“Christians have been naïve to think that they can prosper in a society and not be engaged in cultural creation,” Gioia says. “Christians are naïve to think that they can be engaged positively in society and ignore culture. If you turn your back on the arts, essentially you are leaving all of those stories, those images, those forms of communication in the hands of others. And that’s what we’re seeing. People of faith have unambiguously lost the culture wars. They complain about it but they aren’t doing anything about it.”Amen, brother.
Post bumped.
Part of the problem can be found in secular governmental support of the arts in the form of grants. . . but the support is conditional, excluding overtly religious/Christian expressions . . . Note also the academic connections (i.e., universities tend to hold religious/Christian artistic expression at more than arm's length, and students are discouraged rather than encouraged to let faith speak through their artistic and literary efforts). Even decades ago my selection of Flannery O'Connor as my MA thesis topic was met with resistance and raised eyebrows; I persisted, and they (the departmental powers) relented, but the attitude continues within academia.
ReplyDelete