Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 19

"There never yet have been, nor are there now, too many good books."

--Martin Luther

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 18

"So let's shut up and bite this Lilliputian-sized tax bullet. Help keep some great old paintings and some deranged new ones in plain view of the average citizen, and at the same time, help defend individual expression against the first wave of the brain gendarmes."

--Dennis Miller in The Rants

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 17

"The Christian artist will often be an irritant, disturbing the anthropocentric view of the world that fallen nature naturally gravitates toward."

--Steve Turner in Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 16

"The promise of art and revolution is that people might discard their preconceptions and truly understand what is in the mind of another."

--John Hockenberry in Moving Violations

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 15

"Like an artist who transfers mental images and colors to canvas, so the visioncaster paints a picture in the imagination of his audience."

--Andy Stanley in Visioneering, p. 90)

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 14

"Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation. They differ, however, from one another in three respects, -the medium, the objects, the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case distinct."

--Aristotle (in Poetics)

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 13

"The act of singing together is deeply and indelibly human. When we sing, words are given greater range and power than when we speak. Something is shared in singing that goes beyond the words alone. Among Christians, this something has taken shape over many centuries in a practice that expresses our deepest yearning and dearest joy: the practice of singing our lives."

--Don E. Saliers (in "Singing Our lives" in Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life. p. 180)

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 12

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."

--Ray Bradbury

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 11

"Technology is a mode of revealing. Technology comes to presence where revealing and unconcealment take place, where aletheia, truth, happens."

--Martin Heidegger

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 10

"What is good Christian music? It is the combination of words that are biblically sound and music that is appropriate to the words and to their intended purpose. In authentically Christian songs the words and musical score work together to accomplish the one purpose God has for His church on earth: bringing glory to himself. If the music does not glorify God, it is not good church music."

--Robert C. Anderson (in The Effective Pastor, p.327)

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 9

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."

--Francis Bacon

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 8

"Remember that many a devotional service, special-day program, Sunday or Weekday lesson, or for that matter Women's Club program has been redeemed from mediocrity through the intelligent use of great pictures, great stories, great poetry, and great music artistically interpreted."

--Cynthia Pearl Maus (in The Old Testament and the Fine Arts)

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 7

"If I am a romantic my parents bear no responsibility for it. Tennyson, indeed, my father liked, but it was the Tennyson of In Memoriam and Locksley Hall. I never heard from him of the Lotus Eaters or the Morte d'Arthur. My mother, I have been told, cared for no poetry at all."

--C.S. Lewis
(in "Surprised by Joy")

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 6

"Ideas are the greatest resource a successful person could ever have. And when you surround yourself with creative people, you're never at a loss for inspiring ideas."

--John C. Maxwell (in "Mentoring 101")

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 5

"Not since John the Baptist has there been a voice like that crying in the wilderness. The most male voice in Christendom. Every man knows he is a sissy compared to Johnny Cash."

--Bono
(liner notes: "The Essential Johnny Cash")

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 4

"There can be no music without ideology."

--Dmitri Shostakovich

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 3

"There can be no question. God is interested in beauty. God made people to be beautiful. And beauty has a place in the worship of God."

--Francis Schaeffer (in "Art and the Bible)

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 2

"When we find ourselves perplexed by a scene in a movie or the lyrics of a song, we say to our friends, 'What do you make of that?' We aren't usually our friends to write a new scene or sing new lyrics- we aren't asking for more creation. We mean, what sense do you make of it? We are asking for interpretation."

--Andy Crouch (in "Culture Making" p.24)

Pastoral Aesthetic Quotes- 1

"Except for theology, there is no art that can be placed in comparison with music." --Martin Luther

New Feature- Quotes

In an effort to post more regularly on this site, as well as to keep it from being simply a site for reviewing books and (mostly) films, I have decided to post quotes regarding spirituality and culture/the arts. They can and will come from a variety of sources, both ancient and modern. Feel free to comment on them. By the way, it should be noted that these, like most quotes are random and probably out of context. If you can add a bit of context, feel free to comment on that as well. Enjoy!