Samantha Klotzbach
Professor Brower
ARTS 105-001
17 October 2020
Critical Book Report Assignment
Science, English, History, and the Creative Arts are all impacted and incorporated into
our lives greatly in our twenty-first century society. They all each have an important history of
how they developed into what we learn and interact with today; even more so as Christians who
have a different worldview than the secular world. The Creative Arts in particular have an
interesting/profound growing affect on the Church and Christian religion. This booming impact
of the Arts is what Todd Smith’s A Creative Church addresses, and how this revival has been
growing ever since the nineteenth century.
The nineteenth century truly set the stages for the quick spread of the arts in the twentieth
century. In part, this was all thanks to a man known as John Heyl Vincent. This man created a
summer camp known as Chautauqua Institute which offered classes in various branches of the
arts to help develop students’ wide interests (although music was a clear favorite at this time)
(Smith, 2014). Many things started to shift at the end of the century thanks to social reform and
the Industrial Revolution. The author, Todd Smith, stated that, “At the dawn of the new century,
the environment was ripe for reforms on many levels, setting the stage for the growth and
renewal of the arts in America and set the stage for what would become a worldwide movement”
(Smith, 2014). A movement indeed it was. This book covers four art forms in particular that gave
rise to this revival: Theatre, Music, Visual Arts, and Dance. A lot of the progress that many
people were trying to push forward in the arts was responded with skepticism and protest in the
church. Some people were just not ready for change, but it came nonetheless. This freedom of
expression allowed for people to discover new ways to worship the Lord. It also gave a Christian
alternative choice for students who wanted to listen to rock music or join in theatre, and no
longer had to participate in the secular versions. Also, this revival did not just stay in North
America; since, the growth of Christian Creative Arts education, organizations, and financial
support occurred, it was able to be brought or broadcasted into other countries around the world.
The Arts have cemented its vitality in the church and A Creative Church allows us to see just
how vast its impact has become.
This book not only overviewed how the arts have drastically changed over the years, but
also introduces us to specific people that took part in this process. For example, Ralph
Carmichael – a composer and contemporary Christian music pioneer – story helps us see how
people’s views can continuously change and adapt about a topic (which in this case can be
beneficial in order to spread the gospel to a wider audience). We learn about his father who was a
pastor trying to broadcast on the radio but being unsupported by his church because they
considered the radio as the devil’s (Smith, 2014). We see him later having similar issues at
college when he tries to create a band in order to play with his Gospel music. He has issues with
keeping a baritone sax on campus, and when they are invited onto a television show the school
requires them to not mention their name (Smith, 2014). This is all because there were still certain
views back then of what should be classified as worldly or holy; the radio, baritone saxes, and
television at the time leaned more to the secular side for these religious institutions, so they were
sadly shunned. However, Carmichael saw these resources as an opportunity to take what people
used for themselves and give it back to God – the ultimate creator of these things (Cheatham,
2003). The controversy of them going onto the television show ultimately brought more attention
to what they were singing about, and it brought so much attention that they were even nominated
for an Emmy and won. The school where Carmichael went eventually took back their statement
and allowed for their name to be attached to their group. Ralph Carmichael went on and
continued to shake the Christian music world – glorifying God while doing so.
The book, Expanding the Discourse on Christianity in the History of Art, states that,
“Some interpretations of twentieth- and twenty-first-century art not only insists on equating
modernism with secularism but also describe the erasure of all mention of spiritual presence
from the scholarly discourse as a triumph for the field of art history” (Romain, 2013). This
unfortunate idea is what makes me encouraged when reading about the steps of incorporation of
Christianity that is also occurring in our century in A Creative Church. I have a pretty good grasp
of what A Creative Church was trying to express/inform the reader about. I think the author made
a smart move in incorporating specific people that aided/are aiding in this revival. However, I
found the rest of the book rather dull. It felt as though it was repeating almost the same type of
information in the same way over-and-over again. It did not keep me engaged or interested to
learn more about the topic. The topic itself is informative and important for us to grasp as
believers; however, I felt there may have been a better way to get this information across, or the
writing itself could be worked on. This is just my opinion on what I experienced while reading
the book, but there was still a lot of good information there for people to look through.
A Creative Church shows how that the gospel can be spread in different, non-
conventional ways such as music, theatre, or even through paintings. The Bible tells us how we
were all given different gifts that were meant to be used; so, we should not hold these back from
Him (Roman 12:6, English Standard Version). If there is to be a revival in this world, it needs to
start within the Church first.
Works Cited
CHEATHAM, RUSS. “Ralph Carmichael—A Contract with God.” Bad Boy of Gospel Music:
The Calvin Newton Story, by Russ Cheatham, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson,
2003, pp. 123–130. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2tvm9g.19. Accessed 18 Oct. 2020.
ROMAINE, JAMES. “Expanding the Discourse on Christianity in the History of
Art.” ReVisioning: Critical Methods of Seeing Christianity in the History of Art, edited by
James Romaine and Linda Stratford, 1st ed., The Lutterworth Press, Cambridge, United
Kingdom, 2013, pp. 3–24. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cgdwzn.6. Accessed 18 Oct.
2020.
SMITH, TODD. A Creative Church. Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, 2014.
