“The later critics of modernity, Rousseau and Nietzsche, accepting the priority of passion but also seeing a need to reinvigorate it, resurrect the power of music, aiming to use it to inflame the passions and silence reason in the service of a new, more noble politics” [Carson Holloway, All Shook Up: Music, Passion, and Politics …
Some Gets In
“Since we are not withdrawing to the wilderness to establish Hermitage Christian School, we must continue to deal with the world around us as we seek to establish biblical education. And because the world around us resembles a particularly persistent and thick fog, some of it gets in” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. …
Are Rock and Blues Cousins?
“Thus, despite rock’s claim to have arisen from the blues, its character differs decisively from that of the older and, to Pattison’s mind, less vulgar genre. While rock deals with may of the same themes as the blues, sex and alcohol prominent among them, it approaches them with a ‘passionate intensity’ that naturally follows from …
There We Are
“It would be nice indeed if worldview problems could be solved by just crossing the street and opening up a new school, one that is all fresh and clean. But the difficulty is that we track stuff in with us. Wherever we go, there we are” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 101).
Whole Lotta Shaking Goin” On
“Critic and defender, liberal and conservative, all utterly fail to grasp, first, the natural power of music itself—that is, music without words—to move the soul and , second, music’s consequent ability to aid or impede not only our question for a decent social order but also our striving for the goods in which we find …
The Giraffe’s Head
“Every Christian school must adopt an implicit, absolute, childlike wonder at the glory of the Scriptures. We must be people of the Book, knowing it top to bottom, front to back. And we must resolve, before the fact, to have absolutely no problem with any passage of Scripture once the meaning of that passage has …
The Answer to Idolatry
“One might say that irreverence, not blasphemy, is the ultimate answer to idolatry, which is why most cultures have established means by which irreverence may be expressed — in the theater, in jokes, in song, in political rhetoric, even in holidays” [Neil Postman, Technopoly (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), p. 167].
That’s Not True
“But the liberal method is to deny that there is an antithesis. ‘We are all saying the same thing really! C’mon, people, now smile on your brother, etc.’ This tendency is very popular these days, and it explains the common treatment of Christians. If there is no antithesis in the world, then the one intolerable …
FYUI
“Useless, meaningless statistics flood the attention of the viewer. Sportscasters call them ‘graphics’ in an effort to suggest that the information, graphically presented, is a vital supplement to the action of the game. For example: ‘Since 1984, the Buffalo Bills have won only two games in which they were four points ahead with less than …
Not To Mention the Christians Who Ape Them
“So the antithesis is a given. But because it is, some will always try to misplace the antithesis. In other words, they affirm it in principle but misapply it in practice. Misplacing it is really the first of two basic ways to try to get away from this antithesis between the seed of the serpent …