Pastor's Blog

There are many defects of the modern mind, one of them being the conditioning we have received to to prize mere functional utility at the expense of beauty. When we consider the value of something, we almost always do so in terms of its usefulness. What’s it good for?   What function does it perform?   Is it efficient? The question we rarely seem to ask is, “Is it beautiful?” How often do we purchase something simply for the pure aesthetic delight we take in it? Are we not inclined to think such an expense a waste of money? Yet God has given us senses that appreciate beauty – sights, sounds, and smells that have a pleasing effect. Sadly, however, Christians often fail to cultivate their aesthetic sense. It is thought to be unspiritual to “waste time” on such things. But God’s delight in things beautiful is displayed in his handiwork. Think of the varieties of color he splashes on the sky at sunset, the thousands of hues of green in nature (with none of them clashing),...

Art (and I use the term loosely) has long been the avenue to popularize, legitimize, and normalize every imaginable - and for most ordinary people even  un imaginable - sexual deviancy. The more a work pushes the moral boundaries, the more it's lauded by critics. Here is a case in point at the Cannes Film Festival. Ordinary people, even the French (if you can call them ordinary), got up and left the screening. It was just too much to stomach. Not surprisingly, true art afficionados (or at least those who flatter themselves with the title) gave the film a standing ovation. There are few taboos left to break. What will they do when they're all gone? When the deviant becomes normal, the normal looks deviant. It won't be long before a man and a woman who actually really and truly love each other and stay together for life will be an aberration. Cameron Diaz has recently gone on record as saying that marriage is a " dying institution ." If she ...