Derek Martin, director of the Theatre program at Jessup, joins Mark and Rex to discuss the precarious landscape of Christian aesthetics. In other words, the trio discusses why sometimes Christians make bad art.

TRANSCRIPT

0:03

Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore and your co host, Rex Gurney. And Rex on the show today, we have Derrick Martin, kind of the head of our theater program here Jessup. Back on the show, he's a good friend of the show and our critic extraordinary Exactly. And we're going to be talking about Christian aesthetics. Right. And that by aesthetics, we mean, how you appreciate art, and appreciate beauty, appreciate truth. And we're going to be looking at kind of maybe this disparity sometimes between Christian art, and what some people would just call regular art. And as if there's some distinction Exactly. And so we kind of want to explore that, and explore some ways as Christians that we can, that we can be critical, and we can engage. But we can also enjoy art. I think it'll be a great conversation. Hope you enjoy.

1:02

Alright, Rex and Derek. So there was a movie that recently came out, I think it was kind of released kind of, it's kind of been hitting the kind of festival. I haven't seen it in the multiplex yet. No definitely hasn't been in the multiplex yet. Haven't haven't seen at least around here, haven't seen around here maybe have to drive over to San Francisco to see it. But it is a movie is called faith based the movie. And it is a spoof, or a parody on Christian films, made by to two actors, wrote it, Luke Barnett, and then Tanner Thomason, and it is it kind of follows them. And it actually has some, some pretty big star, some comedians in it, Margaret chosen it. And it follows them they want to get in the movie business, but they just been having flop after flop. And then they realize, or they get instruction actually from I think Jason Alexander. So from Seinfeld, fame, another, he gives them the idea that they could make a faith based film, because even if it's a terrible movie, it'll still Christians will still buy it. So that's kind of the whole premise of and then the movie they create is just outlandish. And it kind of has all of these elements that, but it's a really interesting critique of kind of Christian film. And I think we could even pull it back and kind of Christian art, you know, because it's kind of this idea that, hey, even if it's bad art, Christians will still buy exactly a commentary on whether it's, it's, you know, fair or unfair about Christian taste,

2:49

right. And the interesting thing about that whole thing is that we I mean, just from a marketing standpoint, you know, every like, I don't know, 10 years or so Hollywood, discovers that Christians go to the movies, right? Yeah. And then they forget about it. And then about 10 years later, they'll they'll discover it again. And so we'll, you know, there'll be stuff that's marketed to us, right, because we're a demographic and we are a pound demographic. Right. You know, it's kind of hard to be thought of as a interest group and a demographic I guess we are.

3:20

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that the studios have started to come up with face faith based sections of their studios, because the demographic has deep pockets and actually can fund entire studio. Right. So that's kind of an interesting, there is a very much an economic piece at play.

3:41

Yeah. And it's kind of and that's where I think this movie kind of highlights both of those. Exactly. They want to make a buck. Yeah, there's there's a economic side of it. But then it also seems to highlight and that's kind of what we want to talk today about, you know, in an episode, we kind of want to look at Christian aesthetics, right, like, what, what, what makes good art what, what makes, or how can we approach kind of aesthetic appreciation? And and the question seems to be at least within, you know, the last may