Barbara Nicolosi-Harrington on Christian Art Suckage

“The art made by Christians today is not only not beautiful, but tends to be among the ugliest art that mankind is producing,” screenwriter and professor Barbara Nicolosi-Harrington said during her talk to the students and faculty of Christendom College on May 2.

I think it’s the “Little Drummer Boy” effect. Art that sucks (Music=pa rum pa pum pum) is thought to be humble. Art that’s good is fancy pants aesthetics that those damn bi-coastal Blue Staters like. So Christians make sucky art and pride themselves on their humility. Til “suck” is decoupled from “humble” the problem will continue.

I think the trick is to get Christians to look beyond the story of the Widow’s Mite and remember the remark of David that “I will not offer a sacrifice that costs me nothing.” The widow put two small coins into the treasury because it was all she had. She gave her all. Lots of Christians think the moral is “Put in two cents of effort and you are humble.” Nope. If you put in two cents when you have $2000 to give you are not humble. You’re just lazy and cheap. Same with the arts. Crappy art when we can do better is not humble, it’s just crappy.