The Importance of “Thinginess” (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 5)

The following is part of a series on American evangelicals, considering why American Christian artists who produce high quality work tend to Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox or other high church denominations. In a previous post, I argued that evangelical culture is essentially suburban, and averageness tends to be a central feature in suburban cultures. A related problem …

Apologetics and the Power of Tension (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 4)

The following is part of a series on American evangelicals, considering why American Christian artists who produce high quality work tend to Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox or other high church denominations. W. Dale Brown argues in his introduction to Conversations with American Writers that there is a misconception that a good story involves pain. He …

T.H. White: The things I left out

Recently the ever-generous Brenton Dickieson published my essay about T.H. White on his blog, A Pilgrim in Narnia. In many ways, it was me considering ideas that Dickieson brought up in an insightful Tolkien vs. Lewis scholarship series, and expand some ideas I presented at Taylor University's C.S. Lewis Center back in 2017. Someone recently …

The Need for Problems (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 3)

The following is part of a series on American evangelicals, considering why American Christian artists who produce high quality work tend to Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox or other high church denominations. “You need to remember this. The cat sat on the mat. That’s not a story. But the cat sat on a dog’s mat. Now …

Suburbs and Evangelicals (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 2)

The following is part of a series on American evangelicals, considering why American Christian artists who produce high quality work tend to Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox or other high church denominations. In my last post, I argued that Presbyterianism seems to attract artists who don't go further down the high church spectrum (Catholicism, Anglicanism/Episcopalianism, etc), …