“Mimetic desire is always kindled in those whose social situations most closely approximate that of the one whom they envy” (Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, p. 187).
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).
The Prophetic Mind
“What is to be noted is not just the the prophetic mind is lucid, but that the prophetic personality is sufficiently grounded in something other than the shifting sands of the social order to withstand the contagious power of social consensus. The clearest proof that Micaiah has managed to stay outside that vortex is that …
Politics As Thin Mist
“‘Politics’ is a very poor substitute for ‘Divine Wrath,’ but, alas, it is all most perpetrators of sacred violence have left. And it isn’t enough. It cannot envelop the violence it tries to justify in a thick enough mist” (Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, p. 156).
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).
The West as the True Woodstock
“It was the biblical empathy for victims that aroused a truly historical interest in ‘actual historical events,’ and it is this interest that helped define the world’s first counter-cultural culture — what we call ‘Western culture'” (Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, p. 131).
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).
Murderous Myth or Gospel Unveiled
“The spirit born of the sacrificial murder inspires the community of its perpetrators to remember the murder as holy and creative. The Spirit of the Gospels, on the other hand, remembers the false accusations, sordid plots, the sham trials, and the weak faith of those who fled” (Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, p. 130).