"Christianity Today" Versus "The Christian Century": Comparing Evangelical and Liberal Protestant Visual Arts Theologies, 1960-1985

This paper compares liberal Protestant with evangelical Protestant attitudes toward contemporary art between 1960 and the mid-1980s. Following the fundamentalist-modernist split in the United States in the 1920s, theologically orthodox and liberal Protestants diverged on many cultural issues. A study comparing the diverging theological stances on visual art has yet to be done. I approach this topic through a case study comparing content about contemporary art published in the popular liberal publication The Christian Century (CC) with that in its evangelical counterpart, Christianity Today (CT), during the quarter century in question. I demonstrate that CC theologically embraces contemporary art by suggesting all art can contribute to Christian devotion, while CT critiques such art as pessimistic reflections of secularity. By exploring the rhetoric permeating the larger public through popular periodicals, this paper enhances our understanding of the beliefs and values making up liberal Protestant and evangelical communities in the U.S.