Roger Scruton is a writer, a philosopher and, shockingly, a blogger.

I'm not sure if Scruton's writing meets the high standards of Evangelicalism or Dr. Packer with respect to things that have staying power, but you may have come across some of his thinking in bookstores that are not Christian. I can't think of a single Christian bookstore that carries Scruton's works, but there could be one.

It isn't impossible; I just can't imagine an evangelical walking into his local religious bookstore and asking for something by Scruton when he could buy a Happy Birthday, Jesus mug or some littabit creepy representation of a spirit being with cleavage. (Landscape Sleeps Winter Angel Figurine)

Some of his books I've already recommended, but any on this list would be worth a careful read.

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture
An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy
Beauty
Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged
Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life
The Aesthetics of Music
The Meaning of Conservatism
Understanding Music

Almost a year ago now Scruton addressed a change that he suspects is irreversible. I am certain it is irreversible in the church unless God decides to reverse it—and I don't expect him to do that if we aren't willing for it to be reversed. (And we do seem to be fighting Him on the whole singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs idea.)

On the disappearance of public music-making:

Music is going the way of meals, drinks and sex, all of which are ceasing to be occasions for bonding and becoming sources of solitary addiction instead. Humanity is being divided in two by its own inventions. On the one side are the IT-savvy nerds, who do not relate to each other directly, but have mastered all the ways of achieving satisfaction from digital substitutes. On the other side are the savages, as Aldous Huxley might have called them, who sit down to meals with their families, and who drink and sing madrigals with their friends like Samuel Pepys. And the two classes are increasingly estranged from each other, since the moments in which they might have united, as people unite through singing, no longer exist.

And if this is true, where does this leave public worship? How does worship among estranged people work, exactly?