Of course, the Narnia stories are themselves stories, and we should be enjoying them on that level. As we have been talking about various “lessons” that we can take away from them, I have wanted to be careful that I didn’t wreck the stories by making sure that everybody gets Edified. But at the same …
It All Comes Down to the Point
“Every art is itself and not some other art. Every general principle we reach must, therefore, have a peculiar mode of application to each of the arts” (C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism, p. 28).
Round, Round, Get Around, I Get Around
Those who know me know that I do enjoy following politics, speaking and writing on the virtues that made America great. Between 2 am and 5 am, it appears that I am the Chairman of Townhall.com. And of course, there is the warm, approachable designer side of things as well. When it comes to interiors, …
The Casual Imperative
“Casualness is proper at times, but the trouble is we have made it a fetish. Whether shopping or going to school or even to church, we take too literally the invitation of the second-class hotel, ‘Come as you are.’ And the sloppier we come, the sloppier we tend to act. A slouch in the body …
Old Flat Top, Grooving Up Slowly
I have just a few random comments, public-service-announcement-wise. I put them under this category because it does relate to a couple of them, but taking one thing with another, this is just a mishmash. Besides, I need something random to go with the title. 1. Happy Thanksgiving. Take great care to eat too much, but …
Inescapable Artistic Standards
“Until the artistic impulse is eradicated more thoroughly from human life than has so far been done, even by the best efforts of the metallic civilization of our day, we cannot get rid of the categories of good and bad or high and low in the field of art” (J. Gresham Machen, as quoted in …
Root and Fruit
“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).
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 …
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).