Before the Festival: A Conversation with Calvin College's Ken Heffner about the Festival of Faith & Music

A recent bio sheet accompanying a new Christian singer/songwriter’s CD to be released this spring says:

Sometimes the most meaningful art can come from life’s most tumultuous storms, which [this artist] can cite through a season of internal wrestling, outward struggle, and eventual resolution.

This singer/songwriter—who will remain unnamed—has employed a bio writer—who will also remain unnamed—who has captured the essence of art: something that speaks a truth about life from the realities which face us in life. However, there’s been too much history of Christian artists feeling uncomfortable exposing their storms without immediately trying to counter it with resolution. This bio falls right into that category as it continues:

While the burgeoning troubadour admits experiencing multiple emotions like doubt, despair, and even a sinking self-esteem, that questioning has all been erased by the embrace of God’s unconditional love….

I do not question whether this artist has experienced God’s love, and I certainly do not doubt that God’s unconditional love can lift us up from dark emotions. However, the bio reveals how Christians artists, the Christian music industry, and really the Christian music audience are very nervous in the in-between. If music (or any art) speaks about the gritty ups-and-downs of being a Christian in this world, it also needs to be neatly wrapped up with a “Jesus loves me” bow at the end.


Christianity as Worldview
Ken Heffner is not about to let conversations about Christians doing art denigrate to such simple answers. As Student Activities Director at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is playing host to the second Festival of Faith and Music, March 30-31, Heffner hopes to encourage artists who are comfortable with the first part of that above bio: “the most meaningful art can come from life’s most tumultuous storms.”

While discussing those storms, the Festival of Faith and Music (FFM) is ready to take the world by storm. As the counterpart to the every other year Festival of Faith and Writing, Heffner and his team had a goal to make this year’s FFM even bigger, anchoring it with concerts from Emmylou Harris, Neko Case, and Sufjan Stevens. Having already reached the registration cut-off, a special limited registration was just opened up to allow 150 participants to attend everything except the Sufjan Stevens concert.

The conference brings together artists, writers, industry types, academics, and fans in order to have conversations about what it means to find Christ in art—not Christian art. As shown by the discussions at the 2005 FFM, the distinction is very important.

“It is exceptional that Christians are getting together to talk about art—not for evangelism—but art for art sake,” Heffner explains. “It is a kingdom vision that allows them to talk about a wide range of art, a Christian worldview that shapes an aesthetic, and original ideas come out of the worldview. Worldview precedes aesthetic. It tells you what you see and hear and imagine.

“[The Church has] suffered, because we don’t see Christianity as a worldview. [Christianity has become] an answer to a particular question, an answer to a moral question. It’s not a cosmic scope. A relationship with Christ escapes you out of this world, as opposed to Christ coming to make a whole world new.”

To borrow from Heffner, the above press release poises us to see a Christian singer/songwriter who has escaped out of this world because of his relationship with Jesus (“that questioning has all been erased”), rather than remaining with the uncomfortable in-between of living in this world while also knowing Christ, of seeing how Christ changes how we view the world (finding truth in “life’s tumultuous storms”).

Heffner keeps coming back to his observation that American Christianity has locked itself into a dualism which divides the sacred and the secular. The dividing line has led to things such as the Christian music industry, meaning that Christians often define a music by record label or whether there is an altar call during a concert. Anything outside of that circle gets lumped into the secular world. The FFM is about transcending that dualism. Christians are making art in all realms regardless of faith statements of producers, labels, publishers, or promoters.

Of course, encouraging this Christian worldview that dismantles the dualism also means recognizing “truth telling” in the so-called secular world.

“We are not just celebrating the work of Christians, but we are trying to encourage Christians that there are other ways of doing art,” Heffner continues. “God works through anyone He needs to. The best and brightest work is not being done by the body of Christ. The work still needs to get done. We see telling the truth in [the work outside the Church] perhaps better than others.”

This is why the FFM invited Neko Case and Emmylou Harris to perform and speak at this year’s conference. “We are unique as a Christian festival, because we invite artists in who aren’t necessarily Christian and even invite them to speak. We want them part of the conversation.”


I will presenting a workshop titled: “There is a Light That Never Goes Out: Saint Morrissey and the Gospel.” Morrissey, as lead singer of the Smiths and in his solo career, has written lyrics that cut deeply—even piercing the soul. While Morrissey has never claimed the Christian faith as his own, his lyrics show a reoccurring conversation with God. This presentation will take a look at the echoes of the faith in Morrissey’s words as he approaches the subjects of temptation, God, death, and Gospel-type metaphors, while also seeing Morrissey’s “pastoral care” and Morrissey as prophet.

Thanks to Ken Heffner for taking the time for this conversation.