“After September 11, the first reaction of just about every prominent Western leader was to visit a mosque: President Bush did, so did the Prince of Wales, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, the prime minister of Canada and many more. And, when the get-me-to-the-mosque-on-time fever died away, you couldn’t help feeling that this …
Take This Blog, For Instance
[Speaking of McLuhan] “I believed then, as I believe now, that he spoke in the tradition of Orwell and Huxley—that is, as a prophesier, and I have remained steadfast to his teaching that the clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation” (Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, …
Some Grim Moses
“Far too many contemporary Christians are gathered around the foot of our postmodern golden calf, not because they want to worship the thing, but just because they like to dance — they like the driving backbeat. Questioned by some grim Moses on their presence there, they say, ‘Why? What’s wrong with dancing/'” (Mother Kirk, p. …
Banker Bait
When James I famously said, “No bishop, no king,” he was testifying to the truth an important and obvious principle. In any society where the Church is present in significant numbers, the worship and government of the Church will drive the shape of civil society. This is the case whether or not the worship and …
Ron Paul: YouTubin’ FeeNom
Something funny is going on.
Some Good Leepike News
A couple days ago, I mentioned that Books & Culture had named Leepike Ridge their book of the week. That was a fun business, and now there’s some more news to add. The book is selling quite briskly, and has gotten to a sales ranking at Amazon that is higher than some comparable titles that …
Optimistic Cultural Realism
When Rome, the Eternal City, was sacked in 410 AD, St. Augustine was brought to write his monumental work, the City of God. Part of the reason he felt the book had to be written was because many Christians had had their faith rattled by the event. Over the course of the previous centuries, Christianity …
To Deny Their Own
“Multiculturalism was conceived by the Western elites not to celebrate all cultures but to deny their own: it is, thus, the real suicide bomb” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. 194).
The Yard Sale Proverb
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 119 “It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth” (Prov. 20:14). Let us call this the garage sale proverb. Yard sales are the one place where most Americans still …
Medium as Message
“In this sense, all culture is a conversation or, more precisely, a corporation of conversations, conducted in a variety of symbolic modes. Our attention here is on how forms of public discourse regulate and even dictate what kind of content can issue from such forms” (Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, p. 6).