Christian movies or the "car crash a minute" action flick? Narnia series or the Box Car children books.

There is a lot of beautiful Christian music, much of it composed hundreds of years ago by dead white European males. Bach put SDG at the bottom of his scores--Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone is the Glory.

They'll still be listening to Bach, Mozart and Handel one hundred years from now. How much music from even the 50's do people listen to?

Pop culture is disposable.

I wonder when, in our Evolutionary history, did prehistoric man start to develop song and melody. 200,000, or 300,000 years ago? Perhaps song was a take off from a specific call to tribe kind of like in my youth, "JiiiimeeeeEEEEE! You've got 5 minutes to get your butt home!"

Maybe they were trying to blow the dust out of a hollow ram's horn and it made a note and they took off from there.

Interesting.

Yeah, but rap has an excuse: it doesn't hold itself accountable to a higher power.

Perhaps the worst music in the world is Christian rap...

Juh-juh-jezdedet Jezus Jezus! Juh-juh-jezdedet Jezus Jezus! Juh-juh-jezdedet Jezus Jezus! Juh-juh-jezdedet Jezus Jezus!.....shit I'm too much of a honky to finish this one and way too old to figure out how! but you got me howling never the less!

Christian rap--music, art should be beautiful...

First: You can't compare the "best" Christian media to the shlockiest car chase movies, that's a false comparison.

Second: The article was discussing contemporary Christian media, not classical compositions.

Which is more dreadful? Elitism or a superiority complex?

If you're making the case that much of the beautiful Christian music was made hundreds of years ago, the author would probably agree with you. This is about pop culture created not as a real testament to faith but rather an attempt to take what's popular elsewhere and create a parallel version. Which the Christian church actually has a proud history of doing, whether it's coopting winter solstice festivals with Christmas, or vernal equinox festivals with Easter. . .

Rap is worse. Christian Rap is pretty obnoxious too. BTW, in case you've already labeled me a racist, I love the Blues and Reggae created mostly by folks of African extraction I believe.

Stop-truth-decay:

Christian rap--music, art should be beautiful...

Art should not necessarily be beautiful. Some of the most profound and powerful art is downright ugly.

"Art is a lie that tells the truth"--according to Pablo Picasso--with the emphasis on "truth." Art should be a comment on life as we live it, in both its aspirations (idealistic notions) and its depravities. In either case, it should say something truthful about reality if it's going to be any good.

it, I read the newspaper. You have confused art as "Hallmark moment" vs power to inspire, to feel, to experience humanity in some new and deeper way. Some modern art is "ugly" and will only be studied centuries from now as a historical oddity. Good art may be visually jarring, but that is not ugly...disturbing, not ugly.

Get out of MOMA and try the National Gallery, 19th century and earlier.

what the writer is doing. He has narrowly defined Christian media in a way that guarantees poor quality.

LOTR is essentially a story of Christian themes but doesn't parade Jesus as center stage. As for the Chronicles of Narnia, it absolutely amazes me that people don't understand the whole parable. These movies probably don't count in his universe because the dialog doesn't shout Jesus every third line.

There's a couple of things everybody here seems to agree on. Christian art used to be good, and Christian rap sucks.

I think the bornagain kids are making exactly those distinctions. LOTR? Are you kidding? Sorcerers? Elves? Why, you might as well be reading Harry Potter, and we all know what the Saved think about that deviltry. LOTR is a great story written by a great scholar of Nordic Pagan mythology. Are you surprised that the kids don't see metaphor or parable? Their world view is as literal as possible. Radosh is not objecting to Christian art, but to a specific, dogmatic, politically controlling type of entertainment.

Define Christian "art" as having to scream Jesus every third measure. Gee, it is boring and repetitious.

Define movies as "car crash every 3 minutes." Boring!

Granted, there will be people who chose one or the other. It is called free markets. Personally, I am appalled when I ask high school or college age kids what their favorite movies are.

But when we think of secular media, we include "Atonement" and dismiss most of the Rocky movies.

A question for you: do you think Radosh would reject the films of Michael Moore? Specific, dogmatic, politically controlling?