Barbara Nicolosi: "the Church has lost its way in modernity"

The fact that there is not a single Christian university in the top twenty film programs in the world is a sign that the Church has lost its way in modernity. We are not seeing ourselves as people of this moment.

The saddest realities to look at are not Hustler magazine and Big Love. Much more tragic is what you find on EWTN and CBN, because these things are devoid of creativity and devoid of respect for the audience. They are banal. They may be produced with the best of intentions, but they have no sense of the appropriateness of the art form, of using the medium to its full potential.

Sad though it is, you would never call the Church the patron of the arts today. Never. You would be laughed down. I know that to be true. I used the phrase with a class of undergrads. A young woman raised her hand and said, "Who is the ‘patron of the arts'?" I asked the students who they thought the patron of the arts is. They looked at me for a while, and finally one kid raised his hand and said, "The Bravo Channel?"

"Patron of the arts" used to be the moniker of the Christian Church. But this generation has no experience of the Church being a patron of the arts. We are so far behind in being a compelling voice in the culture. We have allowed our voice in culture to disappear.

From: The Church of the Masses An interview with Barbara Nicolosi-Harrington. Patheos March 2, 2010.