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I'm not really sure what I think about Tolstoy. Perhaps a good way to approach him is to consider his post-"Anna" writings as fundamentally different from his other work (philosophers do this with Ludwig Wittgenstein, I'm told; apparently he had a giant shift in his thinking mid-career). He is a good / tragic example of what happens when an artist starts believing their own hype - "I, the great Tolstoy, can certainly improve upon the gospel narrative."

>"Working to create the kingdom of God should serve the people of this world, not glorify God."

That sounds halfway towards Dostoevsky's Grand inquisitor - another example of what happens when ostensibly-well-meaning Christians decide to take the whole gospel project and do it up their way instead of following the instruction manual.

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I think I feel the same — I remain unsure about Tolstoy, even after committing to him in this essay. Viewing his writings as phases absolutely works (it's what I do), but it doesn't answer the question of how to view his earlier phases when his later phase tried to undermine them. Any thoughts?

And the Grand Inquisitor is an interesting parallel with Tolstoy's heart-posture, given how absolutely Tolstoy would've rejected the GI's violence. They both twisted the gospel to suit their own ends, absolutely. But I don't know if "instruction manual" is descriptive, since part of Tolstoy's issue was that he wanted only an instruction manual of the Word.

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