“When Christ is the Molder of character we have Christian character; precisely, when Christ is the molder of culture we have Christian culture” (Richard Taylor, A Return to Christian Culture, p. 16).
Art Striving to be a Religion
“Perhaps one of the main problems of art today has been the result of giving art the wrong function. Formerly art was ‘an art’, just as we still speak of arts and crafts. Art as a higher function of mankind, the work of the inspired lofty artist, comparable to that of the poet and the …
Boats Don’t Make Water Float
“Here I must say emphatically: art must never be used to show the validity of Christianity. Rather the validity of art should be shown through Christianity” (H.R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, p. 228).
A Much Needed Intrusion
“The nineteenth century made music into a kind of refined, cultural, almost pseudo-religious revelation of humanism, composed by the great heroes and prophets of mankind . . . Into this world burst jazz and blues” (H.R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, p. 186).
Sacralized Sentimentalism
“It may seem strange that Christians fell victim to the optimistic, humanistic, ‘romantic’ vision of love—so much so that its last strongholds are probably within Christian circles” (H.R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, p. 78).
Can’t Fight Gas With Gas
“Pop evangelical sentiments, diffused in their normal gaseous way, are utterly inadequate for resisting the spirit of our age, which wants to seep into the unsuspecting school through every available crack” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 208).
Still Trying to Find a Rock to Throw
This editorial column ran in our local paper last night in response to a front page article that they ran some days before. That article described the release of a book by a local academic as a response to what I have written and said about slavery. So Why Isn’t the Record Straight? Here is …
Art As Death Throes
“For the Enlightenment was to change the world. It is a period in which we today are still living, though at its end. Its aims have been fulfilled” (H.R. Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, p. 41).
Not Just a Mirror
“Believing as I do that the arts in general are not merely a mirror reflecting social and cultural values, but are, on the contrary, powerful forces which shape and mould the way in which people live and behave (a view, incidentally, held by every major literary critic from Plato to T.S. Eliot), I have examined …
Election Thoughts
For those readers in New Zealand, you can skip over this post. Our election is tomorrow and for those in Idaho, here is a good breakdown. The only places I really differ with Dale is on the gubernatorial race (where I will probably vote for the Libertarian candidate, or maybe Dave Barry), and on one …