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Christian Entertainment II
...The evangelical subculture is awash with bad art and dismal entertainments. From the Left Behind books to the vast majority of "contemporary Christian music" (which is none of the above) evangelicals are eagerly buying up awful dreck, the consumption of which makes them worse people, worse neighbors, worse citizens and fundamentally worse Christians. This is theologically awful, politically vapid, aesthetically blasphemous stuff.

If the popularity of these dismal artistic and entertainment offerings could really be explained as merely the result of a lack of "Christian-themed" alternatives, then a happy and hopeful solution presents itself: create more alternatives and watch quality win out in the marketplace of ideas.

The first problem with this idea is that the subcultural marketplace of American evangelicalism is not a free market.

Anything not produced by and for the profit of the barons and bishops of the subculture's market-driven ecclesiology will be branded as dangerous, heretical and anathema. The latest album of shallow pop music from a "Christian label" record company is permissible. The latest offerings from U2 or from Buddy and Julie Miller -- sales of which do nothing to enrich Word records or Creation concerts -- are not. Left Behind, which enriches Thomas Nelson, has the official blessing of the gatekeepers of the kingdom. John Grisham's preachy The Testament, is published by Random House and is therefore not officially sanctioned reading.

But that argument -- that evangelicalism's notion of orthodoxy is increasingly a function of sales -- is really a separate matter....

...No, sadly the popularity of Bad Christian Art is not the result of a lack of Good Christian Art. It is a result of the rejection of metaphor.

American evangelical Christians do not like metaphor. That's not strong enough. They fear metaphor. It terrifies them, and so they despise it, reject it and forbid it wherever possible.

This is why evangelical scripture reading conspicuously avoids the Gospels.

That seems like an outrageous claim, yet it is assuredly true. Evangelical preaching and devotional literature is far, far more likely to turn to the epistles of St. Paul or to the (apparently) simple maxims of the Book of Proverbs than to the frighteningly ambiguous narrative portions of the Bible.

Evangelicals prefer their truth in simple, unambiguous propositions. The Gospels and Jesus' parables -- all that worrisome, polyvalent storytelling -- just won't do....