The annual C.S. Lewis Festival, a fusion of arts, culture, and faith, begins today in Petoskey.
This year it features four speakers (hosted by the Manthei Speaker Series) who are all progressive women, choices that seem odd given that Mr. Lewis, who fought on the front lines of World War I, held to rather orthodox views about faith and the sexes. Is his POV going to be accurately represented by these speakers? It'd be like hosting a J.K. Rowling confab and only inviting conservative men to be the presenters.
But we digress.
What caught ERG's attention is the funding for the festival. Both the Michigan Arts and Culture Council and the National Endowment for the Arts are government entities. Lewis' most famous non-fiction work is the solid Mere Christianity. Doesn't it seem untoward, given all the yammering about 'separation of church and state' especially by the Left, that grants, paid for by the taxpayers, are being used to subsidize a faith-oriented gathering? Might many be offended? Event organizers are proudly broadcasting that on their fest literature.
Apparently this event is trendy and WOKE and artsy-tartsy enough that collaborators and attendees don't see - or care about - the philosophical dilemma. But it still needs to be said: The State should not be subsidizing subjective art; art should be a privately-funded endeavor.
In closing, ERG recommends Lewis' book, That Hideous Strength. The tale is set in a small college town and features a battle between world-domination, transhumanist globalists affiliated with N.I.C.E. (National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments) and a cadre of believers ready to thwart the not nice N.I.C.E. Oddly prescient.