptable in the local church.
They may even use bad language and their work is not always positive.

So, what are their offenses? 

Well, according to the above mindset, they’re the following:

• Such an art life doesn’t fulfill our Christian responsibility to worship, honor, and glorify God, nor does it build the Kingdom.
• Such an art life compromises the Christian, who will inevitably fall into darkness by association.
• Such an art life taints God’s pure and holy creation by mixing it in “that world” with “those people.” 
• Such an art life betrays God’s goodness to us by taking His gifts and using them for any other purpose than serving Him. 

How’d I get pulled into this?

Now, I understand this is how our “secular” art careers can be perceived. But how have we, as artists, gotten sucked up into that perception?

How has it happened in your life? 

How do you who, in your quiet time, so powerfully sense God drawing you further into the art path you’re on, get caught up feeling guilty and conflicted about what you know is true?