(LifeSiteNews) — Welcome back to Good News Friday! This week I would like to focus on just one story covered by LifeSiteNews. It’s a masterful and beautiful video report where Christendom College music professor Larissa Fedoryka explores the redeeming, transcendental, peaceful power of classical music.
But it is really a part of a much bigger story within LifeSite that also needs to be told.
In the run-up to the presidential election of 2020, LifeSite, like the rest of society, began to feel the brunt of Big Tech’s censorship. Very quickly, the world started to become even darker than it had since abortion had been unleashed in 1973. For LifeSite, the bigger our reach and engagement with our audience became, the more we were targeted for censorship. Certain principalities and powers wanted to extinguish the light emanating from the lamp of LifeSite.
Twitter led the way by de-platforming us for refusing to use biologically incorrect pronouns to describe the subject of a news report. Google proceeded to censor our articles from its monopolistic search engines. YouTube started blocking us, and eventually erased our account, for speaking the truth about any number of issues from election irregularities to the abortion tainted COVID shots and the effectiveness of early treatments.
We knew that the era of “free” social media and Big Tech services was over — in fact, it was never “free.” Big Tech had ripped off its mask and was bearing its teeth at Christendom. If we were going to survive and continue to pursue our mission to bring truthful news coverage about life, family and culture, we were going to have to build our own infrastructure.
While every other business in the world decided to “go virtual” and work remotely in 2020, LifeSite decided to go as “in-person” as possible. With the help of our generous donors and wonderful staff we found a humble building nestled in Front Royal, Virginia. Front Royal is home to Christendom College, Seton Home Study School, and a thriving community of Christians. It is within striking distance of the political nerve center of the United States, while providing a nurturing community for our staff, some of whom have already relocated to Front Royal.
Why did we feel it was necessary to build an audio/video studio?
Throughout the ages, God has used art and beauty to reach out to humanity and pull us out of the maelstrom of our daily lives. By going all-in on the audio/video form, LifeSite hopes to improve its coverage of the news by expanding our video news reports, but also and perhaps more importantly, we hope to showcase content that has the ability to slow down the frantic pace of life and allow us to encounter God in a way that is not political, and not necessarily even intellectual.
As Professor Fedoryka states in the interview, “intellectual things can be very intimidating for people” because they can be used to manipulate or force others into a particular belief, whereas art has the ability to communicate through the universal language of natural beauty.
In the modern era Christian civilization has struggled to use art to win adherents to its worldview, while secular humanists have exploited it to deconstruct the Christian world. Whether it is through morally numbing music and television, or depraved art, the ideals of art have been allowed to be perverted or at best forgotten.
In our own humble way, LifeSite has decided to highlight those artists, like Professor Fedoryka, who have not given up the fight to elevate our spirits through the language of art.
We hope you enjoy this beautiful video filmed and edited by our own Michael Hogan, and we promise you, our dear readers, a renewed commitment to bring you more and more content that elevates your soul and brings you closer to God.
Have a wonderful weekend and may God bless you and your families.