Author Jon Del Arroz graciously includes me in his helpful list of Christian Artists Who Don’t Suck.
Whenever I talk about artist blackballing in the entertainment industry, almost invariably the first argument I come across is “well there aren’t any…” or “there are a low percentage of…” leading to believe that it’s just too hard to find good artists who aren’t insane and/or profess to be Christian. That is a lie that the mainstream big-entertainment corrupt corporate media propagates at every turn.
Of course, there aren’t any who work for those big companies that do the blackballing. Those companies may not have an outright policy against shunning Christians, but they do it, as they want to tell stories that are allegorically about how great secular society and hedonism is. I rail on Disney quite a bit for this, but the facts are the facts, and they — especially their comics division — are very much guilty of this.
But we have an opportunity like generations in the past didn’t have. We have social media. We have the internet. We have the ability to connect and organize just as other groups have done for the past for their causes. Our cause is a righteous one, an eternal one, and if we all band together we will affect much greater change than our enemies could ever keep up with.
I’m not calling for a “boycott!” of any artist or anything like that. I know exactly how hard artists work, and, even if they’re not doing their work for a righteous cause, it’s still hard work and the goal is not to detract from their efforts. That boycott mentality is the kind of garbage that we are fighting against.
However, I am calling to take a look at Christian artists, artists who share our values. It’s important that we give a voice to those who are professing real truth and justice, and are willing to speak out on it. After all, if we don’t as artists, the culture won’t, and isn’t. At some point, even the rocks will cry out. It’d be much better if we could stave that off and start a revival in culture as those created in God’s image.
Jon is absolutely right that the entertainment industry gatekeepers practice discrimination against Christian artists–usually not consciously, but as a simple matter of course. Tolerating those intolerant hicks from flyover country and those knuckle-dragging pro-lifers; it just isn’t done, you know? Just ask Nick Cole.
But as Nick and Jon himself have learned, the gatekeepers have significantly less ability to destroy an author’s career than they did until quite recently.
Which brings me to the one point on which Jon and I part ways. I, along with a great many others, aren’t so quick to disarm ourselves of a perfectly ethical means of resisting the aforementioned discrimination. Moreover, I fail to see why the fact that someone may have worked hard at propagandizing against Christ and His Church should a priori absolve him of the bad fruits of his labors. The Bolsheviks worked hard, after all.
Which reminds me: #OpTorDrop
I know that the big New York publishing house’s gatekeepers would wreck my career if they could, because they hate me.
What they don’t realize yet is that I’m doing what I can to destroy their corrupt monopoly, because I love them as brothers created in the image and likeness of God. And that’s far more terrifying.
I’ll let Jon wrap things up.
Brian Niemeier is an independent author of the Dragon Award Winning Soul Cycle. He blends genres with space opera and horror in that series, with a wild, fast paced ride that everyone cheers for. Brian’s a great guy, and outspoken Christian as well. He’s on the forefront of indie publishing and does a lot for the culture war.
Brian
Do Christian artist suck? Or is this a locally Anglophone problem?
If they do suck what's the reason: bad writing? Poor plot? unrelatable characters?
Or some other reason?
I'm curious as a reader and what can I do to help authours-regardless of belief be better writers?
Read anonme's comment below. He says pretty much all you need to know on the subject.
I probably should wait before Brian answers before chiming in, but I'm impatient.
I don't think Christians, who are writers, painters, etc suck. I do think that "Christian writers" tend not to be very good, but not for any reasons intrinsic to being Christian.
Two of the greatest living Science Fiction writers in my opinion (John C. Wright and Orson Scott Card) are Catholic and LDS respectively, both have been unapologetic about including aspects of their faith in their work, but their books are really high caliber.
I think the mistake that "Christian Writers" who publish their works at "Christian Presses" and market solely to "Christian Audiences" make is voluntarily putting themselves into a ghetto that limits them, sometimes for pretty petty reasons.
I'm going to crib from Brian here for a second:
"Christians made history's greatest art for art's sake; not as "Christian art"."
https://twitter.com/BrianNiemeier/status/809145770402267136
Talking about the rise of Christian publishers Brian said
"Christians led with their chins vs the commie takeover of Hollywood/NY publishing. Made virtue signaling > art."
https://twitter.com/BrianNiemeier/status/809153500194148356
Message fiction for the righteous is still message fiction in the end.
Instead of putting on airs and preaching the "right" message to choir, and artist should instead strive simply to be the best artist they can, and in the end by their fruits you will know where they stand.
The tips to make Christians better writers are the same tips to make ANYONE a better writer. Read a great deal, study the classics, study mediocre works, study "bad" works, and then dissect them and decide for yourself what makes them the way they are. Study plot structure, brush up on grammar, study characters, get inside their heads and make them tick. "Show, don't tell", Checkov's Guns, and all that.
We don't disagree. I was merely quoting the title of Jon's post. Note that mine omits the "Who Don't Suck" part.
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I kinda junked up Jon's post comments, but spergs are so fun!
Brian and anonme
Thanks!I get it now. Don'the ghetooize your work but submit both as a work 'product'to your readers and to God as a modest co-creation ad majora dei.
Interesting that's what Vargas
Llosa pointed out about authour as usurpers of God foe creating their own world. I disagree his take as usurper but I get his main point
By the way if you want a an early modern version of pulp fiction read Tirant lo Blanc. Cervantes praised itc and it's an awesome book until the last chapters as it was completed by another person who wasn't as skilled but still great.
The Rosenthal translation i heard is quite excellent. I had the good fortune to read it in Catalan (albeit with some modernisations of the pronouns and preposition) and still have my copy.
Christian artists need to stop mocking the poor and dying. A lot of this has to do with America's own brand of "Christianity," which involves the worship of money and the harassment of the weak. Evangelicals are nothing more than a Wealth Supremacist movement. They CLAIM to follow Jesus, but willfully ignore the time where he said it was IMPOSSIBLE for a rich person to get into Heaven.