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"Scientific investigation, as has already been observed, has certainly accomplished much; it has in many respects produced a new world. but there is another aspect of the picture which should not be ignored. the modern world represents in some respects an enormous improvement over the world in which our ancestors lived; but in other respects it exhibits a lamentable decline. The improvement appears in the physical conditions of life, but in the spiritual realm there is a corresponding loss. The loss is clearest, perhaps, in the realm of art. Despite the mighty revolution which has been produced in the external conditions of life, no great poet is now living to celebrate the change; humanity has suddenly become dumb. Gone, too, are the great painters and the great musicians and the great sculptors. The art that still subsists is largely imitative, and where it is not imitative it is usually bizarre. Even the appreciation of the glories of the past is gradually being lost, under the influence of a utilitarian education taht concerns itself only with the production of physical well-being.... This unprecedented decline in literature and art is only one manifestation of a more far-reaching phenomenon; it is only one instance of that narrowing of the range of personality which has been going on in the modern world. The whole development of modern society has tended mightily toward the limitation of the realm of freedom for the individual man."
J. Gresham Machen, "Christianity and Liberalism"
[Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1923, reprint 1997], pp. 9-10.)
"Lest it should be possible that any unchildlike soul might, in arrogance and ignorance, think to stand upon his rights against God, and demand of Him this or that after the will of the flesh, I will lay before such a one some of the things to which he has a right. He has a claim to be compelled to repent; to be hedged in on every side: to have one after another of the strong, sharp-toothed sheep dogs of the Great Shepherd sent after him; to thwart him in any desire, foil him in any plan, frustrate him of any hope, until he come to see at length that nothing will ease his pain, nothing make life a thing worth having, but the presence of the living God within him."
George MacDonald
"Modern technology and media have proved to be Valium for our leisure
time. They have turned the united States into a nation of spectators, more
eager to watch life than to participate in it. We want our art, for instance,
to provide distraction rather than require concentration, asking it for
either escape or knee jerk political messages. We want shock or sleep. Period
Perhaps Jean Baudrillard is close to the truth after all when he characterizes
ours as the age of simulation. For just as shoppng malls simulate the great
outdoors, replacing sun and trees with flourescent lights and green plastic
"plants," we simulate danger with amusement park rides, friends
or enemies with talk-rasio hosts, rebellion with torn jeans and black boots,
sex with lewd phone conversations, revolutions with improved fabric softeners,
and freedom with the newest panty liner. We simulate life eliminating risk
and commitment, and end up mistaking what is real for what is only artificial.
We exist, that is, encased in a giant cultural condom."
Joey Earl Horstman quoted by Marva J.Dawn in
Reaching Out without Dumbing Down
"Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good and for evil
whether he intends or designs it or not. He may be a blot radiating his
dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be
a blessing spreading benediction over the length and breadth of the world.
But a blank he cannot be: There are no moral blanks; there are no neutral
characters."
Thomas Chalmers
Hope is not what you expect; it is what you would never dream. It is a wild, improbable tale with a pinch-me-I'm-dreaming ending. It's Abraham adjusting his bifocals so he can see not his grandson, but his son. It's Moses standing in the promised land not with Aaron or Miriam at his side, but with Elijah and the transfigured Christ.
-unknown [submitted without attribution]
"She aspired to be, and was, at once a popular entertainer and a conscientious craftsman: like (in her degree) Chaucer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, or Moliere. I have an idea that, with a very few exceptions, it is only such writers who matter much in the long run. She never sank the artist and the entertainer in the evangelist."
C.S. Lewis on Dorothy Sayers
"Let us, in Heaven's name, drag out the Divine Drama from under the dreadful accumulation of slipshod thinking and trashy sentiment heaped upon it, and set it on an open stage to startle the world into some sort of vigorous reaction. . . .
If all men are offended because of Christ, let them be offended; but where is the sense of their being offended at something that is not Christ and is nothing like Him? We do Him singularly little honour by watering down His personality till it could not offend a fly. . . .
It is the dogma that is the drama--not beautiful phrases nor comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations to lovingkindness and uplift. . . but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death. Show that to the heathen, and they might not believe it; but at least they may realize that here is something that a man might be glad to believe.
Dorothy Sayers
". . . books are my passion, not only writing them and every once in a while even reading them but just having them and moving them around and feeling the comfort of their serene presence."
Frederick Buechner
"May I suggest that in this sense we are possibly a unique generation. A massive global assault has been launched upon us, and it is the arts more than any other single force that predominate as an influential agent, molding our character, our values, and our beliefs. This invasion bypasses our reason and captures our imagination....
Through technology the whole world has now become the media's parish, talk-show hosts the prophets, actors and musicians the priests, and any script will do for the Scriptures as long as moral constraints are removed.
Sitting before a well-lit box is all the cultic performance needs, and each person can enthrone his or her own self as divine. Truth has been relegated to subjectivity; beauty has been subjugated to the beholder; and as millions are idiotized night after night, a global commune has been constructed with the arts enjoying a totalitarian rule.
To be sure, the arts have always had, and should have, a role in the
imagination and entertainment of a society. What is so unique in our society,
though, is the all-pervasive influence of the arts, even upon matters of
transcending importance--in effect, desacralizing everything and programming
our very beings."
Ravi Zacharias, "Can Man Live without God"
[Word Publishing, 1994], p. 12.)
Contributors:
Charissa Sloan
Charles Johnson
Neil E. Orts
Bryan Collins