Twentieth-century man is subject to a continued barrage of influence broadly classifiable as artistic. Whether his preferences run more to Bach or Bacharach, MacLeish or McKuen, Wyeth or Warhol, he is absorbing messages, and he ought to try to be aware of what they are.
A fair amount of what is ballyhooed as art today caters to man’s sinful nature and influences him according to the designs of the world’s leader, Satan himself. Even the worst of this is likely to be defended as having “redeeming social value,” if only in showing what depravity is really like.
From time to time we have carried articles dealing with the arts and reviews of religiously significant music and films. Now we are making a regular home for material in this realm with a new once-a-month column called “The Refiner’s Fire.” It will be critical, but constructive.
Another innovation in this issue has probably already caught your eye. Members of our editorial staff, who till now have remained visually anonymous, will be asked—nay, forced—to show their faces on this page, two by two. Now if you meet us in your or our travels, you’ll recognize us, we hope, from our pictures.
