“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 …
Not Short Heathen
“But whenever we talk about religious ‘duty,’ we must be careful lest we get tangled up in the law and gospel business. The promise precedes the law, Paul argues, and is the foundation for it. All duty must arise from the gratitude for redemption, and this includes the duty of educating our covenant children. But …
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).
Content With Our Discontents
“Our doctrine always comes down to action, and that action reveals our true doctrine. We do not understand the relationship between fear, hunger and love. Our great problem is that we do not want enough from God. Ironically, we content ourselves with our discontents in the wilderness when before us a promised land awaits. Why …
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).
Love Hungry for Blessing
“Therefore, to understand the fear of the Lord rightly, learn to see that fear as love hungering for blessing” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 224).
Why Modern Art Failed
“We may appreciate the efforts, and even admire the greatness, of men who have tried to find the universal, the general ‘behind’ appearances; yet at the same time their quest was doomed to fail, for all universals break down as soon as the Creator, He who made man in His image, is denied or left …
The Difference Attempts At Application Make
“Karl Marx was an intellectual who suffered misfortune because people tried to put his ideas into practice. Had Plao suffered the same misfortune, the world would still be talking about that totalitarian hellhole” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 215).
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).