No matter how long you’ve traversed Christian culture, it’s doubtless that you’ve heard plenty of jokes and sighs about Christian art. From the cheesiness of faith-based movies to cookie-cutter lyricism and the barren wasteland of non-blasphemous religious visual art, our collective eye-roll is stuck in a loop. Many sense there is a fracture within our religious music especially and feel it most palpably with respect to modern worship (cue innumerable jabs at K-LOVE), but the conversation usually stops at complaint. We’re ready to mock, yet unsure how to remedy. But like much of our contemporary Christian questions, the answer has already been kicking around for centuries. Maybe it’s time to consult some dead theologians (and a few living ones, too). 

It was while Martin Luther was studying Romans 1, particularly verse 17 (“The just shall live by faith”) that Luther’s entire theological framework shifted. This passage stood contrary to the Catholic church as a stark proclamation that salvific justification before God was not a result of deeds or sacramental offerings, but by a simple open hand extended in faith to receive it. It was upon this cornerstone doctrine that Luther began to explore the impact this had on all spheres of life, for clergy and laypeople alike. The traditional Catholic monastic system upheld the Doctrine of Vocation, which taught the hermetic, contemplative life as the utmost in holy living, and thus any endeavor in the pragmatic or material inherently unholy. Luther realized that the doctrine of justification by faith nullified the distinction between the two. In a life justified by faith through grace, all crafts and discipline bore great meaning, not just those sequestered in the cloister. This ushered in a radical equality and imbued a religious significance into even the most monotonous of chores and endeavors. Thus, the Catholic Doctrine of Vocation was transformed. No longer is holy work restricted to a religious few, but rather all we do is done Coram Deo—“before God.” If, as Paul remarks in Acts 17:28, "In Him we live and move and have our being," then surely the totality of our work is done in the light of His countenance. We wash dishes Coram Deo. We greet neighbors Coram deo. We plant sequoias Coram deo. 

Like all spheres of life within our fallen frame, creativity is not immune to egotistical superiority. Though it could certainly be argued that cleaning up after supper is a creative act, music, poetry, film, and the visual arts are certainly work of a different stroke. We don’t call our hesitancy to vacuum "tidy up block" (perhaps just laziness), but the woes of writer's block are a familiar malady. The arts boast a sense of mysticism, of ambiguity, and because of this the emphasis tends to fall primarily on inspiration rather than discipline. If we’re not instant savants, we often give up. But an inflated pride is not the only casualty of this fractured perspective. Not only does our art become contingent on the flippancy of outside stimuli, its quality is cheapened in the process, and we miss an invitation to Christian obedience given solely to the arts. 

On the subject of confession, the Lutheran Small Catechism asks, “What sins shall we confess?” And the answer supplied reads thus: “Here consider your station according to the Ten Commandments, whether you are a father, mother, son, daughter, master, mistress, a man-servant or maid-servant; whether you have been disobedient, unfaithful, slothful; whether you have grieved anyone by words or deeds; whether you have stolen, neglected, or wasted aught, or done other injury.” In essence, this question and response rides on the doctrine of vocation. Where, in not just our lives in general, but our callings have we shirked a call to obedience? For instance, could our slothfulness in discipline be at its core a denial to worship our Creator well?

J. Snell explores the concept of acedia, or spiritual sloth, in his book Acedia and Its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire. In an in-depth analysis of scripture’s approach to work and the ways modernity and our sinfulness seek to overthrow that divine order, Snell explains that “sloth is not just laziness.” He points to Thomas Aquinas’ twofold definition of acedia as “(1) a sadness at the divine good and (2) an aversion to acting.” Snell writes, “This self-contradiction—sadness about the good—has the further result of crippling action, of ‘immobilizing the person.' The slothful have an aversion to acting—that is, an aversion to good work, our telos. The acceptance of our task to labor is an act of will to bear the yoke, to persevere in the labor that God has given. But performing good work requires a transformation of self, possible only with God’s grace and friendship. To reject God’s friendship and the gift of God’s own self which renders such friendship possible also rejects our capacity to cooperate with the transformative work of the Spirit which makes our good work possible.” If God in the prelapsarian Garden called Adam to work the ground, to fill the earth and be fruitful, then refusing to further develop the disciplines we have been called to is slothful. To refrain from excelling in our craft implies that we are "sad at the divine good" and to cut corners instead of engaging greater skill for the Kingdom is certainly an "aversion to acting."

When we consider our primary qualms with modern Christian art, the core culprits seem to manifest as either sloth or pride. We recycle the same trite Christianese phrases in our worship songs instead of taking the time to tap into the rich characterization of God in Scripture. For instance, yes, He fights for us. He’s with us in the valley and on the mountain. But what else? Similarly, in place of robust, honest stories about the real texture of human frailty held by a lavishly gracious God, Christian film tends to merely deliver sentimental messages. The same production companies deliver the same lackluster quality, and Christian art becomes about making sure our hopeful message is swallowed rather than making sure the Gospel is understood. The legacy of Charles Finney’s approach to evangelism, the spiritually infamous "Burned Over District" of Western New York, should be a lasting omen for us in our Christian discipleship. 

Yet to demand excellency without submission unto God creates a new problem within the same idolatrous spirit: pride. When our purpose in creativity is the satisfaction of our own ego, we sabotage the opportunities the Lord has given us for artistic obedience. Consider Dorothy Sayers’ play Zeal of Thy House. Sayers, a contemporary and friend of C.S. Lewis, sets her ideas regarding the doctrine of vocation within medieval England and explores them via the construction of a great cathedral (inspired by the exquisite Canterbury Cathedral). While the first act deals primarily with the church committee’s selection of an architect, it’s the second act that focuses a keen eye on their chosen man, William of Sens. William, the best in his field, evokes ire in one of the monks for his blatant promiscuity. We see this tension culminate in a workplace accident that ends up crippling him, rendering his leadership of the cathedral’s construction severely diminished. But it is while he is bedridden that William’s deepest sin is revealed: pride. A fevered dream one night brings this to a head. At the Archangel Michael’s insistence that William confess the sin of having prided himself on his work, William delivers a biting speech that ends in “Let Him destroy me . . . My work is mine; He shall not take it from me.” 

After further arguing with Michael, William eventually relents, and even asks the church to hire another architect to build the cathedral. He repents to the Father, “But let my work, all that was good in me, all that was God, stand up and live and grow. The work is sound, Lord God, no rottenness there—only in me. Wipe out my name from men but not my work; to other men the glory and to Thy Name alone.” And thus William’s soul is saved by submitting his calling to God. One could not have accused William of being slothful, but the fervor with which he had interwoven his accomplishments with his identity is merely a different side of the same coin. It is still a claim of ownership, a refusal to admit that all under the sun is done before the face of God. 

So what might it look like to create in light of Coram Deo instead? On an internal level, our motivations are reset. Our pride shrivels as we remember our status as created beings. As a result, we are humbled into taking a worshipful stance, aiming to produce work that glorifies God rather than boost our status before men or earn us accolades. We act carefully, understanding that the arts have an unparalleled ability to influence, conscious that an irresponsible portrayal or intimation can have a profound effect on the viewer. Finally, with our heart postured in humility and our hands steady, we settle down to the work with a new drive to ever better our craft, now as both worship of our first Creator and love for our neighbor. There’s nothing to lose because it isn’t ours anyway. 

In Acedia, Snell writes, “If God as a wise king fills his temple, including the New Jerusalem with good things, and if God has willed to accomplish this filling partly through the sub-creation of human labor, then there is little reason to think that the products of human work will be destroyed or rendered irrelevant in the end. Rather, if the fruits of good labor—both the objective products and the subjective development of the human person—could be presented to God as adornments for his temple, then the implications of work become quite significant. Is this the sort of work I could present to God and God’s people as a ‘house warming’ gift which would adorn the halls of the temple forever?” A weighty, almost daunting responsibility to be sure, but only if we’re still attaching our own worth to the work rather than producing with an attitude of worship.

As I write this, our culture is knee-deep in the COVID-19 health crisis. With so much time on our hands as we all hunker down in quarantine, there’s a temptation to extremes regarding our current approach to creativity. One popular meme references a list of works made by authors in the midst of cultural crises and aggressively commands us to "get going." Other narratives push back by deeming such posts as capitalistic attempts to guilt people into productivity. In the light of Coram Deo, both approaches are heavy-handed. Though our current circumstances are more flexible, the times are just as sacred now as they were six months ago. We aim to excel in our crafts every day as an act of worship and telos, called to love God and our neighbor every day. To reference Charles Bukowski, that doesn’t change with more “air, light, time, and space.” Our callings are eternal because the One who spoke them into being is Eternal. As Luther once said, “God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does,” and thus our work adorns the halls. And the Lord delights in it.

Forefront is committed to fostering a robust conversation on the intersection of Christian faith and the arts by publishing a wide range of voices and opinions. The views expressed here reflect those of the author.