Month: May 2004 (Page 2 of 2)

Andrew Damick — Why Should the Devil Get All the Good Music?

In order to understand this question, we must first
understand the current place of Christian art in the culture. Today, Christian
art in America is a consumer driven enterprise. It largely consists of a niche
market of books, music and videos designed to meet the demand of people who
already consider themselves Christian. Granted, many of these products are
marketed as “evangelistic tools,” as ways to “reach the unreached” and so
forth. Yet even those products are filled with the jargon and assumptions of
the American Christian sub-culture what many critics call “Christianese” and
their main appeal really is to the Christian consumer. CD’s, books, and films
are primarily a product to be sold to a demographic called “Christian” and then
marketed in stores filled with soft, sentimental imagery and appropriately
“Christian” knick-knacks. There is therefore an isolation which occurs in the
art produced in this milieu. Its relationship to the art produced for the
non-Christian consumer is the basis for our question.

Dispatches from the front of cultural nihilism:

But Pavone agrees that abortion is not all that separates these two flocks of believers. They are separated by radically different beliefs about the very nature of belief itself.

“I think we mean something different when we say, ‘I believe in the scriptures,’ or ‘I believe in the Catholic Church,’ or ‘I believe in the creed,’ ” said Pavone. “On the pro-life side, we really believe that what we are saying is objectively true and eternally true. So if that’s the case, Baptists have good reason not pray the rosary with Catholics. They cannot act as if their prayers are all the same and that they believe the same things.”

Armagh+ speaks

He [Eames] challenged the conviction still prevalent in parts of the west that scientific progress in Europe and the Americas meant evangelism and civilization were inter-related. Too often the western Church seemed to believe that the former third world would always accept western liberalism as the only alternative to the collapse of communism. The expansion of western ideologies has ended and the revolt against the west has begun. Opposition to the secular values of the west was a potent influence – but only one – on current attitudes within Anglicanism. Modernity in the north and west still seemed to believe that modernization brings such benefits that the Global South will eventually want to embrace it. The explosion of numbers and influence of Christians in the southern hemisphere compels the Anglican Communion to challenge many traditional concepts.

A new dynamic theology for the twenty-first century is emerging in Africa, Latin America and Asia to challenge and find independence from the Enlightenment.

Stand Firm

Take a look at Kendall Harmon’s response to the question of the validity of Gene Robinson’s consecration.