Beautiful Things on the Wall

No.251: March 14, 2025

Welcome to The Square Inch, a Friday newsletter on Christianity, culture, and all of the many-varied “square inches” of God’s domain. This is a paid subscription feature with a preview before the paywall, so please consider subscribing to enjoy this weekly missive along with an occasional “Off The Shelf” feature about books, a frequent Pipe & Dram feature of little monologues/conversations in my study, and Wednesday’s “The Quarter Inch,” a quick(er) commentary on current events.

Dear Friends,

I have been prepping for the release of The Bailey Band’s debut album (Monday!), which has been a lot of behind the scenes work, but telling people about that is rather pointless when they cannot, you know, actually listen to the music. However, the process of doing a lot of digital design work prompted me to write a little something this week about art of all kinds. Both theory and practical enjoyment.

First, the theory. Here’s something I wrote last Thanksgiving:

I am thankful for music and the ability to play it, compose it, and perform it. I’ve been a guitarist and songwriter for 34 years now and feel like I have finally figured a few things out. I didn’t think I’d have to sire and raise my own band, but life is funny. I am thankful for the opportunity for freedom and diversity in my musical outlets. I think when people think of The Bailey Band they think of this “Christian theologian” guy doing some songs with his kids and they get a certain image in their heads of what that means or what that sounds like.

It is nothing like that image in your head. It’s literally rocking a brewery on a Friday night. Our music is not what people classify as “Christian” music because people are simply wrong in how they classify things. If you are looking for devotional music, and “live worship” music, there is, in fact, an entire industry devoted to producing it. In fact, you can hear us play that kind of music every single Sunday at our worship services. But we think this thing where Christians write all the “devotional” and “worship” music, only to let the pagans do all the writing and entertaining about love, heartache, anger, relationships, suffering, struggle, joy, laughter, life, the universe, and everything is pretty weird. Weirder still is that we then have the chutzpah to complain about the degradation of music and entertainment. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That’s just a way of saying that a great many people will hear our new album and be surprised at how … “secular” it sounds, because those are the categories they’ve taken for granted for so long. Christians tend to equate “Christian” art with evangelistic or devotional or worshipful art. And those are, of course, wonderful uses for art. But they do not exhaust art’s purposes. And it is those other purposes which are severely under-served by Christian artists—mostly because any time a Christian artist writes and records, say, a song an unbeliever might actually listen to and enjoy, scolding killjoys question their loyalty to Jesus. And then, when confronted by this tragically false dichotomy—write really good commercially viable (if not successful) music or be a Christian—they either play it safe and stick to devotional music or they leave the church. It’s a bad theology of nature and grace about which, if you’re interested, I’ve written at greater length in The Magnificent Pig and Other Letters To My Friends.

One of the most successful rock bands in history, U2, experienced this very thing. In their early days they were part of an evangelical Christian fellowship that frowned on their interest in so-called “secular” music, and were told that they “couldn’t serve two masters” and it was either music or Jesus. But they, wise beyond their years, chose the path of “both.” Jesus is opposed to sin, not the world as such. And, while some (very wrong) people will disagree, the world is very much better off for their decision.

C.S. Lewis understood that art was for more purposes than evangelism. It is a way of enlarging the soul: experiencing the world vicariously. We can step inside another person’s skin and (in an approximate fashion) see what they see, feel what they feel, and think what they think. In fact, Lewis wrote a lot of insightful, thoughtful, and even some debatable things about art (and here’s a really fine overview).

One of his most interesting and useful observations is that the most compelling Christian artists are compelling because their Christianity is “latent” rather than obvious (surely he must have had in mind a certain Oxford professor friend). In other words, the artist’s Christian worldview is there because the artist produces from his or her worldview—just as every artist produces from their own worldview. The art is not first and foremost a utilitarian vehicle to propagate the worldview; it is the product of it. Lewis thinks this is more true to the nature and character of art than if one were to, say, announce the artist’s loyalties by slapping a fish symbol on it. I think legendary producer and songwriter T-Bone Burnett put it really, really well: “If Jesus is the light of the world, there are two kinds of songs you can write. You can write about the light, or you can write about what you can see by the light. That’s what I try to do.” And, as I say, there is a whole industry full of people passionate for writing about the light—for which we should all be thankful!—it just hasn’t been a passion of mine or more than an occasional interest (I have, when needed, written some churchly material).

Now, do some artists use this “latency” as a cover or excuse for hiding their light under a bushel? Well, sure, but that isn’t unique to the arts. You could say that about people in any profession. We just don’t typically ask engineers or medical doctors to give a gospel presentation every time they are in the boardroom or exam room; we ask this of artists on a stage because it is an inherently expressive activity, and Christians are very touchy about what and how people express.

My advice for Christian artists who are not called to be “evangelists” (according to the Bible, that is a particular calling not given to all): It is better that fans be interested in your faith because they love your art than for them to be interested in your art because they love your faith.

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Now, for some practical appreciation and enjoyment, first literary and cinematic, then visual.