As a Christian and a creative — someone who must be producing something original (often multiple things at once) in order to feel purposed — I often take time to consider my place, both in Christianity and in the arts community. Even though I surely consider myself first a follower of Christ and second a creator, I find myself often gravitating more toward the pull of the "art world" and its features than to the personalities and pieces of Christian art. This troubles me. In addition, I sometimes find myself attempting to hide my faith when submitting a piece of creative writing or photography to a magazine or gallery, knowing there may be a "bad taste" lingering in the mind of the recipient left by Christians who had come before. This troubles me even more.

Christianity in the past few decades has in some circles become synonymous with cliché, campy, and disingenuous manifestations of creativity. Indeed, things such as the infamous music video "Jesus is My Friend," low budget, Hallmark-y "Faith & Spirituality" movies found in the depths of Netflix, and "Jesus is my Homeboy" inspired hip hop seem to dominate the world’s perception of “Christian art.” Why is this? Why are Christians not clearly found at the forefront of skillful, emotive, deep, lyrical, and powerful music? Filmmaking? Painting? Literature? Dance? We should be.

Do we lack ability? To be sure, we all have room for improvement in our work — but we don’t lack the innate skill that is necessary to craft great art. On the contrary, God endows his people with artistic talents. Exodus 35:35 reads, “He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twisted linen, or by a weaver – by any sort of workman or skilled designer.” We must trust this.

Is it that we lack the inspiration? We shouldn’t — as we are made in the image of God, saved, uniquely, from eternal death through faith in our loving and personal savior, Jesus Christ. We should be the most inspired, the most joyful, and the most expressive living things on this planet and beyond.

Do we lack motive? This has not been the tradition of followers of Christ, and never should be. The Western world’s museums and libraries are laden with masterpieces of all types that were created in their time as acts of worship — direct and intentional praise to God for the purposes of joyful expression, representation of biblical truth, or the marketing of God and his message. This should come naturally for any Christian. "Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!..." the Psalmist writes in Psalm 95, "For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land…". What motivation has the secular world that could possibly outshine the impetus that a believer in Christ has to create and express with all his or her might?

Art, says Merriam-Webster, is "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination." A human creative skill and imagination we receive, uniquely from all other pieces of creation, as we are made in the image of the one true God. Surely we can do better at applying our creative skill and imagination, for the sake of our God, if not at least for ourselves as the secular world does. Craft, inspiration, and quality should be the hallmarks of Christian artists.