he sense of the ludicrous is clearly a rational affection. It seems peculiar
to human beings. The gambols of some animals clearly disclose a sense of fun
or sport, and even of sportive mischief. . . . The true sense of the ludicrous
is distinctly a human attribute; so clearly so that some psychologists have proposed,
and that not in jest, to define mankind as "the biped that laughs."
Martin Bucer
If he had said simply that something which the educated receive from poetry can
reach the masses through stories of adventure, and almost in no other way, then
I think he would have been right. If so, nothing can be more disastrous than
the view that the cinema can and should replace popular written fiction. The
elements which it excludes are precisely those which give the untrained mind
its only access to the imaginative world. There is death in the camera.
J.R.R. Tolkien
The man whose soul is "growing" takes more interest in spiritual things every year.
. . . The ways, and fashions, and amusements, and recreations of the world have
a continually decreasing place in his heart. He does not condemn them as downright
sinful, nor say that those who have anything to do with them are going to hell.
He only feels that they have a constantly diminishing hold on his own affections
and gradually seem smaller and more trifling in his eyes.
A.W. Tozer
All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that
is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God. Besides,
all things are of God; and, therefore, why should it not be lawful to dedicate
to his glory everything that can properly be employed for such a purpose?
R.L. Dabney
Over my years as a reader and writer I've found it almost impossible to hold anything
in memory unless it's framed by a story: certainly down in words, at least. .
. . Even if there isn't a story to encapsulate what we wish to retainwhich is,
I think, the way memory worksthere is always, in anything we're able to remember
the rest of our lives, a progression, a narrative thread or pattern, or a set
of steps leading from A to C. . . . It's for this reason, I believe, that the
most pungent and memorable portions of the Bible are cast as storiesAdam and
Eve, Moses and Pharaoh, David and Bathsheba, Ruth and Naomi, Balaam and his ass.
. . . However anybody feels about narrative, over and above the purposes we can
ascribe to the use of story in Scripture, story is the quintessential way in
which God has chosen to reveal Himself to us.
David Wells
Christianity is sometimes criticized for being "word-centered" and thus insufficiently
oriented to visual images or to emotional subjectivity. This, however, cannot
be otherwise and is nothing to apologize for. The Word is at the essence of the
Christian faith. The faith of the ancient Hebrews was based on God's revelation
in language; the faith of their pagan neighbors was based on gods revealed in
graven images. This basic conceptual conflict between the priority of language
and the priority of images continues.
never experienced silence. . . . Our households
and offices are filled with whirring, buzzing, murmuring, chattering, and whining
of the multiple contraptions that are supposed to make life easier. Their noise
comforts us in some curious way. In fact, we find complete silence shocking because
it leaves the impression that nothing is happening. . . . Think what it says
about the inward emptiness of our lives if we must always turn on the tape
player or radio to make sure something is happening around us.
George MacDonald
"Hollywood" is not, of course, a place. Nor is it a synonym for the entertainment
business. There are upstanding citizens who make their living in that field.
The real Hollywood is the reductio ad absurdum of personal liberty. It is
ordinary men and women freed by money and social mobility to do anything they
want unencumbered by family pressure, community mores, social responsibility,
civic duty, or good sense. . . . Los Angeles is a site for Hollywood because,
if all the freedom and money go blooey, it's warm enough to sleep on the beach.
Neil Postman
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) came across an English romance when he was at his
lowest ebb; he had made an all-out effort to win an academic prize, and had won
it, but then suffered a breakdown. . . . Broken, barely able to read, Kuyper
picked up The Heir of Redclyffe, a novel that doesn't appear to be included
in the canon. . . . Kuyper was alone when he finished the book, and later wrote,
"What I lived through in my soul in that moment I fully understood only later,
yet from that hour, after that moment, I scorned what I formerly esteemed, and
I sought what I once dared to despise." The drama of that novel, rawly romantic
as it might have been, was used to draw Kuyper over the threshold into conversion.
The right book at the right time has that potential.
Credenda/Agenda Vol. 7, No. 3
