Friday, August 3, 2007

Read the Bible

The Western Confucian posts an article by atheist Camille Paglia, who says:

Knowledge of the Bible, one of the West's foundational texts, is dangerously waning among aspiring young artists and writers. When a society becomes all-consumed in the provincial minutiae of partisan politics (as has happened in the US over the past twenty years), all perspective is lost. Great art can be made out of love for religion as well as rebellion against it. But a totally secularized society with contempt for religion sinks into materialism and self-absorption and gradually goes slack, without leaving an artistic legacy. Share

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The last part of this is very true; we are today witnessing in front of our very eyes the dying embers of (Greco-Roman) Judaeo-Christian civilisation. Of course art has itself become degraded; from a corrupt tree comes corrupt fruit and from a decadent society come debased language and artistic endeavours. However, the problem that I as one have with this quote is that I wouldn't blame the "los[ing of] all perspective" on local politics, but on the widespread availability of the Bible in the first place! We all know that Protestants often complain that in the glorious medieval ages, the apex of Western civilisation, the Scriptures were "chained to the pulpit". But thus it had to be to keep the ordinary folk from fermenting godless revolution... Wycliffe and company smuggled Bibles into England on hay carts, and today we have somewhere between 28,000-48,000 Protestant denominations, all claiming to soundly embody the truth. The truth of all this is, as you will probably know, that the separated brother or sister's final authority is not the Holy Scriptures, but his/her own intelligence, holding the Scriptures in judgement, a thing which only the Magisterium of the true Church God permits to do.

elena maria vidal said...

Very true. And although the peasants of the Middle Ages were for the most part illiterate, the stories from Scripture were conveyed to them in sacred art and even in the mystery plays. They had a sense of Scripture, guided by the Church. St Therese never had a complete Bible in her possession, but she had the Gospels and the Psalter and there for she was not Biblically illiterate as people are now.

Anonymous said...

My sentiments exactly, however I did not know she is an Atheist. Her social commentary is usually frank and to the point.

Unknown said...

Recently on another website, someone asked me what "Gospel" meant. Thinking she might not be a native English speaker, I checked her profile and saw that she was from Sweden. So I said that Gospel means "Evangelium". And then to my surprise she said she still didn't know what that meant. I wasn't sure how exactly to respond to that.

Warren said...

Athiesm is Protestantism Times Two. Protestantism exists as a negative force, rejecting 50% of the Christian Faith. Athiesm just says, why play tiddly-winks about the whole thing, and makes it an even 100%. And she's right because as knowledge of our Christian past dies, Athiesm loses all the wind in its sails. It has nothing to be angry about, nothing to feel reproachful towards. It is in itself a nullity, an empty void.

W