Concordia TheoBLOGical Seminary

Here is a blog post worth a serious read. And I mean, read it and consider how it speaks to you. Much of the stagnation of thought and practice, which in all reality is a decline, is due to the things that Esolen brings to light in his blog post. He put his thumb on what I’ve been trying to find words for in evaluating music in and for the church. Talking about taste is not bad with regard to the arts in the church, unless you have none. And it is this that we as the church have been reticent to discuss-mainly due to the fact that we ourselves don’t actually have taste. We have knowledge of what we want people to think is good taste, but don’t actually have it. It isn’t a part of the fiber of our being. We are fakes. We are phonies. We have no taste-some to a lesser degree than others.

What strikes chords that resonate within me with this essay is Esolen’s ability to say just that. To evaluate tastes, you must have some taste. And what the church hasn’t done, nor is it quite prepared to do because we are in a very real sense victims and perpetrators of the enemy issues, is come out to say some tastes are better than others. We have not inculcated and nurtured people to identify with those tastes that are higher and better. And this is not just the case in church, but probably more so in the home. There is objectivity to beauty and taste, even though we have learned otherwise. And the saddest and most shameful thing about this is that we have chosen simply to maintain status quo and hand it on to subsequent generations.

We need to change our family trees. We need to say: Enough! This stops with me. Until we take responsibility for them, until we make ourselves accountable for the change, we will always perpetuate the status quo.