Steve Turner

If the rock band U2 had been born in Orange County, California, would they have become just another church worship band?

If chance be the Father of all flesh, Disaster is his rainbow in the sky, And when you hear State of Emergency! Sniper Kills Ten! Troops on Rampage! Whites go Looting! Bomb Blasts School! It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.

There's three different kinds of Christian," said Cash. "There's preaching Christians, church-playing Christians, and then there's practicing Christian. I'm trying very hard to be a practicing Christian.

The arts can sharpen the vision, quicken the intellect, preserve the memory, activate the conscience, enhance the understanding and refresh the language.

We believe that religions are basically the same_they only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

A corollary of this has been that Christians have thought that they should only create art with a Pollyanna quality to it: paintings of birds and kittens, movies that extol family life and end happily, songs that are positive and uplifting _ in short, works of art that show a world that is almost unfallen where no one experiences conflict and where sin is naughty rather than wicked.