Art for Art's Sake

This is an article written in 2002 by the late Mike Riddell for an online magazine I co-created and curated. The original can be viewed here on the wayback machine. I’ve thought about republishing it here for many years; today I am. Early in 1997 my job as Lecturer in Practical Theology at a New Zealand Baptist theological seminary came to a nasty end. I was pressured to resign because of the impending publication of a novel which I had written. The book, The Insatiable Moon, was a work of contemporary New Zealand fiction, published by Flamingo. On March 1, my novel appeared in bookshops and my employment came to an end. Time has now passed, and I am perhaps more able to get a reasonable perspective on the events surrounding that portentous day. With the passing of the months, my anger has, if anything, increased. It seems to me that I was forced to separate my faith from my art; that I could be either a teacher in the church, or an artist, but not both at the same time. I refuse to…