Estranged or divorced?(James Elkins on contemporary religious art)

We "religious" should be grateful to James Elkins. His book clearly states what artists who are Christians may have learned by experience, but never heard honestly acknowledged. The "place" of religious art turns out to be off any map whose coordinates come from within the art world he describes. There certainly are biases and antagonisms against sincere, religiously charged art. The question is whether those are in the DNA of contemporary art, thus guaranteeing the exclusion of religion. Interestingly, by Elkins' account contemporary art--usually associated with change--seems to have some fixity. He concludes On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art by saying, "It is …