Bid Them Sell My Bones

When people write wikipedia entries, they never point out the painfully obvious. And, generally, one shouldn’t expect them to. For instance, if the entry is about Peter the Great, one shouldn’t expect the entry to mention that “Peter the Great had pale skin. Peter the Great had testicles.” Of course, these things are true. But they are so true that they don’t need pointing out. “Peter the Great was sentient, and he was subject to the laws of gravity.” Of course he was.

But sometimes those things we leave out are the most important points. For example, in this day and age, it might actually be worthwhile to point out that yes, Peter the Great had pale skin. Yes, he had testicles. In fact, for people of the modern time who seem to think that all of reality changed in 1965, perhaps it even bears pointing out that Peter the Great was subject to the laws of gravity!

Johann Sebastian Bach is known as the greatest composer of his era — in fact, his only competition for title of Greatest Composer of All Time comes from the greatest composer of the Classical era (Mozart) and the greatest composer of the Romantic era (Beethoven). Bach is also famous for being the “most Christian” of the great composers.

Now, how we can quantify something like Degree of Christian-ness is an open question, (as is, for that matter, how we can quantify Musical Greatness in a great composer). But let’s just leave it at the colloquial level for now. Bach was a genius; Bach was intensely Christian. He was at least enough of a genius for many people to consider him the greatest musical genius that ever lived. And he was at least enough of a devout Christian for many people to consider him the most Christian composer that ever lived.

Francois Couperin was a great composer, though perhaps not as “great” as Bach. His achievements are more modest, but the pieces he wrote were beautiful, they were great, and they are still played today.

Couperin was also a Christian. But Couperin is not famous for his devotion to God and Christ the way Bach is. Therefore his wikipdedia entry does not even mention his Christainity. Therefore it is quite possible, for the modern Christian and for the modern atheist alike, to listen to his music without understanding how deeply his music is informed by his Christianity.

In the same way, it is possible (though only barely), for the modern person to look at all of great European culture without realizing how Christian all of them were. It’s taken for granted, or ignored entirely. As if the fact they were Christian were equivalent to the fact that they were all subject to the laws of gravity. Of course they were, we say.

All humans throughout time were subject to the laws of gravity. But not all of them were Christian. But we seem ready to accept the glory of European culture without acknowledging the central distinguishing feature of that culture: that it was Christian. Their technical brilliance is taken as a given, somehow divorced from their particularity as believing Christians. No one ever puts it this way explicitly, but the implication is obvious: “These people were admittedly great artists, but their greatness is not owed to their Christian-ness. It’s the flowering of a great and prosperous culture, something that any group of people might have achieved regardless of religious sentiment.”

This idea confuses together three statements: (1) high European culture is the flowering of a great and prosperous culture; (2) any group of people might have acheived it; and (3) the greatness is not owed to their Christian-ness.

Point number 1 is obvious. Yes, Couperin’s genius (or Bach’s or Corelli’s or Handel’s) is contingent upon living in a highly developed culture at the height of its flowering. None of them, for all their genius and religious fervor, could have acheived their true genius had they been born into a hunter-gatherer society 5000 years ago. At the bare minimum, a genius of the ages like Bach might have created songs that we still know today, though it would be impossible to know it today. A genius like Couperin would have been lost for all time, had he not had the social structures around him to encourage and record his genius. Granted.

Point number 2 is totally false, though to a lot of modern people this is not obvious. Point number 2 is linked to point number 1. “Any group of people might have acheived it.” Well, we all agree that certain groups of people could never have acheived the genius of Couperin and Bach. For example, a hunter-gatherer society that had no time for music beyond the occasional fireside reed-flute jamboree could not have produced the Bach we know today. Or, to take a fairer, more modern example, China under Mao could never — and indeed never did — produce a musical genius of anywhere near the caliber of Couperin, let alone Bach. The idea that any group of people can just arbitrarily produce geniuses like these is absurd.

Point 3 is that “Their greatness is not owed to their Christian-ness.” If this assertion is taken on its own, the modern person has no problem asserting it. But this assertion rests on the unmentioned assumption of points 1 and 2, which we have already proven false. Now, proving 1 and 2 false does not necessarily prove that 3 is also false. To consider point 3, the Christianity of the great artists, we require an open mind. An open mind is a liability in modern liberal society, but it is the basic requirement of any person who wishes to know the truth.

I would say that — if one wishes to be technical — that it is theoretically, mathematically conceivable that Couperin could have been other than a Christian. When I make that distinction, I mean to invoke Chesterton’s distinction between what is conceivable and what is inconceivable. It is conceivable that on the morning of the Battle of Agincourt, the sky was green. But it is not conceivable that the sky was the anti-sky. The first proposition is against all reason, but it is not nonsensical. The second statement is just nonsense.

I propose that the idea that a non-Christian Couperin could have composed Les Barricades Mysterieuses is conceivable (in the non-nonsensical sense). But it is about as likely as the sky being green on the morning of the Battle of Agincourt. Most likely, the sky was blue, Couperin’s music is Christian. Henry V defeated the French against all odds, and Couperin’s Barricades Mysterieuses to this day, against all odds, inspires me here in North America, 350 years later.

If a modern atheist wants to argue that Christianity had nothing to do with it, because he has some other axe to grind, I would not be surprised. But as a point of logic, I categorically reject the validity of that argument. If Mr. Nogod wants to argue that Couperin’s music is not beautiful, that Christian culture is heinous, then I will respectfully disagree. But if the same Nogod wants to argue that, yes, the Christian culture is beautiful, but that said beauty has nothing to do with said Christianity, I have to demur and say to him, “Friend Nogod, you do not understand. You are an awkward adolescent in a world of strong men and lovely children.”

Around two minutes and thirty seconds is the time it takes to illustrate this point: