Written by 
(ANALYSIS) One of the things I love about the Christmas season is the music. The ancient music is, of course, powerful. Handel’s “Messiah” never fails to move me. Time-tested hymns and carols such as “Silent Night” and “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing” still satisfy deep longings in us today.
But I am also impressed with a current crop of creators using their gifts to “make all things new.” I could cite Keith and Kristyn Getty’s “Irish Christmas” tour, which I saw this week in Charlotte, and which fills auditoriums around the country – including a stop in Carnegie Hall next week. Another favorite of mine, Sandra McCracken, is in the midst of a Christmas tour, as well, touring with the excellent songwriter Sara Groves.
However, an artist who bears special consideration in this conversation is Andrew Peterson.
Andrew Peterson has had a significant career in Christian music. His first album produced the 2000 Christian radio hit “Nothing To Say.” But he hit a speedbump when his second album released on Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks of 911 erased most possibilities of touring to support it.
But the music was excellent, critics noticed, and his audience grew. It was 2010, nearly a decade later, before he had another hit, “Dancing In The Minefields.” His 2018 song “Is He Worthy?” has received significant attention as a worship song, especially after a cover of the song by Chris Tomlin topped the Christian music charts.
But Andrew Peterson is a man of many parts. His music attracted not just fans, but a community of people who understood what he was doing with his music. Peterson gathered around him a group of likeminded artists who originally called themselves the “Square Peg Alliance.” These artists included Jill Phillips, Ben Shive, Andrew Osenga [Caedmon’s Call], Katy Bowser Hutson [Rain for Roots], Eric Peters, and others.
They played on each other’s albums and supported each other’s tours. Every Christmas, some of the original “Square Pegs,” along with other guest artists, perform Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb of God” in as many cities as they could fit in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Peterson describes BTLOG as a “song cycle about the coming of Christ.” That tour has now been going on for more than 20 years. For the past few years, it has culminated in two sold-out shows in Nashville’s iconic Ryman Auditorium. I’ve seen BTLOG many times, but I must say that seeing it at the Ryman is an experience I won’t soon forget.
Peterson has also become a commercially successful and critically acclaimed writer. His “Wingfeather Saga” fantasy books have now sold more than a million copies and have been turned into an animated series. His nonfiction books, including “Adorning the Dark” and “The God of the Garden,” have made him an important voice in evangelicalism for those who care about art, vocation and community. (For an interview I did with Andrew about these ideas, click here).
In 2016 he formed an organization called The Rabbit Room, named after the small back room in Oxford’s Eagle and Child Pub where C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and the other Inklings would meet, encourage and challenge each other. Writers and artists who have had some association with The Rabbit Room include Andrew’s brother Pete (a fine writer himself, whose play “The Hiding Place” was recently translated to the big screen), Douglas McKelvey, Jonathan Rogers, and many others. The Rabbit Room Press has published books by Walter Wangerin Jr., Philip Yancey, Allen Levi and George MacDonald.
The Rabbit Room now has a headquarters near Nashville, called Northwind Manor, which features the fireplace from the home of Tolkien. Northwind Manor hosts monthly events and is open during the day for writers and others who come to reflect and work. The Rabbit Room holds an annual conference called Hutchmoot that typically sells out hours after the tickets go on sale.
The Rabbit Room is perhaps the largest of many similar organizations. Colorado Springs is home to the Anselm Society. Musician and author Charlie Peacock and his wife Andi Ashworth founded the Art House movement. Makoto Fujimura, a respected post-impressionist painter, leads the International Arts Movement.
These are just a few organizations who help us understand that we are made in the Image of God, and that God reveals himself first to us as a creator. “In the beginning, God created.”
They also remind us that the relationship between “the good, the true, and the beautiful” is seamless. Plato famously said, “The good is the beautiful.” C.S. Lewis constantly reminded us Truth is defined by God’s created order, which was both good and beautiful.
All these ideas come to mind when I think of Christmas music. Now, you may think all of this is a lot to get out of a few Christmas songs. Some might even say … too much.
But I don’t think so. When the baby Jesus lay in a manger, most would say that he was just that — a baby in a crib. Only those with eyes to see and ears to hear understood that this baby was in fact Emmanuel, God with us, the creator and savior of the world.
So this Christmas season I hope you will take a moment to hear, to really hear, some of the “good, true, and beautiful” music of the season being created by Andrew Peterson, the Gettys, and so many more.
And may it change the way we love God, our neighbors, and the world.
This article was originally published at MinistryWatch.