Gibbs In Charleston Lecturing On Beauty & Good Taste

I will be giving two lectures at the 2024 CiRCE Conference in Charleston next week. One which questions the accuracy of “the rhetoric stage” as Sayers describes it, the other which argues Philippians 4:8 (“…whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report”) is an aesthetic theory which is independent of both relativist and objectivist accounts of beauty. The latter lecture will be streaming, so even if you can’t be in Charleston, you can still view the lecture by registering here.

Why The Catholic Minority Does Disproportionately Well At Protestant Schools

“I would wager that the average classical Christian school is 97% Protestant. Nonetheless, in the miniscule enclave of Catholics, one often finds the most respected student in the school. I don’t mean that all the Catholic students are excellent, and yet I wonder: how many Classical Christian schools have awarded their top honors at the end of the year to a disproportionately high number of Catholics? Quite a few, I suspect.

Catholics are free to argue the reason for this owes to the superiority of their dogma and tradition, but that’s not what I’d chalk it up to, because I would also wager that at pious Catholic schools, Protestant minorities nab a disproportionately high number of honors at the end of the year. Why? Well, a Catholic minority at a largely Protestant school has constant reminders of his otherness, his diplomat status. He feels he is the representative of another world. He knows that when his teachers see him, they think, “There’s that Catholic boy,” and he wants to do his church proud.”

-from High School Students Need Name Tags

Why Do Christian Kids Quit Church In College? Because They’re 18

“In the last year or so, though, I’ve come to an odd realization about the prospect of sending my daughters to college. It might sound like back-peddling at first, but I would contend it’s simply a more accurate way of expressing my concerns. I would be happy to help my daughters go to the biggest, dumbest, most prestigious apostasy factory in the country on two conditions: they were 28 and married.

For years, I primarily attributed the high rate at which Christian kids give up the faith in college to the constant onslaught of attacks on Christianity (and sanity) which have become commonplace on college campuses, both in the classroom and on the quad. While this onslaught cannot be ignored, I’ve lately begun to think apostasy rates have more to do with the age at which young Christians are being made to bear the attacks on their faith. Simply put, the problem is the eighteen-ness of it all.

Obviously, people quit the faith in their late 20s and 30s, as well, but they do so for very different reasons than Christian kids who have just arrived at college. Apostasy in later life often emerges in the wake of some significant sin, especially adultery. For mature Christians, adultery and apostasy are often connected. Adultery is a big decision, though. It entails crossing an unambiguous line and requires a brazen willingness to turn one’s back on a well-established life, even if that life is also incredibly vexing and unsatisfying. Adultery feels momentous, final, portentous, even uncanny.

Quitting the faith at eighteen or nineteen doesn’t feel quite the same. It’s far, far easier. It takes far less.”

-from Apostasy In College on The Classical Teaching Institute blog

NOTE: If you want to keep up with my latest articles and essays, please bookmark The Classical Teaching Institute blog, which is where the majority of my new work will appear.

Why I Don’t Let My Daughters Listen to Taylor Swift

“There’s a lot to object to about Taylor Swift. Her music is shallow, her mind is weak, her feelings are trite and vacuous. Her taste in men and the rate at which she burns through them suggest she is both boring and easily bored. And her public persona strikes me as rather fake even for a celebrity. However, it’s not for any of these reasons that I don’t allow my daughters to listen to her music. They listen to David Bowie, Tom Petty, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and The Rolling Stones, all of whom might be judged shallow and trite when compared with the likes of Bach or even Puccini. The reason I don’t let my daughters listen to Taylor Swift is that she’s really, really popular.”

-from my new blog home at The Classical Teaching Institute