A Drab and Garish Culture

Drab is a favorite color in our day; its companion is garish.  I defy any of my contemporaries to name one style of public building or style of dress or form of popular entertainment that is not now either drab or garish.  Our churchmen, no better educated than anyone else in the humanities and the Christian heritage of art, architecture, and music, have gone along with the movement, mostly drab, but sometimes garish, as witness the big childish banners blaring out a favorite comforting verse (never “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God”), the glad-handing ceremonies of greeting and peace-wishing, the rock bands in the sanctuary, big screens like stadium scoreboards to flash the mantras of the songs, and the smiling Protestant minister in jeans, or the Catholic priest with a jowly smile, far more comfortable joshing with the attendees than praying with the people who are, as he is, as well as we all are, on the inevitable journey to the grave and in dire need of the grace of God.

Anthony Esolen, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, pg.35