Richard Weaver observed that a concern for the state of one's culture tends to start at the top and gradually work its way down to the lowest levels of society: its popular organs of discussion and—if I can join in his observation—its most frivolous men.

You know that when emergents and fundamentalists become interested in culture it is time to order a casket and book the gravedigger. Here is Doug Pagitt again, meandering through some incoherent guesses about culture and reprising his ignorance of Plato.

And Brian McCrorie reminds us that:

1. defining beauty is not an exact science,
2. defining beauty involves creation and culture which are tainted by the curse,
3. we are free to discern what is acceptable in the arts,
4. the church doesn't have to arrive at an aesthetic ethic, and
5. this is all largely a matter of opinion, preference, and taste.

With this collection of boors, bumpkins and buffoons, what are the chances we will ever see a useful culture? As I riffle my chips I place our chances at a nice round number.

Where might culture come from? Look at what has been produced by (post)modern cretins; to call it freakish and ugly would be to engage in cruel flattery.

But while Pagitt and McCrorie are off "discerning what is acceptable", let us remind ourselves what we have lost.

This great yearning of man to be something in the imaginative sense, that is, to be something more than he is in the simple existential way or in the reductionist formula of materialism is both universal and proper to him. The latter may be asserted because he is the only creature who asks the question why he is here and who feels thwarted in his self-realization until some kind of answer is produced.  This urge to be representative of something higher is an active ingredient of his specific humanity; it has created everything from the necklace of animal teeth with which the primitive adorns his body to the elaborate constructions which the men of high cultures have made to interpret the meaning of life and their mission in it. This is the point at which he departs from the purely utilitarian course and makes of himself a being with significance. It is a refutation of all simplistic histories and psychologies, but it is one of the most verifiable facts about man. *

There was a time when worship and liturgy were the definitive ways man located the meaning of his life and determined his mission in it. It was also the proper way of sharing that meaning with his neighbor. He could commiserate in his sufferings and he could exult in his joys. Try doing that with the degenerates filing into the auditorium for the Contemporary Worship Service. We cannot even share our maudlin religious rites.

It is not insignificant that our contemporaries' boorish apprehension of permanent things spans the religious horizon. Each little band of philistines is smug in the knowledge that it is better than the little band of philistines camped on the other side of the hill, and it never occurs to any of them to question the meaning of "better". If they thought about it—and we can be sure they haven't—determining the meaning of better is just as tainted by the curse as everything else.

What is your image of culture? That is something your children had better know before they leave the house. In fact, three questions should be answered satisfactorily before they're encouraged to start a home of their own.

• What is in your mind when you think about God?
• What is in your mind when you think about culture?
• What is in your mind when you think about worship?

Suppose what you think about God is not consistent with his true nature? What if your ideas of culture are incompatible with Bach's? Imagine that your preferences are at odds with Abraham's and St. John's.

Would that trouble you at all?

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* Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order, p. 10.