This is interesting: Rev Michael Nazir-Ali: Britons suffer 'cultural amnesia' about Christian art - Telegraph: "Dr Nazir-Ali, who was born in Pakistan, said: 'What amazes me is how people in this country don't take account of the brute fact that the Bible and the prayer book have shaped so much of its literary and cultural achievements.
'Without the translation of the Bible into English and the creation of the prayer book, it would have been impossible to have a Donne or a Shakespeare or a Milton. Certainly with art, poetry and music, people aren't exposed to the Biblical root of what has inspired people to create these themes. There should be better interpretation of things. With music, you can listen to hour upon hour of Classic FM but nobody tells you what the piece means. A lot of this music was written for worship."
Now he has a point. And for a number of years people have been addressing this, including our college working through it's culture project. And I think it is a good thing to do. However ... what I'm interested to ask is how he would assess similar claims in Pakistan about understanding the Qur'an in order to be able to appreciate more fully the culture of Pakistan?
2 comments:
What a very good question!
Why thank you. Looking again at what I wrote, just in case there should be some misunderstanding; the Pakistan case is hypothetical: as far as I know there is no similar claim being made in Pakistan. I'm just curious to know whether he would grant the quid pro quo.
I suspect it would be an embarrassing question.
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