What is The Christian Manifesto? That depends on who you ask.
For some, The Christian Manifesto is their first stop for honest reviews and critiques of pop culture items within and without the Church.
For others, The Christian Manifesto is an irreverent, Simon Cowell-esque house of snobbery that disregards the fact that, at the end of the day, ministry is more important than artistic expression.
Still, there are those who view The Christian Manifesto as a place committed to independent artists as well as national acts, first time writers as well as New York Times-bestselling authors.
The fact is, all of these ideas about us are true. But, first and foremost, we’re about Jesus Christ. We love God and we love others.
When it comes to reviewing materials, well–that depends on the reviewer. Some of us are all about the lyrics. Some of us are all about the musicianship. Some of us like fast-paced fiction while some of us can’t get enough theology in our diets. And we write what we think. We don’t sugar-coat our reviews. We don’t clean up our interview questions so we can play nice. We ask deep, probing questions in our “Christ & Culture” blog, so as not to let comfortable Christians off the hook. We don’t make things easy for authors, artists, or our audience, just because the word ‘Christian’ is in our name. If your music or book sucks, guess what? We’re going to tell people. SO…DON’T…MAKE…CRAP. If you came here for a relaxed take on the Christian faith, you’re looking in the wrong place. If you craft something noteworthy, groundbreaking even, we’ll work hard to make sure that people know about it.
And we don’t insulate ourselves by reviewing only Christian materials. That was how we originally approached things, but let’s be honest, all of Creation is charged with the grandeur of God. With that in mind, we’re just as comfortable reviewing and critiquing the creative work of Eminem as we are Steven Curtis Chapman. We won’t crucify an artist because he swears too much or talks about non-Christian things and we won’t simply praise an artist because they mention Jesus every other line. We won’t degrade an author because his fiction calls into question deeply held tenents of the faith or praise one simply because their main character has a conversion experience and battles the charismatic anti-Christ with 44,000 Jewish witnesses.
So, welcome to The Christian Manifesto. We’re glad you could join us.
