“Why should the devil have all the best tunes?” asked Methodist preacher George Whitefield in 1774. But did the devil ever? And does he still? As conservative and dated as ‘religious art’ might seem in the West (where religious practices have been somewhat marred by schisms, crusades, inquisitions, Nietzsche, existentialism, and that ever-pesky science), I think the paganity to which Whitefield referred has less of a cloven-hoofed power-stance over the arts than the reality of the situation might suggest. Not only were many of the modern antecedents and influences of contemporary Western artists religious, but a great number of today’s practitioners remain resolutely Christian in their outlook.

Continue reading The Relevance of Religious Art Today