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What Makes Music "Christian"?

Building off of yesterday’s post, I want to pose a second question about the way we often frame media as Christian or secular.

What exactly makes it Christian anyways?

Take music for example, is it Christian music if it talks about Jesus? Plenty of music that is labeled as “Christian” doesn’t, and many songs that do could be teen love-songs if you replaced Jesus with “baby”. Is that what we’re aiming for?

Maybe it’s music done under a Christian record label? Of course that begs the question, wouldn’t they be the same songs if they “sold out” and signed with a secular label?

Perhaps it’s just music done by people who claim to follow Jesus? But not every Christian is trying to make “Christian music” they are just making music and in the process their faith affects their songs to varying degrees.

Or take the visual arts, painting for example. The paintings above are done by Makoto Fujimura, are they “Christian” art?

What if I told you those letters are for a new illuminated manuscript entitled The Four Holy Gospels? Do you see them as Christian now?

What if they were hanging in the Chicago Art Museum with no indication of being used in a Bible, have the paintings you may have termed as Christian changed? If not, why would your definition?

I think there might be a bit of a problem with our labeling system.

It might sound good to some of us, but in the end does it really work?

What makes music, or art, or film “Christian”?