This is great! If I might, is the motivation (though not unglorious, because it is a kenotic movement, out of love) for the Christian secular artist merely didactic? Since we have access to the absolute Good, in and through Christ, as you have said, anything else is relative to that Good, and tends to accrete or mix with relative evil as it descends therefrom. So then as artists, our engagement with 'mixed' art is only comported purely when its telos is situated in the good of our brother. As you have it, "enduring relative evil things when both bestowed with God’s protection and motivated by love for those who would benefit from relative good in the process." Is there a way to see the relative good of a Dostoevsky novel as being 'filled up' in some sense by its teleology? I think I'm probably just looking for a way to justify my enjoyment of certain works and authors like Nabokov and Tanizaki that played with plenty of venom and probably not a lot of leaven. I think also maybe I should replace the notion of didacticism with that of therapy: it seems to fit better into what you're saying, and doesn't imply cheap, gimmick art. Thanks for the article and the dialogue! God bless.
My third read and I'm just now noticing the good n' evil on the cereal box ... you crack me up!
This is great! If I might, is the motivation (though not unglorious, because it is a kenotic movement, out of love) for the Christian secular artist merely didactic? Since we have access to the absolute Good, in and through Christ, as you have said, anything else is relative to that Good, and tends to accrete or mix with relative evil as it descends therefrom. So then as artists, our engagement with 'mixed' art is only comported purely when its telos is situated in the good of our brother. As you have it, "enduring relative evil things when both bestowed with God’s protection and motivated by love for those who would benefit from relative good in the process." Is there a way to see the relative good of a Dostoevsky novel as being 'filled up' in some sense by its teleology? I think I'm probably just looking for a way to justify my enjoyment of certain works and authors like Nabokov and Tanizaki that played with plenty of venom and probably not a lot of leaven. I think also maybe I should replace the notion of didacticism with that of therapy: it seems to fit better into what you're saying, and doesn't imply cheap, gimmick art. Thanks for the article and the dialogue! God bless.