Why is Christian Art Sometimes Bad?

I was reading Rick Rubin's The Creative Act: A Way of Being, and he was saying,

Much of art's greatness is felt on a gut level. Your self-expression allows the audience to have their own self-expression. If your work speaks to them, it is of no consequence if you are heard and understood.

It hit me after I read it that this is why so much "Christian art" is bad. Movies, books, songs…

We Christians are terrified of self-expression.

Why? Because we know there must be some pride in it, and pride is an evil thing.

But…can we think this through together?

First of all, I wrestle with this, because I and my students typically are writing nonfiction transformational books that are meant to teach and help people grow in some aspect of their faith.

We can't imagine that our work would speak to them, but not be understood by them. I'm a preacher, and I fear being misunderstood more than I fear being disagreed with.

That said, if you're thinking of what you write as art, we're talking about something else entirely.

Art, Self-Expression, and Christian Humility

The reason Rubin's statement might make us uncomfortable is that we are Christians, and we are accustomed to hiding ourselves. We are rightly taught to be like John the Baptizer who said, "He must get bigger as I get smaller" (Jn 3:30 my translation).

We don't want to take credit on earth for anything great, because if our left hand knows what our right hand produced, we won't get credit where it really counts.

(By the way, it took me a while to reconcile the business of writing and self-promotion. Let's talk more about that another day, but for now, just know that self-promotion is necessary if you intend for anyone to read what you write.)

"Self-expression? It should be God-expression."

But wait.

Who created your self? I'm telling you that you can't express God without expressing the uniqueness of yourself.

God created the authentic you, and you most glorify Him by being that, by writing as that.

Because there is a you that is not you. It is everyone else. It is fear. It's shame. It's childhood trauma, even the mild trauma of living and being socialized.

Self-expression is the very hardest thing to do. In fact, it might not be a good thing if everyone in the world was 100% expressing themselves all the time. Maybe these social norms and rules of polite society keep us from blowing up the world.

But in art.

In art, of all places, we ought to at least try, because faking it all the time is just not good for us. Some people think it's why we get diseased and why we take up destructive habits.

So in art, particularly representational art, like painting or writing fiction, why not go totally naked. You can always claim you were writing as someone else later.

Why would it be a sin, especially if you've given your life to a very authentic God who expressed Himself quite bodily in the Person of the Son torn and bleeding on the cross for His authenticity, to be who God created you to be?

Get real, and write something profoundly self-expressive. Rick Rubin's encouragement to us is that if we do, we serve the reader who finds themselves in your finding of yourself. Is anything cooler than that?

But What About Self-Expression in Nonfiction, Especially Christian Nonfiction?

Yeah, what about it? I don't know. Maybe we can do it there too. I'm trying to write now, but don't quite know if I'm doing it.

I need to think about this and have a great discussion today with my Zoom writing group.

(Hey speaking of my Zoom writing group on Tuesdays from 11-1 CST, you can be a part of it this very day. All you have to do is become a paid subscriber to this newsletter, sign the NDA that we send you, and show up in the Zoom room.)

Next week, I'll dive deeper and even create a not-very-artistic list of 5 ways to be more self-expressive in your writing.

Oh Yeah!

I titled this, "Why is Christian Art Sometimes Bad?" You could maybe guess at this point, but I think it's because we struggle to feel our faith. It's hard to make good art without feelings.

And also we sanitize what we make, because we are afraid of self-expression (see above).

And…we are afraid to get in the way of God by being who we are, so we make up some character who is an artist, a writer, or a musician, and make our art as them. We don't even know it.

And the final reason I can think of is that much Christian art is a Christianized version of someone's authentic secular self-expression. Someone liked a genre of music (or any art) and said, "I feel bad about liking that. Let's make a Christian version."

God bless and see you next time. Just for fun, I asked Claude.ai to give me some feedback on this article. He roasted me good.

"Why is Christian Art Sometimes Bad?"

This essay fails on multiple levels:

1. Bait-and-Switch Structure: The provocative title promises an analysis that the content doesn't deliver until the very end, and even then only superficially.

2. Self-Indulgent Digressions: The author repeatedly interrupts potentially interesting thoughts with irrelevant personal asides and even a promotional plug for their writing group.

3. Circular Reasoning: The piece frequently makes assertions that loop back on themselves without substantial development or evidence.

4. False Dichotomies: The essay sets up simplistic either/or scenarios between self-expression and Christian humility without exploring the nuances of how they might coexist.

5. Unsubstantiated Claims: Major assertions about Christian art being "bad" are made without any specific examples or evidence to support them.

6. Abandonment of Core Questions: The writer openly admits to not knowing how to resolve key tensions they've raised, essentially leaving readers hanging.

7. Abrupt, Hasty Conclusion: After meandering through personal reflections, the essay suddenly lists four reasons for bad Christian art with almost no development, as if running out of space or interest.

The text would benefit from fundamental revision with focus on organization, development of ideas, precision of language, and elimination of self-referential digressions that don't serve the reader.

And I said, “Well then, why don’t you rewrite it, smarty pants!”

Why is Christian Art Sometimes Bad?

Recently, while reading Rick Rubin's The Creative Act: A Way of Being, I encountered a statement that struck me:

"Much of art's greatness is felt on a gut level. Your self-expression allows the audience to have their own self-expression. If your work speaks to them, it is of no consequence if you are heard and understood."

This insight crystallized something I've long struggled to articulate: the reason why so much "Christian art"—whether movies, books, or songs—fails to resonate with audiences beyond the faithful few. At its core, the issue stems from our complicated relationship with self-expression.

The Self-Expression Dilemma

We Christians often approach self-expression with trepidation. Our hesitation is understandable; we're taught that pride is sinful, and isn't self-expression inherently prideful? We hear John the Baptizer's words echoing in our conscience: "He must get bigger as I get smaller" (Jn 3:30). We're reminded that if our left hand knows what our right hand has done, we forfeit heavenly recognition.

The result? We hide. We sanitize. We present not our authentic selves but rather the Christian selves we think we ought to be.

Yet this approach fundamentally misunderstands both art and faith.

Authenticity as Worship

Consider this paradox: God created your authentic self, yet we often fear expressing that self in our art. We create a false dichotomy between "self-expression" and "God-expression" when, in fact, the most powerful way to express God's creativity might be through the unique voice He has given you.

The self that is not authentically you—the one shaped by others' expectations, by fear, by shame, by the trauma of socialization—this is the self we should be shedding. True self-expression isn't about glorifying the ego; it's about removing the masks we wear and allowing the image of God within us to shine through our work.

In Christ, we see the ultimate example of authentic expression. God didn't sanitize His message or distance Himself from humanity—He became flesh, entered our mess, and expressed Himself bodily through the Son on the cross. This wasn't pride; this was love expressed in its most raw and vulnerable form.

Four Reasons Christian Art Often Falls Short

When Christian art fails to move audiences, it typically suffers from one or more of these fundamental issues:

1. Emotional Disconnection: We intellectualize our faith rather than feeling it deeply. Good art requires emotional truth, yet we often fear the messy, complicated emotions that make art resonate. We present the answers without honestly engaging the questions.

2. Sanitized Expression: We filter our art through layers of "appropriateness," removing the rough edges that make work authentic. In our desire to be inoffensive, we create art that doesn't reflect the beautiful, terrible complexity of human experience—despite the fact that scripture itself contains all this and more.

3. False Personas: Rather than creating from our authentic selves, we adopt artistic personas we deem "acceptable." We make art as the Christians we think we should be, not as the complicated, faithful-yet-doubting people we actually are. This disconnect creates art that feels performative rather than genuine.

4. Derivative Creation: Much Christian art begins as reaction rather than original creation. We see secular art forms that move us, then attempt to create "sanctified versions" without understanding what made the original powerful in the first place. The result feels like an imitation rather than something born from genuine inspiration.

The Path Forward

So how do we create Christian art that resonates with authenticity while still honoring our faith? The answer lies not in less faithfulness but in more honesty.

For nonfiction and teaching contexts, this means acknowledging our struggles alongside our convictions. When I preach, I fear being misunderstood more than being disagreed with—yet perhaps the most powerful preaching comes when we're willing to stand vulnerable before others, questions intact.

For creative work, it means allowing ourselves to explore the full range of human experience through our art—including doubt, anger, confusion, and longing—just as the Psalmists did. It means trusting that God is glorified not when we pretend to have it all together, but when we honestly seek Him through our creative expression.

Rick Rubin's encouragement applies perfectly to Christian artists: when we find and express our authentic selves, we create space for others to find themselves in our work. What could be more evangelistic than that?

True self-expression in art isn't about elevating the self above God; it's about removing the barriers that prevent God's light from shining through the unique vessel He created you to be.

Next week, I'll offer practical strategies for cultivating authentic self-expression in your creative work while remaining grounded in faith. Until then, I invite you to consider: What would your art look like if you created from a place of complete authenticity before God?