“We must affirm then that at the deepest level there can be no mature Christian character which despises culture, any more than there can be a truly Christian culture which is not rooted in character” (Richard Taylor, A Return to Christian Culture, p. 17).
Deep Scandal
[Speaking of Matt. 18:1-9] “The first thing to notice is how the disciples’ lapse into mimetic rivalry evoked from Jesus a discourse on scandal and scandalizing. As I said, it seems at first a non sequitur. From the mimetic point of view, however, it is the perfect response. Jesus recognized his disciples anxiety about their …
True Character Is Measured By An Ability to Oppose a Lynch Mob
“The master thinkers of the Enlightenment inherited a Europe that had been buoyed up by the moral ethos of Christianity for so long that they thought they could scuttle the ark and wash ashore on the next tide. They were sure that reasonable people, with a wink from Voltaire and Rousseau, would walk away from …
Which Should Be Obvious
“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 …
Getting It Straight
“With the air of a Solomon, he gives instructions: ‘Keep the men well apart from each other for I want to question them.’ I suppose one could call this the birth of due process. The circumstances in which it is born remind one of a memorable remark Girard has made. We didn’t stop burning witches …
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).
Not A Problem of Distance
“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 …