“Artistic images can appeal powerfully to the emotions, kindling pity at human suffering or outrage at evil. Art that is ostentatiously didactic, having no other merit than that of the lesson it teaches, generally fails both as art and as teaching. This is often because it starts preaching or lecturing in propositional terms instead of …
Rocks in the Drive
When strings are pulled taut, the cello is tuned,The wood holds the wine that is seasoned and old.Dark music poured out and emptied the cask,And rolled in my goblet, rich, tawny and toldHow holiness tastes, how righteousness laughs. You shall be as God, the great dragon had said,Philosophers argue their shapes in the fireAnd each …
Polygamy and Such
An odd skirmish has broken out, and you can note a bit of it at Dale Courtney’s blog here. In the past, we (Dale included) have advanced the argument that to legalize homosexual marriage is necessarily to open the door to polygamous marriage. This used to be laughed at by authorized solons and pundits, but …
More for You, Less for Me
“Restrictions on speech are justified by the assertion of a compelling need to promote freedom for some by limiting freedom for others. To the code writers, as to Marcuse, freedom is a zero-sum game” (The Shadow University, p. 83).
Viva Las Worship
“I have heard soloists in church working the crowd like a lounge singer, striding into the audience with a Las Vegas patter, crooning into the mike, costumed for a screen test.” [Gene Veith, State of the Arts (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), pp. 202]
Apostles of Uplift
“Much Christian art today of the sort sold in bookstores is ‘uplifting’ in a sentimental and optimistic way, as if looking on the sunny side were a cure for the cancer of human sin.” [Gene Veith, State of the Arts (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), pp. 172]
Cherishing the Banned
“On the one hand, the codes claim to cherish free speech and academic freedom, including the freedom to express even the most challenging and offensive ideas; one the other, certain categories of ‘offensive’ speech are banned in order to create a ‘comfortable’ and ‘inclusive’ learning atmosphere” (The Shadow University, p. 79).
Who? Whom?
[Stanley] “Fish openly suggested that he was receptive to the prospect of both ideological indoctrination and ideological intimidation of students. He was equally blunt in responding to the classic claim of free speech absolutists that the beginning of censorship is a perilous ‘slippery slope’ that would result in pervasive and unpredictable restrictions on freedom. ‘Some …
A Green Acre of Goo
“The plenitude and magnificence of God’s works are all around us. Annie Dillard has observed that God is infinitely more imaginative than we are. Pretend, she says, that ‘You are God. You want to make a forest, something to hold the soil, lock up solar energy, and give off oxygen. Wouldn’t it be simpler just …
Mornin’ Sunshine
Tim Bayly helpfully uncorks on those Christian leaders who are now seeking to sidle away from centuries of corporate cultural wisdom. Justin Taylor has a link to Al Mohler on the Da Vinci Code. Go, Al. My contribution to this discussion is for Christians to start calling the whole thing Daah Vincheeee. Mark Noll demonstrates …