My personal philosophy concerning objectionable elements within media, literature, and the arts can be broken up into three main categories that must be addressed in order, as follows.
Right Choice
When it comes to making a right choice in life, I firmly believe that there are three main components involved in the process. First, I believe that you must have the right goal: God's glory. We exist to glorify and worship Him with our entire being, and therefore to make a choice without this being the goal is already wrong. Second, I believe that you must have the right motive: love. If your choices and actions aren't motivated by the great love that He gave us and continues to pour into our lives, then you aren't coming from the right place with your choice. And third, I believe that you must have the right standard: God's Word. What does His word say about the choice put before you? And if it does not specifically address the matter (such as abortion), what are God's principles on the essence of the matter? (God values life). If you do not have the right standard, then you are most definitely doomed in your attempt to make a right choice.
These, I believe, are the first things to take into consideration when deciding whether or not to read, view, or analyze art with objectionable elements involved. Quite often, you will find that one of these things will be off; your goal may be rebellion, your motive may be lust, and your standard may be your own personal, extremely flawed conscience.
However, I also believe that you most definitely can read, view, and/or analyze art that contains objectionable elements while having a correct goal, motive, and standard. This leads me to the matter of God's glory and inherent truth.
God's Glory and Inherent Truth
I believe that as beings created in God's true and perfect image, we hold the same desire to create as our Creator did. This manifests itself in many different ways throughout a wide, nearly infinite spectrum; whether through painting, or writing, or engineering, or calculating, or sketching, or building a car, or farming, or plastic surgery; we all want to express our talents and create.
Besides the desire to create, I believe that we all carry and understand inherent truth. The amount a person realizes and obeys inherent truth varies by each individual being, but everyone knows what is true at some level. Therefore, I believe truth can be found in almost anything an individual produces and creates. The problem is, though; we are fallen humans in a dying world, and our creativity is corrupted as well. So the amount of uncorrupted truth within a piece of art depends on the artist and the message they are trying to create. No matter if it is a rap song about a soldier giving up his life for his comrades or a hymn about sharing the Gospel, I believe that God can be glorified equally through both; but if the first song had curse words while the second one did not, then the first could very well stumble in bringing full glory to God.
Personal Accountability
I believe that someday, each person will give an account and be held accountable for their own individual actions and choices. Therefore, each individual person must exercise personal discretion and right choice making concerning objectionable elements within media, literature, and art. I believe that if we follow the principles of right choice-making and keep the perspective of God's glory in mind, then personal accountability shouldn't be a frightening thought.
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