Derek Webb: Is he right about Chrisitan Art?

January 14, 2008 · 6 comments

Check out this video. In it Derek Webb says that the Christian market talks about 2% of life while ignoring the 98% of “stuff” in the real world.

What do you think? Should more Christian art reflect the themes Derek mentions?

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http://mjp-journey.blogspot.com Mykel Pickens

I agree with Derek. Having been involved in the west coast Christian music scene in the 90′s and early 2000′s, a lot of what I saw was just this superficial, tickling of the ears, Christian music that just didn’t sit well with me. “Art” became too commercial and was just made to make money. The worship genre was the worst. You had people making worship albums who would never make them just to make a buck. Now I’m afraid we will see that now with artists jumping on the social cause bandwagon. I just wish people would just make the music they want, what God wants and just do what Jesus wants us to do. Stop all the commercialness of Christianity.
http://youthhacks.com Josh Cook

I could not agree more. I remember, as a high school student in the late nineties, hearing someone comment that there weren’t christian market blues artists because “you don’t get the blues when you have Jesus!” Years later I find it hard to believe how ignorant that statement sounds.

Not only does mainstream Christian art not reflect the breadth of human experience, it doesn’t even do as good of a job as scripture. There are many themes in scripture (violence, sexuality, doubt, harsh language, etc) that would be considered completely taboo in our culture.

additionally, I think this reflects a problem in the Christian market. While there are many mainstream radio stations, even large markets generally only have one or two christian stations. There’s only enough room for a few artists on the dial and those are almost always directed at the most profitable demographics.

Until this model changes, we’ll keep getting Christian music made for soccer moms.
http://adammclane.com adam mclane

Well, the most popular Christian artists are not on Christians labels nor on are they trying to get on Christian radio.

I think that’s where Derek is wrong. I like that he is now trying to compete for airtime with everyone else now.
http://www.amysondova.com Amy

Dude, how much caffeine did they pump into Derek Webb when he did this interview? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this perky…or maybe he’s just really a 7:30 a.m. kind of guy.

From my observation seeing him perform on things (not live, we won’t get into that), he usually is more laid back and chill. And when we chatted, it was like a really deep kind of thing…

When I interviewed him (coming soon on YMX), he talked about how silly the line between the secular and the sacred is–so I think that’s where he’s getting the 98%/2% thing.
http://www.amysondova.com Amy

I LOVE DEREK WEBB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And Adam does, too. He proved it by posting this!!!!!
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