Sacred vs Secular

When talking about Christianity and Creative Arts, this question usually arises within those who consider themselves to be followers of Jesus: “Does my art have to be “Christian Art” in order to be glorifying to God and in order to advance His Kingdom?” This is what we know as the Sacred/Secular Divide. It is where and when we ask ourselves,” What is sacred?” and “What is secular?”

Although I don’t condone making or performing any art that is sinful by actively promoting an ungodly lifestyle, I would like to engage you with a few points:

Have you ever…?

-Have you ever seen a Christian piece of pottery?

-Have you ever tasted a freshly baked Christian cupcake?

-Have you ever marveled at a Christian clothing article as a model walked it down     the runway?

-Have you ever stood in awe at the bottom of a Christian architecturally ingenious building?

The answer to all of these questions is inexplicably, “No”. But when you take this to its extreme, where does that leave things like music? We, as Christians, are constantly labeling things Christian and nonChristian.

Christian Music:

But how do you classify a song as being Christian? Can a song be saved from hell? Can a song have a relationship with Jesus? No. We tend to label a song as Christian if it mentions Jesus in a positive light, is sung by a Christian, and if it’s played on a Christian radio station. But when a Christian artist who sings Christian songs sings a song that doesn’t explicitly mention Jesus or even if their song does mention Jesus and is played on a secular radio station- Watch Out, all hell breaks loose in the Christian community!

Compared to the Bible:

That’s all good and well until you look at…the Bible. And if you classify things as being ‘secular or sacred’ and ‘Christian and nonChristian’, the problem you end up with is that you’ll have to eliminate large portions of Scripture. And if you’re really black and white on this issue, you’d have to throw out the whole book because of its constant references to things which are VERY unpleasant, immoral, very unadvisable, and godless.

If you’ve never really read the book of Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ruth, Esther, Job, and Song of Solomon; you are in for a surprise! The book of Ruth barely even mentions God; the book of Esther doesn’t mention Him at all, and neither does Song of Solomon. And you would probably be shocked of what IS talked about in Song of Solomon- it definitely wouldn’t be classified as a Christian song by today’s Christian standards.

Everything Is Spiritual:

The reason that these things are validly Scripture is because they are true to the human experience: love, betrayal, war, sex, commitment, politics, money, children and parenting, etc…. You cannot say that some of these issues are sacred and some of them are not. Rob Bell, in his famous teaching Everything Is Spiritual, states,” To label something as spiritual is to label something as not spiritual.” You see everything in life has meaning and is spiritual just as much as it is physical. After all God, who is spirit, created us in His image and permeates everything in existence.

He desires every piece of our lives to be lived sacredly unto Him. That’s why I’ve mentioned before that everything is worship: not just church, not just t-shirts with the name Jesus on them, not just fish bumper stickers, or Christian radio stations, but everything.

How to Create:

An unknown Pastor who goes by the name of “Reverend J” receives various questions on a Christian blog known as John Mark Ministries. Someone asked him about this division between the sacred and the secular and he wrote this about art:

“A true artist gives his soul away to others. That is his or her gift to the world. It is a sacred impulse. A holy impulse. That impulse should not be contained and restricted but encouraged to flower and flourish. Christians, of all people, should be the first to facilitate that artistic impulse. During the Renaissance period the church got it right. That period produced the greatest art the world has ever seen. What happened? We’ve lost a lot of ground since then. It’s time to face the music and claim it back!”

And with that being said, some of the music I have heard that has been ‘so-called Christian music’ is some of the worst music I’ve ever heard artistically speaking. While the best music I have ever heard has been ‘so-called secular music’, music that is not explicitly about God, but about life and the human condition which is very sacred and very spiritual. And that’s something we can all relate to.

So whether you make music, cook steak, paint pictures, dance, act, perform standup comedy, whatever it is; do it as unto the Lord and let the creativity He gave you flow out of you with all its might. Should you be mindful not to offend a holy God with things that are distasteful or promote a sinful life, absolutely- after all, this is worship we’re talking about!

But don’t shy away with allowing your art to portray real life because it is very spiritual and everyone can relate to that and find God through real life circumstance and creativity.