The e-zine salt describes itself in Yahoo as "music, literature and the visual arts from a Christian perspective." I was expecting watered-down rightist politics, chunky graphics, and badly-written content -- the ‘zine equivalent of Christian rock. However, I was pleasantly surprised by salt. Turns out it’s not posing at all -- it’s the real thing.

Their manifesto begins with the Leo Tolstoy quotation, "Everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing themselves". Nice!! The editors then go on to say that a Christian subculture has formed in which "thought, creativity and uncompromising love for all have been sacrificed for a feeling of safety". The purpose of salt is to "break through the cultural barriers of the `Christian’ and `secular’ worlds to work towards re-unifying God's creation by synergizing unrestrained thought." Wow. Heady stuff. I’ve never liked the word "synergy" but oh well. No slouches, these folks. Of course, it’s all within the context that "the pages of the Holy Bible hold the only real Truth for our lives" but by the time you’ve gotten that far you don’t mind. And there is the final note that submissions (which are welcome) need not reflect the views of the magazine.

Okay, I bite. What’ve you got?

Each issue features four categories: image, verse, fiction, and essay. A couple of the images took a long time to load -- they are black and white photographs scanned in -- but are worth the wait. The poetry is presented simply, usually white text with a colored background, but different colors and arrangements of the words lend each page an undeniable elegance. The fiction is more spotty, but isn’t that true for every ‘zine? Of the essays, I especially enjoyed "Braveshirt", which is about the line of "No Fear" t-shirts you see the suburban set wearing right now. The author points out the hollowness of the clothing’s message, then brings the lesson around to God, by way of love. Interesting.

What makes salt cool is that it it’s provocative without being prescriptive, authoritative without being obnoxious. This might be Christian art, but it is art first, and that’s what makes it enjoyable. You never get the feeling that something is being shoved down your throat. These guys ain’t the Coalition, that’s for sure.

If the oh so self-consciously hip, high bandwidth, urban e-zines know what’s good for ‘em, they’ll take a good look at salt to see how it’s really done.