Recognizing When Art Lacks Craft

On Sunday October 18th, the film  Mom’s Night Out was presented with a Christian entertainment Dove Award for most inspirational film. But this same film has earned a disappointing 18% on the professional film review website, Rotten Tomatoes.  This negative response was echoed by Steve Davis, a movie critic for the Austin Chronicle, who commented, Mom’s Night Out is a movie only a mother could love.’” A Dove award for being the most inspirational? And a movie only a mother could love? Something does not add up.

As a movie lover and writer, I groan when I watch an ill-timed fade or cliché – a deathbed conversion, an against-all-odds football triumph, or an unlikely marriage restoration. For the most part, movies like this do not succeed without being peddled to the Christian community. They end up in the deep recesses of Netflix, only to be viewed on nights when procrastination is at its peak.

Christian films often receive widespread promotion (and promotional praise) despite their lack of technical proficiency. And this occurs in the context of other artistic disciplines as well. Christian artists often get away with shoddy craftsmanship. And why? Because they claim the overriding superiority and importance of their message. This, they posit, compensates for their inadequate methodology.

In C. S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity, he wrote this about the church, “I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music.” I assume Lewis is not the only one who has sat in a church and wondered if a song could be any less musical. Lewis’s point here is that the craft is well below the world’s standard of excellence.

I suggest that Christians should seek to meet the world’s standard of excellence and advance beyond it. Martin Luther backs this point when he was presumed to have said this about vocation. Though it may not be from him, the sentiment holds true – “The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays—not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”

No one would buy a terrible shoe with a cross on it, so why do we buy terrible art with Christian messages? There is a solution. First, we need to start recognizing when art lacks craft. We must not be biased in our evaluation of art simply because it is ‘Christian.’ Even if the goal is spreading a Christian message, people outside the Christian realm will not understand bad craft. We need to meet people where they are and show them art they understand and can appreciate. That means that the Christian artist must be well educated and invested in his or her craft. Finally, we must be critical of the art, and never give it a pass. We should call bad craft for what it is, subpar and lazy.