I very much relate to your lament. My musical taste is not as refined as your but the evangelical church is also vapid on the visual side. I pray you can find a likeminded group. I must admit I have primarily done that through teaching.

Their aesthetics in the arts, though, aren’t my own. As a professional classical musician, I’ve experienced God so many, many times through this music. But this isn’t the music of the evangelical American church. My churches have also been devoid of art except for pictures of Jesus and His disciples and the crowds in the children’s classes. I endeavored to launch a drama ministry in my church, but only two people were interested: one other woman and myself.

It feels as though I’m fighting a losing battle with the arts and my brethren. The churches with my beliefs don’t invest in the arts (artworks, drama, music – getting rid of organs and acoustic pianos because, well, acoustics need to be maintained and tuned). The churches that invest in the arts don’t share my beliefs.

I just don’t belong. I don’t generally meet people who value the arts at church, and I don’t generally meet fellow evangelicals in the course of my musical work. It’s extremely lonely. I feel as though God has in His great kindness gifted me to offer this beautiful music to Him, but not in the Church. I feel very constrained and put into a box. The hymns aren’t classical music, but I do love many of the hymns – but even these are on the way out. Does God really mean for me to play rock music on an electronic piano when it’s not the music with which I connect? Well, I do enjoy lots of classic rock…But much of what passes for rock today, even Christian rock, is insipid, formulaic, and even doesn’t bring the song to a satisfying conclusion because it often ends on a IV chord. (Musicians will know that the I chord, or tonic, is the “home” of the scale. So lots of this Christian music leaves us away from “home” in a wandering state.)

Thank you for defending the Logos of God to us, and I think also the expression of us to God, through the arts. Whether in or out of church. People like you help me feel less alone.

Thank you Judith. I have been thinking of God more and more in terms of an Artist God over the last few years so I am certain that concept will come up again.