Clement of Alexandria’s “Christian Gnostic” in Stromateis I–II
In the introduction to his 1954 translation of Clement of Alexandria’s (c. 150–215) Paedagogus, P. Simon Wood expresses “hesitancy” on the part of Catholics due to Clement’s alleged Gnostic leanings: “While admiring his humanism and appreciating his richness of thought, it (the Catholic opinion) regrets some of the Gnostic developments of that thought.”[i] This hesitancy is rooted […]
Questions To Ask When Selecting Songs for Congregational Worship
When selecting songs for Sunday worship, here are seven questions I try to keep in mind. Does the congregational worship music I select . . . glorify God? edify the body? teach Christian doctrine? place emphasis on content? promote unity in the Church of the past and present? promote excellent art? favor the voices of […]
Seek Truth, Beauty, and Goodness . . . but Avoid “Cultural Snobbery”
The first time I heard the quote, “A thing worth doing is worth doing badly,” was from Robert Picirilli after I presented a paper on Leroy Forlines’s view of the arts. Much of what follows below on the topic of cultural snobbery is from that paper. The chief duty of man is, as the Westminster […]