“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
Faux Omniscience
“Our ability to get our words anywhere in the world within seconds, our ability to hit the remote when we are tired of what is happening in London and want to go to Hong Kong, our ability to see the world at a glance—all this creates an illusion of omniscience. This is strong wine for weak heads.”
The Cultural Mind, p 183
Heckling the Center from the Circumference
“The dishonesty of the whole endeavor is what causes conservative believers to adopt our classic and traditional tone—that of shrill—which we have used for so long it has almost become an art form among us. We have been cordoned off, and our response is to dance impatiently in place while heckling unbelief from our assigned place on the periphery.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 180
Standing on the X
“The point here is not that modern evangelicalism is sick, but rather that it is the sickness. And what is the name of the sickness? The name is unbelief, and the apostle warned that it is by faith that we stand. We do not support the root, but rather the root supports us.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 178
Fashions and Fads
“Nothing has proven to be more irrelevant than the liberal lust for relevance.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 178
Pattern Recognition Failure
“So many churches, denominations, parachurch ministries, mission agencies, and publishing houses have drifted into unbelief and liberalism that one would think that we should know what it looks like by now. But Solomon’s words still ring true. Fools receiving an inheritance from the past do not think to inquire whether or not they are being fools. Every morning is a new day to them, and they see no need to cling to all those dry and dusty lessons from the day before. They just take the valuables, shake the dust of wisdom off them, and head down to the pawn shop.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 177-178
Horse and Cart
“In Paul’s theology, grace and works do not mix at all—otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. At the same time, Paul teaches that grace works . . . We are not saved in any way by good works, but we are necessarily saved to good works.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 174
Hands and Handles
“Grace has no handles and is impossible for sinners to pick up. But grace does have hands and consequently has no difficulty picking us up.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 173
Momentary Men, Not Modern
“We careen from one thing to the next, thumb on the remote. Our presidential debates are not debates at all but more like demolition derbies between competing sound bytes. On virtually all our products, we plaster some form of ‘New! Improved!’ In other words, the product is emphatically not what it was the last time we were foolish enough to buy it. Sermons have deteriorated into 10-minute-long, entertaining sketches of some inspiration mini-thought or other. Momentous event on the other side of the world are summarized for us on the evening news in one minute and forty-five seconds . . . and now this. Continuity bores us. Sustained thought is wearisome. And whatever you do, it better be different from last time. In a culture like ours, fads are just like cotton—the fabric of our lives.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 169-170