“In Europe as well as in North America, art no longer creates beauty but is meant to shock. Horror, violence, sexual behavior of all kinds, and even bowel and bladder functions are presented on stage and screen and hailed by critics as brilliant and original” (Harold O.J. Brown, The Sensate Culture, p. 240-241).
MuggleNet
MuggleNet is hosting a writing contest that fans of Nate’s books should like. You can find it here.
Barth Still Needs It
Some time ago I wrote in this space about a book called Engaging with Barth. That book has done well in the UK, and is now available in North America. Check it out, mon.
Grabby Grabby
In this our financial crisis, an archbishop has stepped forward to thunder out a message of selective repentance. The meltdown has led him to observe, and it was a pretty fair shot too, that a lot of people out there were worshiping a lot of money. Look where that got us, hey? But then he …
800 Billion Big Ones
So then, agreement appears to have been reached on the $800 billion 2009 Economic Illiteracy Advancement Act. In times to come, I will be writing in a bit more detail about economics, but let me say a little brief something now. In order to “invest” 800 billion into our troubled economy, the gummint must find …
Open Throttle Abortion Policies
I read about this choice one at BaylyBlog, and commend to you the observations made there. At the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama said this: “There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.” This is chutzpah on stilts and steroids. The fact that President Obama …
The Cow With Some Evangelistic Liturature
We arrived in Oxford yesterday, and appear to have brought some Idaho winter with us. It was snowing again here this morning, which is apparently somewhat remarkable here. And of course, whenever it snows in some remarkable fashion, in any kind of proximity to me, I rise to say a few words on the important …
Papers Please
Whenever I travel I am reminded of how clearly and inexorably we are losing our practical freedoms, under Democans and Republicrats both. Even though airplane travel is routine for millions of Americans (at any given moment, 60,000 citizens are in the air somewhere over our country), we, docile sheep all, put up with indignities that …
Wee Timorous Beastie
Nietzsche was a master wordsmith, and so he effectively projected a bad boy image of himself up on our culture’s screen, an image calculated to make all his maiden Lutheran aunts shudder, and perhaps weep a little. But inside, that man was Burns’ mouse beneath the harrow — a wee timorous beastie. Now this is …
The Way of Turmoil
Last Sunday night night one of our Greyfriars preached a fine message at Evensong on the subject of comfort. God comforts us in all our afflictions so that we might be able to extend to others the comfort we ourselves have received (2 Cor. 1:3-4). This was solid food for thought, as good messages are, …