The Content Cluster Muster (03.23.17)

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Now That’s a Snowdrift

One more open road opportunity. Well, it is an open road in at least a couple directions.


Not a Road Exactly

But from the same web site though.


Why “Better Art” is Not the Primary Goal for Christian Artists

Jesse Sumpter wrote a great article on the Christian view of the arts; featured over at Kuyperian.com
CLICK HERE TO READ


CS Lewis Course by NSA Graduate, Christiana Hale

Roman Roads is offering this course on the Fiction of C.S. Lewis, that looks quite good and is taught by NSA grad: Christiana Hale. Minimum age is 14 years old.


CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

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Evan
Evan
7 years ago

Wow, that drift though! How do they even?!

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Evan

Snow flakes, even en mass and cold driven,
can’t take much heat! ????

Evan
Evan
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

comment image

Roger K.
Roger K.
7 years ago

Wow. Doug’s good friend Thabiti Anyabwile is now openly promoting the ordination of women. So is Doug’s favorite rapper, Propaganda.

When Rachel Held Evans endorses women pastors, Doug speaks out against it.

But when Propaganda and Thabiti Anyabwile do it, Doug is silent

https://faithandheritage.com/2017/03/the-gospel-coalition-endorses-womens-ordination

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Douglas Wilson

Easy there Doug, RK and the link seem like part of the “whitewashed tomb” right.
The site has you down as an “obsequious fawner”. That does not comport with Voddies recent apt description of you!
????

GnatM
GnatM
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

I don’t know, the way the sentence is written, the word pastor could be referring to Thabiti.

Valerie (Kyriosity)
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

A six-year-old article about the diaconate. Shocking…SHOCKING…that Doug did not post a thorough response TODAY.

I’ll pass on the other link. Thanks for the warning.

Valerie (Kyriosity)
7 years ago

The snark was toward Roger’s link, which he clickbaitily presented as breathlessly current news.

lloyd
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

This article seems to be a lot different stance than it would seem that he is signifying in the faithandheritage article and at the conference last week. I guess I see a lot of distance between being a deacon or servant in the church and being in leadership or teaching over the church. I never could really get into the idea of the office of deacon. Whoever serves can be called a servant as far as I’m concerned. But his words at the conference seem to be a change, or at least addressing a different topic than the tgc article.… Read more »

lloyd
7 years ago
Reply to  lloyd

Thanks. Its definitely a question worth more time and thought than I have given it. To my shame :(

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

I thought the link was pretty awful but I read a few articles. I hoped I would finally be enlightened on where scripture explicitly forbids interracial marriage. You remember that people have often asked for chapter and verse backing this up. They don’t really have much–surprise!–other than the usual stuff about the Abraham, foreigners, and the Tower of Babel. They state quite frankly that the Bible isn’t explicit on this, but it is clearly aligned with God’s will based on His disapproval of hybridization. They quote Rushdoony on St. Paul, and how God likes different kinds of things to be… Read more »

Indigo
Indigo
7 years ago
Reply to  Roger K.

Any chance that the writer of the article, a Mr ‘Glastonbury Glastonbury’, occasionally goes by another name? And does that name begin with a ‘4’?

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Indigo

Don’t know if that other name begins with “40 acres”, but it could end with the end of the mule! ????

Evan
Evan
7 years ago
Reply to  Indigo

It certainly looks and talks like a 40Z. Good to see him branching out..,far away from here.

Clay Crouch
Clay Crouch
7 years ago
Reply to  Indigo

Probably not. Our good friend 40AA&K hails from the great state of Alabama.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Clay Crouch

Lynerd Synerd unavailable for comment on 40 oz.????

Clay Crouch
Clay Crouch
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

I heard screamin’
and bullwhips cracking
How long? How long?

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Clay Crouch

Neil Young was available for comment! ????

Christopher Casey
Christopher Casey
7 years ago
Reply to  Clay Crouch

also it looks like GG has written privious articles, 40 was more recently considering starting to write for them as I recall.

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago
Reply to  Roger K.

That is how they work when the facts don’t fit the narrative.

And if we think being a Reformed Christian changes that, well now we see.

Unfortunately, there is a huge pressure in the black community to side with race at all costs.

Jonathan
Jonathan
7 years ago

As opposed to the conservative White community, of course.

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  Roger K.

He complains that Doug is not racist enough!

Is that 40 acres’ blog?

Dunsworth
Dunsworth
7 years ago
Reply to  Roger K.

The silence is deafening, isn’t it? Why it may have been as much as 24 hours since that post went up, and still, no word from Doug?

I would suggest you are not being entirely what one might call fair.

Ian Miller
7 years ago

That was quite an interesting article about Christians and art. I’m not sure I find it satisfying – preach the gospel to artists, and we’ll get better artist by Christians – but it’s definitely the right starting point. I also like that it properly heads away both from “let’s be edgy so non-Christians will like us” and “we must have the gospel in all of our stuff, so it’s going to be cheesily didactic” problems.

Cash for Clunkers
Cash for Clunkers
7 years ago
Reply to  Ian Miller

Unfortunately in “Christian art,” as in “creation science,” the project is undermined by a reflexive and overbearing teleos. The “art” is a simply a rudimentary construction to house and deliver the message (propaganda).

ME
ME
7 years ago

“The “art” is a simply a rudimentary construction to house and deliver the message (propaganda)” Something I really appreciated about that article was to stop perceiving art as a softer way to deliver the message, also known as propaganda. God can use anything to reach people,a talking donkey, a burning bush, even stones, but that is not a call to go forth and produce more donkeys and stones so God can reach more people. What makes art, music, books, bad is when they are preaching propaganda rather then simply speaking the truth. On the more secular side of things you… Read more »

Ian Miller
7 years ago

Were you paying attention to the link or my post about it? What do you think I mean by “cheezily didactic”?

lloyd
7 years ago
Reply to  Ian Miller

Some people really seem to enjoy the “cheesily didactic.” There was that film with Kirk Cameron playing a fire-fighter. It was really popular. I never understood why we couldn’t just talk about safeguarding our marriages, loving our wives and getting rid of pornography without the cheese. I felt like I was in the minority though. I like REAL cheese.

Ian Miller
7 years ago
Reply to  lloyd

There’s nothing wrong with it in moderation. As ME points out, the liberals have TONS of cheesily didactic stuff – just look at anything about global warming, or men being evil, for example. But they also have a significant portion of art that is just communication and skill. I wouldn’t mind all the cheese that Christian artists churn out if there were some higher quality things as well – and there are a few. But the dominant identity of Christian artists tends to either be the cheesy or the edgy, neither of which is generally terribly high quality.

lloyd
7 years ago
Reply to  Ian Miller

Appreciated.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Ian Miller

I think the problem is partly heavy-handedness and partly an unwillingness to let the story speak for itself. If some Christian film makers were doing “Animal Farm,” they would keep reminding the audience that this is a fable, not a literal account, and that it is intended to show us what happens when the ungodly hold power over others. And that the animals did not evolve from a common ancestor. I think there is also a tendency among some Christian movie-goers to reject anything that strikes them as highbrow and difficult. To demand that a movie deliver an explicitly Christian… Read more »

Ian Miller
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

How is that worse than a liberal adaptation pointing out that the pigs are clearly businessmen who have no souls, and that one over there works for Big Pig Pharma? Katie introduced me to a great podcast called Close Reads, mostly for the homeschooling community, and they’re doing a collection of short stories by Flannery O’Connor. (I am not following this series because I couldn’t track down a copy of the book – which was partly motivated by my ambivalence about O’Connor, but that’s for another time.) There’s some really intense discussions about Christians in the arts, because O’Connor’s work… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Ian Miller

If a liberal adaptation of “Animal Farm” did that, it would be no better. I think it might be slightly more deft in making its points, but it would still be lousy art.

I think that suspicion of highbrow art long predates academic Marxism. As you note, people tend to shun what is difficult in favor of the comfortable and cozy. Kinkade prints will always out-sell Kandinsky!

Ian Miller
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Hmm. Well, television (I would say liberal television, but I would repeat myself ;) does what I said all the time. It’s quite frustratingly lazy writing. So I think there’s a bit too much emphasis on Christian art being preachy – the problem isn’t that Christians have a monopoly on being preachy, but that we don’t really have that much high quality stuff that isn’t. I’m not completely convinced that the divide between highbrow culture and popular culture really does predate academic Marxism. The whole idea of “mass culture” and treating people who enjoy it as lesser was firmly established… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Ian Miller

That’s interesting, and I will look them both up. Tell me, what did your professor think of Brecht? He strikes me as an example of a writer who was both Marxist and intent on reaching a wider audience with his work. I am never sure what I think about the fourth wall stuff.

I let my cable lapse years ago, and watch only what I can get on youtube and Netflix. I really haven’t missed it.

Ian Miller
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Unless you like a lot of really nasty, snobby Marxism, I don’t recommend Adorno at all. I wrote one of my final papers on him, and he was just a huge jerk. Raymond Williams was much more interesting and generous of heart, and I do recommend reading his stuff. We read a Brecht play, I believe, but I don’t recall which one it was, and thus don’t recall what she thought about it. :) I like what Robert Bolt says about Brecht, which is that the fourth wall stuff is a useful tool, but one must be careful of turning… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Ian Miller

Now we’re on the subject, what do you think of immersive theatre like “Sleep No More” currently being staged in New York? My daughter and I toss charged rhetoric at each other, her contending that anything and everything can be called theatre, and my arguing that a play without plot or characterization may be an exciting experience but it cannot be theatre. (I am willing to believe that I am too old a dog to appreciate new tricks, but I don’t tell her that.)

Ian Miller
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Amusingly, Sleep No More was going on when I was in grad school, and two of my professors (including the theater one) went and saw it, and recommended it. I, since I hate large cities, did not go to see it. :) But I thought it was a very interesting idea. I think such a thing has more in common with a video game than a play, just as I believe rap has more in common with poetry than music. I don’t think it means it’s not art, but trying to stretch the definitions of art to include anything renders… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Ian Miller

My daughter has seen it twice and adores it. I think it might be fun, but I doubt my heart would withstand icy hands clutching me in the darkness. It sounds like a house haunted not only by the Macbeths but also by the Manson family.

Ian Miller
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

There may be things about the execution of this specific production that I may or may not like. I don’t like horror video games, for example. But I do think it’s an interesting, worthwhile idea. Time will tell if it actually has legs, or is the death of the form. :)

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  lloyd

Sometimes we are impelled by loyalty. I feel a duty to watch Canadian variety shows featuring accordion players and dancing girls dressed up as Mounties no matter how dire they are. Fortunately, there aren’t too many of them!

lloyd
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Ha. I would point out that “impelled by loyalty” and actually appreciating are two different things. I watched the Kirk Cameron movie but I confess I was a bit embarrassed (probably somewhat sinfully) to see my friends enjoy it.

Plus you have the Red Green Show, perhaps the greatest show of all time, so you can still have quite a bit of “tv pride.” It may be cheesy at times but its only didactic if you actually want to convert your lawn-mower to an all-in-one coffee machine.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  lloyd

I had forgotten that one!

Ian Miller
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

I definitely feel that, though not about Mounties or accordians. :)

Christopher Casey
Christopher Casey
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean
jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago

Exactly like that. Those two make me homesick!
I like this one too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR5rIv4Qros

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  lloyd

More cheesy than every single high school themed movie that comes out of Hollywood?

(I thought the movie fine for what it was.)