Using a word in a specialized Christian manner while trying to communicate with all people can be confusing.

I do have difficulty with…Christians who talk about wanting to be relevant, and want Christianity to be relevant who don’t interact much with the common folk, as it were. If you are an artist who wants to produce work that’s theological/academic–or even just use words that have some special meaning in the Christian lexicon–if it’s something that people other than Christians (perhaps even specifically your particular flavor of Christian) would have difficulty relating with, then don’t complain about your work not being relevant outside of Christian culture.

There’s truth in the statement about the beauty and truth in not seeking to produce specifically “relevant art”, and there’s truth about the target audience being all human beings.

Share your story through your art. If you want to share it with everyone, Christian or not, you may need to take an extra step or two–such as avoiding Christian lingo that will only be confusing if words will be a large part of your art (please note that I did not say to avoid Christian language entirely: I did qualify that statement). I’m also annoyed by the derivative marketing attempts I’ve seen (see my earlier post for an example). It’s an awkward attempt to reach a more general audience by recycling a campaign with a previous wider non-religious application. As it’s obviously lacking in creativity, I think it’s a “miss” with the very audience that it’s trying to reach.

Chuck Norris and Rick Springfield are two artists (okay, that may be arguable, but for the sake of the main argument, please just accept the idea ) who have created work that isn’t targeted toward Christians, and not all Christians would find their work acceptable, yet both helped point me toward Christ.

What if a Christian simply wants to give expression to their faith in a way fellow Christians will appreciate? I guess the psalmists were “shallow” and “irrelevant” because they were too overt about their faith in Yahweh.

The early church did NOT grow in leaps and bounds by seeking to produce “relevant art.” They grew by strengthening themselves in biblical basics and by sharing the gospel with people with whom they rubbed elbows.

If Christians want to be relevant, we have to stop copying the mainstream while switching out certain words or images (e.g., “Got milk?” –> “Got Jesus?”) — although of course there are art- and commentary-related exceptions to that, I would suppose. And we need to branch out from “Christian music” and “Christian movies” and “Christian novels” into the greater, wide world.

If we segregate ourselves, we separate ourselves from the world we are supposed to live in and work to change. Ideas and products labelled “Christian” might as well be labelled “irrelevant”, in many people’s minds.

This situation can be more than a little frustrating.

Keep up the good work, and thanks for the Oberbrunner reference.