WHAT DOES YOUR FAITH GENERATE?

Conor Dugan kindly references some of my ranting over at his blog TriCoastal Commission. It is an honor to even be mentioned in the same breath as Gregory Wolfe of Image. Conor drives home the great point that a faith that is real will absolutely tend toward creating culture. Check it out here.

So, Christianity is the kind of religion that when it is internalized, leads its adherents to do things like build cathedrals, and paint frescos and write Summas and compose music. I am tempted to push this idea to brood over why people who take Islam really serioously tend to not generate culture, but rather to demolish culture. Isn't that part of what made 9/11 so horrific? We knew that there were religious people somewhere, who were rejoicing as they watched the perfect symmetry of those Towers crumble. There is something wrong with a religion which only tears down, but isn't moved to build. Blow up statues, destroy art, kidnap and kill people, suicide bomb buses and hotels and clubs and restaurants, crash planes into buildings - and all of it as an act of religious worship. It is actually an anti-religious impulse...ask the dead Greeks. They'll tell you.