Pass the Advil. . .

So. Does a work of art (any kind of art, music, lit., etc.) have to have explicit Christian references in order to be Christian?
This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately, as the result of rereading some Jane Austen. :-) Think about it-- Jane Austen was clearly writing from within a Christian worldview; she was Christian herself, and her father and 1 or 2 brothers were clergymen. But there is very little mention made in her books of the Lord, and only passing references to church and stuff like that. I think that for us moderns our faith is so constantly under attack that we feel the need to declare ourselves, to fly the colors, much more than Christians of earlier ages did. We want everyone to state clearly where they stand on these issues. But Jane Austen's world was primarily Christian, and I think everyone was so accustomed to this that they assumed the Christian underpinnings where we would want them to be declared. Unfortunatly, we frequently carry this to the point of making the arts a sort of billboard for the faith, instead of the natural outpouring of a fully integrated worldview. During the recent World magazine fiction competition there was a long and very interesting discussion on the blog about how we don't think of a book or painting or piece of music as Christain unless it 'bonks us across the head with cross-shaped shadows.' HAHAHAHAHAH How true. Maybe they should start selling Advil in Christian bookstores. Ooooh, that was really nasty of me. :-)