© 1998 by John Green

It is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century. The Christian community seems, for the most part, to have lost its ability to be creative and original. Stroll through your local Christian bookstore and peruse the countless cloned, regurgitated, and recycled products. Purified romance novels, with devout heroines added and sexual content removed. Sanctified beer-commercial t-shirts (This Blood’s For You). Angel mania books. Holy rocker grunge groups mimicking the poses from secular album shots. Painting reproductions with an added Bible verse at the bottom. Mediocrity reigns supreme in the Christian ghetto.

When was the last time you read a recent novel by a Christian, and came away with the feeling that you had experienced something which had stirred something deep in your being; swirling up thoughts and implications which normally sat like sediment at the bottom of your soul? Come on, I’m not talking about Peretti’s wooden novels, or the mushroom-like proliferation of end-time/disaster/conspiracy books churned out by Christian leaders who apparently have too much time on their hands. We have lowered our expectations so much that pathetic drivel is gobbled up with great relish by millions of consumers, and praised as though it were something grand! Have we been deprived of nourishment for so long that we can no longer discern between bread and dung?

This disease has so infected us, that we no longer seem capable of using the creative abilities which we are endowed with by our magnificently creative God. Our originality has become a limb withered and atrophied from non-use. Our wells have dried up, and our landscape has become a barren wasteland devoid of verdant, vibrant life. We only produce cheap imitations the real thing. We take a product from the world and stamp it with our Christian label and hawk it in our stores. Hey, if people buy it, it must be good—right?! We do as the world does, only five years behind and half as good. In our desire for acceptance, we mimic the world, trying desperately to blend chameleon-like into the scenery. Hey, we Christians can be cool too! Look, my t-shirt’s almost like yours—only a little different.

What an indictment that the children of this world should be more in tune with their God-given creative abilities than we are. They, of course, often use them for ungodly ends. We curse them for this, as we take notes for our next project. We, of all people should be innovators, not imitators! If you want to see real creativity, walk out on a winter night and look at the stars. Then, look at some deep-space photos of nebulas from the Hubble telescope, floating in space like cosmic jellyfish. Walk through a summer field ablaze with a glorious riot of wildflowers. Pluck a grasshopper from a blade of grass and study the intricate scrimshaw details on its body. This is the kind of God we serve. A God of astounding variety and boundless imagination. I look at the universe, the billions of stars, and ask "Why—why so much?" I guess it’s because He loves to create.

We are made in His image, and the urge to create waits as a flame within our inner parts, placed there by divine hands. The flame may be guttering and smoking. The pressing barren blackness may threaten to smother it, but it can spring into blazing life, given half a chance. Fan the flame that is uniquely yours. Explore your creative inheritance with childlike wonder. Spit out that mouthful of dung, and set out on a quest for nourishing food. Chances are you probably won’t find it in a Christian bookstore, but the aroma of good meal can be smelled a long way off. Perhaps a fellow-traveler can help point the way.