“We rarely notice our bones, and consequently, we rarely notice what is in them.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 209
Because We Are Conceited
“We are amazed that doctors used to bleed their patients. But we then assume, as a rigid point of dogma, that we are doing nothing comparable. We believe, without reflection, that no on in the future will be amazed and appalled at what we are doing today.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 208
This Shamanism
“We see that science, rightly understood, is a glorious thing . . . The problem arises with all the bad information that we think is science, such as junk pop science or politicized science. Scientists who do not acknowledge a God with final ultimate knowledge of every created thing have a problem . . . when scientists refuse to acknowledge an omniscient Creator God, their pretensions to actual knowledge become funnier and funnier. This is because we all instinctively know that someone around here must be the omniscient one. If we have denied that God can be that one, then someone else must take on the mantle. In our society, this priestcraft, this shamanism, is performed with a white lab coat.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 205-206
Giants Big Enough to Fight
“We want to face fifteen little Goliaths, one at a time. This is why when we focus on one little giant, the other fourteen take us down fairly easily. We need to recover the faith of David and pray that the whole system of unbelief, the massive resistance to discipleship, will be seen all at once, all together, lying on the ground with a stone in its forehead.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 200
Girlfriend Music
“Most contemporary worship songs would be appropriate to sing to your girlfriend. Substitute ‘darling’ for ‘Jesus’ and the song still works. Try doing that with ‘Immortal, invisible, God only wise’. . . After a generation of singing such sentimental offerings to the Lord, He then becomes a girlfriend, at least in the minds of those who worship. But there is a vast difference between the omnipresent God who is everywhere present and a girlfriend who is ‘always there.’”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 195-196
A Thirst for Imitation
“When we hold modern evangelicalism and liberalism side by side, we see that both have a thirst for imitation. The liberals have sought to imitate high culture, while evangelicals have pursued popular culture. The liberals wanted to imitate Philistine violin concertos and textual criticism, while modern evangelicals wanted to ape Philistine stress therapy. But the fact of adultery is not altered simply because a man pursues a Susie instead of Constance.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 194
The Wrong Kind of Special
“Our uncertainty about what we are doing accounts for our desire that the Lord’s Supper be rare. We want to think that rarity makes the meal ‘special.’ In a distorted way, it does, but it has many harmful effects. A husband would not make love to his wife on a quarterly basis to keep the experience ‘special.’ A man would not have dinner with his family once a month to keep the event wonderful. Neither should we pull away from communion with Christ and His people to ‘drive the price up.’ We should pray for the opportunity to begin weekly Communion in our churches.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 191
The True Pleasure Dome
“Augustine exhorted us somewhere to love God and do as we please. This makes us nervous, and more than a little bit jumpy. Of course the protection resides in the first clause—loving God affects what will please us. Psalm 37:4 says that if we delight in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our hearts. Taking delight in the Lord necessarily transforms what we consider delightful. Having said this, and having pointed to every necessary qualification, we cannot get away from the right hand of God and all the pleasures there (Ps. 16:11).”
The Cultural Mind, p. 189
The Problem Lies Elsewhere
“An inability to learn truth from beauty is not beauty’s problem.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 187
An Irrelevant World
“Poetry today huddles in its prescribed little ghettos—the sentimentalism of greeting cards and cupboard poetry, the small clutch of arcane poetry journals with circulations of thirteen, self-absorbed adolescents scribbling pages of navel-gazing free verse, and nationally-ignored poet laureates. That about covers the world of poetry.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 185