“By insisting that most art, high and low, exists for the sole purpose of reinforcing bourgeois-capitalist consciousness, the ‘critical theorist’ gets to be a revolutionary. But by dictating the handful of exceptions that achieve true ‘negation,’ he also gets to be a snob” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 78).
Well Of Course We Can Do That
“In fact, as we have seen, every church has a liturgy. Every church has an order of service. But those which deny they have a liturgy have the side ‘benefit’ of not having to defend what they do scripturally. To take an example from each side of this thing, a minister of a church which …
Isaiah 5:20
“But it [perverse modernism] did foster a climate in which artists were seen, by themselves and others, as implacably opposed to the values of ordinary people; and in which contempt for morality was seen, by elites and common people alike, as a mark of superiority” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 45).
Just Call Me Old Fashioned
“The subject matter should be decent. More than one congregation has been mortified to have to add their corporate amen to a plea for the healing of someone’s hemorrhoids. While we perhaps have not gone as far the Philistines and made gold replicas of them to set up in the foyer, we do talk about …
The Genesis of the Cape and Beret Problem
“For an incandescent wit like Wilde, it was possible to express that contempt with grace and skill. But the majority of decadents were not that brilliant, and the best they could do was define art in negative terms, as the absence—or better still, the inversion—of other values, especially moral ones. To establish one’s creative bona …
Three Feet of Accumulated Total Depravity
“Sometimes staunch Calvinists (may their tribe increase) like to get more than a little worm theology into their prayers. What this prayer time needs, the thinking seems to go, is about three feet of accumulated total depravity. Of course we are sinners, and of course we must acknowledge it in our prayers. But to wallow …
Two Ways to Cook
“Like New Orleans cooking, New Orleans jazz derives its power from deftly balanced ingredients and carefully controlled heat” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 29).
Praying in the Wrong Direction
“When the people of God are praying to God, the one offering up prayers on their behalf should not start (or continue) preaching to the people. If a pastor did not get his last point of the sermon in, he must not shoehorn it into the closing prayer. The one praying should never forget who …
Beast of Burden
“The real break came in the late 1960s, when the counterculture went sour, and popular music began attracting people who were less interested in music than in using such a powerful medium for culturally radical purposes. The harbingers of this break were the Rolling Stones, who relished the blues but did not hesitate to make …
Vain Repetitions
“I grew up in evangelical circles and knew the public prayer ropes. I could pray readily in public settings, particularly in church, and did so in accordance with the accepted canons for many years. When I finally began to write my prayers out before the service, I noticed something funny. I had stopped repeating myself. …