From Donne to Taylor

“Specifically, my concern here is with the biblical, Protestant poetics informing a major strain of English seventeenth-century religious lyric: the chief characteristic of that poetics can, I suggest, be clearly discerned, and the history of the literary impact traced with some precision — from the quickening of Donne to the developing theory, to the exhaustion …

The Siren Call of Weirdness

“A cult mentality is ‘obviously’ exhibited by anyone who does not want to live in the prescribed atomistic and detached way — one who does not want to be just another loose ball bearing rattling around in modernity’s machine. The contemporary standards will beckon with a siren call — any kind of weirdness is accepted …

The Witness

“The third word used in the New Testament for the Christian preacher is the word ‘witness’ . . . Christian preachers are privileged to testify to and for Jesus Christ, defending Him, commending Him, bringing before the court evidence which they must hear and consider before they return their verdict” (John Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait, …

Refined Beastiality

“An attachment to high cultural achievement is thus a necessary but not sufficient condition of civilization . . . The first requirement of civilization is that men should be willing to repress their basest instincts and appetites: failure to do which makes them, on account of their intelligence, far worse than mere beasts” (Theodore Dalrymple, …

The Clichéd Rebel

“The authentic man, in the romantic conception, is he who has cut himself free of all convention, who acknowledges no restriction on the free exercise of his will. This applies as much to morals as to aesthetics: and artistic genius becomes synonymous with waywardness. But a being as dependent on his cultural inheritance as man …