Artists and critics who will say the Credo.

Sort of puzzled by the closing sentences of Jonathan Fitzgerald's latest post at Patrol:

“We need critics who are Christians, who understand the importance of religious content in art and who can see it as art and not simply a means to an end. Likewise, we need artists who are Christians to make art and release it not only into the shallow pool that is evangelicalism, but to the world at large. This will be ‘Christian Art,’ and it will be art. It will be something we can be proud of.”

Is Fitzgerald suggesting that such artists and critics don't exist? Or is he just wrapping up an off-the-cuff blog post with a quick burst of rhetoric? At any rate, he's taking a swipe at Relevant Magazine here, which is almost certainly not where he's going to find what he's looking for.

I'd suggest Books and Culture as a place where Christian critics — evangelicals, even! — are doing good work right now. There's almost too much Christian blogging about the visual arts: see Dan Siedell, Matthew Milliner, and Curator, for starters. I'll admit I'm not sure where to go for music criticism; there used to be a magazine in New York that pressed hard on questions of faith in music, but I think they changed their focus. I'd like to give my friend Dave Zahl some attention, though with the warning that his writing on music is part of a much bigger blog. Also, Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Music just happened.

So much for the critics. As for the artists: do I really need to write another paean to Marilyn Robinson, Sufjan Stevens, Whit Stillman, or Terrence Malick? If the response to my praise would be another essay trying to explain why these mainliners are so much better at art than Evangelicals, I suppose I'd just have to break out my contrarian-hipster defense of Rich Mullins, Amy Grant, and Michael Card. And does anyone really want it to come to that?