So much of my anxiety in being a Christian artist is wrapped up in the supposed choice between two extremes: compromise the weight of what I wish to write to appeal to a faith-based audience, or water down my faith to make my words more palatable to everyone else.
I’ve felt many times that my desperate longing for beauty infused with truth is only magnified in the lack of depth in so much modern “Christian” writing, and that it becomes heavier and lonelier as I navigate a world that has little interest in faith.
But Ekstasis dashes the fear that I am alone in the hunger for words and imagery that mean more, and has proven that no sacrifice need be made either in my faith or my subject matter.
This community has shown me how many Christians are not content with the sort of pop Christianity that seems so alluring, thin words without substance that barely scratch the surface of our deepest longings. These artists are reaching out for more; are making more, themselves; are crying out in unbelief, wonder, fear, joy, partaking in this community of creating to stake their hope in a Father who is the greatest of all Artists, whose glory we emulate in pale reflections.
I am so glad that this magazine is a city on a hill, a light that can't be snuffed out, setting the standard for what it means to fuse art and faith. Through reading and writing for Ekstasis, I have already noticed my at-times-dormant sense of wonder and imagination as a child of God reawakening.
