“Education is fundamentally religious. Consequently, there is no question about whether a morality will be imposed in that education, but rather which morality will be imposed. Christians and assorted traditionalists who want a secular school system to instill anything other than secular ethics are wanting something that has never happened and can never happen” (The …
Dour Chic
“Christians have been criticized for their ‘puritanical’ suspicion of pleasure and beauty. And yet the most flesh-denying ascetic, flagellating himself in a desert cave, and the most furious, tight-lipped Puritan, smashing stained glass windows and pillorying the playwrights, would be hedonistic voluptuaries compared to the existentialists.” [Gene Veith, State of the Arts (Wheaton, IL: Crossway …
The Truth With Dyslexia
“But a lousy education need not be a cheap education. Critics of the government schools know it is not possible to criticize them without hearing the reply that the problem is lack of funding. But this is htrut — the truth with dyslexia. The current expenditure per pupil in average daily attendance in public elementary …
The Legacy of Marcuse
“Nonetheless, on college campuses the drive for speech codes, for double standards in their application, for the mechanisms of indoctrination in their rationales, and for the disciplinary systems to enforce their strictures, comes from the Left” (Kors and Silvergate, The Shadow University, p. 67).
Crazed Secular Puritanism
“Art is whatever an artist does. In a kind of crazed secular Puritanism, contemporary theorists have been seeking to ‘purify’ art, to strip it of its human content and to reduce it to its barest minimum. The consequence has been the dehumanization of art.” [Gene Veith, State of the Arts (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), …
Let’s Build Ourselves a Program
“As the ongoing problem with illiteracy in the schools continues to plague us, politicians will continue to call for more programs to fight it. Of course, some of us are a bit slow about these things. We thought that schools were supposed to be the program to fight illiteracy” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, …
Reformation Iconoclasm
“Reformation iconoclasm was not, however, anti-art. Rather, the rejection of graven images resulted in a major rechanneling of art” [Gene Veith, State of the Arts (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), p. 59]
Why Love Fights
“We would love nothing more than to teach the truth and forget about lies. We do not want to attack lies because we have perverse love for attacking lies. The central reason a biblical minister hates a lie is because it threatens the truth, which is precious to him. A man who watches complacently while …
Define Kitsch
“There is a type of art known as ‘kitsch.’ In addition to paintings of Elvis on black velvet, this category would include plaster lawn ornaments, vacation souvenirs purchased in ‘tourist traps,’ and ‘cute’ knickknacks on the mantle. Kitsch is art of poor quality, which nevertheless manages to be enormously popular by appealing to some sentiment …
A Lover Not a Fighter
“But the Bible requires Christian leaders to know such issues, requiring in effect that Christian shepherds know what a wolf looks like. A man can be orthodox and yet be disqualified for ministry. A man can like the sheep without being qualified to fight the wolves” (“Epilogue” in Bound Only Once, p. 220).