Tag: Chrestomathy

“Cultures pass through aesthetic phases as they rise and fall, and the last phase is the phase of decadence. It is the phase in which sensate spectacle is glorified, and it is a sign, not of glory but of decrepitude.”

Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 45

“The world is laden with many good things, and apart from picking an apple or two with your bare hands, any kind of dominion has to be accomplished by means of tools. A man with tools is not being an artificial man. My argument is that a man cannot be an authentic man without tools.”

Ploductivity, p. 30

“Simplicity is beautiful when it is elegant. Complexity is beautiful when it is understated. The lines should be clean, not cluttered . . . Compare what we are going to do architecturally and liturgically with what a godly women should do to adorn herself. She should adorn herself, and she should make herself beautiful. But the Bible is explicit that this is not to be done by bedizening oneself with various spangles.”

Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 43

“When God breathed the breath of life into Adam, and Adam first sat up, he did so with two opposable thumbs. And he used one of those thumbs when he chucked his first rock into the first pool he came to.”

Ploductivity, p. 30

“Both with architecture and with liturgy, there are some who assume that if one’s good, two must be better. The liturgy gets cluttered up with bright colors and shiny objects, and the architecture of the church looks, at the end of this process, like a gingerbread architect on acid did the whole thing.”

Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 41

“In order to evaluate a tool, we have to account for the telos, the end, the purpose. Hammers are used to build both brothels and barns.”

Ploductivity, p. 29

“The last thing in the world we want is to complete the steeple, and find out that the sign outside says Nehushtan Memorial.”

Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 37

“Adam could not exercise dominion over a hedge without tools, and God told him to exercise dominion over the whole globe and all the animals in it. To exercise dominion over the fish of the sea, I am pretty sure a boat would have been needed” (Ploductivity, p. 27).

“One of the things we need to remember when it comes to church architecture is that a building is corporate clothing. A building is how the whole church dresses. The trick is how to dress up without playing dress ups.”

Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 35

Paul “does not say that being rich is like having cooties, and that they should be trying to pass their cooties off to somebody else. As I say, he doesn’t teach that.”

Ploductivity, p. 24