Steve Turner > Quotes

“If chance be the Father of all flesh,
Disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
And when you hear
State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.”
― Steve Turner, Poems

“We believe that religions are basically the same…they only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.”
― Steve Turner, Up to date: Poems, 1968-1982

“The arts can sharpen the vision, quicken the intellect, preserve the memory, activate the conscience, enhance the understanding and refresh the language.”
― Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

“It should also be remembered that art created to change minds often actually does more to bolster the spirit of those already in agreement than it does to convert opponents.”
― Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

“How much of life is Christ to be Lord over? Is he only interested in that part of life we think of as religious or spiritual? Or is he interested in every facet of our lives—body, soul, mind and spirit?”
― Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

“A corollary of this has been that Christians have thought that they should only create art with a Pollyanna quality to it: paintings of birds and kittens, movies that extol family life and end happily, songs that are positive and uplifting – in short, works of art that show a world that is almost unfallen where no one experiences conflict and where sin is naughty rather than wicked.”
― Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

“Rembrandt didn’t idealize his subjects. He painted what he saw, which was a mixture of glory and fallenness. He was criticized by his contemporaries for using washerwomen as his models rather than women who looked like Greek goddesses.”
― Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

“There's three different kinds of Christian," said Cash. "There's preaching Christians, church-playing Christians, and then there's practicing Christian. I'm trying very hard to be a practicing Christian.”
― Steve Turner

“If the rock band U2 had been born in Orange County, California, would they have become just another church worship band?”
― Steve Turner

“One of the most compelling pieces of evidence, though, for the use of “Nearer, My God, to Thee” was the fact that it was the best-loved hymn of Wallace Hartley and had been introduced to the Bethel Chapel by Wallace’s father, Albion Hartley, when he was choirmaster. A friend from Colne told the British Weekly: “It was the custom of the Bethel church choir leader to choose the hymn or chant after prayer and Mr. Albion Hartley often selected ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ The hymn was also a great favourite with his son, the bandmaster of the Titanic, for a cousin mentioned that he would often be kept waiting for Wallace to go and play cricket because he was practicing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ in variations on the violin.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“If they had not died on April 15, 1912, almost all the musicians would have had to fight in France and perhaps half of them wouldn’t have returned. When Roger Bricoux didn’t respond to the French call-up in 1914, he was registered as a deserter even though he had been dead for two years. At the age of thirty-six, Frederick Nixon Black of C. W. & F. N. Black found himself in the British army, first with the Royal Defence Corps in Hereford, and then after the war, with the Manchester Regiment handling German prisoners. Theo Brailey, had he lived, would have been called back to the Lancashire Fusiliers.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“The other possibility is that the idea came from Hartley and was supported by the bandsmen. By all accounts he was a man of faith, character, and moral strength. At Sunday school and later at church, the importance of sacrifice and putting the needs of others first would have been stressed. We know that he had discussed what he would do in the face of death and so he was more prepared than most. He apparently believed that music could be more powerful than physical force in bringing order to chaos. John Carr, the Celtic bandsman previously quoted, had played on ships with Hartley, and in April 1912 told the New York Times: “I don’t suppose he waited to be sent for, but after finding how dangerous the situation was he probably called his men together and began playing. I know that he often said that music was a bigger weapon for stopping disorder than anything on earth. He knew the value of the weapon he had, and I think he proved his point.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“Whether or not they had traveled down to Southampton on the boat train that arrived early in the morning of April 10, the musicians would have joined the crowd of second-and third-class passengers streaming toward berths 43/44 of the White Star’s dock, where the majestic Titanic lay with its bow pointed at the Solent. They would have boarded by the second-class entrance on C Deck, toward the back of the ship, and taken the elevator or staircase two flights down to E Deck, where there was a designated musicians’ room on the starboard side with three sets of bunk beds, drawers, a wardrobe, a basin, and a separate cabin in which to store their instruments. A second room, again for 5 musicians was on the port side, squeezed between a room for washing potatoes, and accomodation for its workers. It’s likely that the ‘saloon orchestra’ took the better cabin.1”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“This was why the band emerged as such heroes. Not only had they behaved dutifully and without apparent concern for their own safety, but they also offered the hope that not all of the younger male generation were venial, lazy, proud, irreligious, inconsiderate, self-indulgent, weak-willed, and timorous. The example of the band suggested that the doom mongers may have got it wrong because, unlike soldiers, they hadn’t trained to face danger and had come straight to the deck from the heart of early-twentieth-century splendor and luxury. If eight random men could display such strength of character in unison on the spur of the moment, the chances were that any other eight men randomly selected would react in the same way.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“All of the band members had been raised as churchgoers—Bricoux, Krins, and Clarke as Catholics, Hume as a Congregationalist, Woodward and Hartley as Methodists, Brailey and Taylor as Anglicans. Harley and Taylor had sung in choirs, and Hume played his violin in church. It’s impossible to determine the commitment they each had to the religion of their birth, but it’s likely that they all had knowledge of and affection for hymns.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“There is a need for wisdom in art. Shock, surprise, novelty, and innovation helped to grab attention but are not substantial in themselves.”
― Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

“gathered around him, Jack Cash passed away. The next day the body lay in an open”
― Steve Turner, The Man Called Cash: The Life, Love and Faith of an American Legend

“There is only one account of the musicians making their way to their position. It comes from stewardess Violet Jessop, who knew Woodward and Hume from their time on the Olympic. She was in her bunk on either E or F Deck and heard a “low, rending, crunching, ripping sound” on impact but didn’t leave her cabin until the call to lifeboats came. On the way up the stairs she passed Captain Smith, J. Bruce Ismay, Chief Purser Herbert McElroy, and the ship’s surgeon, Dr. O’Laughlin, none of whom seemed overly concerned. She wrote that as she turned at the top of the staircase, “I ran into Jock, the bandleader and his crowd with their instruments. ‘Funny, they must be going to play,’ thought I, and at this late hour! Jock smiled in passing, looking rather pale for him, remarking, ‘Just going to give them a tune to cheer things up a bit,’ and passed on.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“American Recordings was not only a testament”
― Steve Turner, The Man Called Cash: The Life, Love and Faith of an American Legend

“In a similar way, the arts can act on God’s side by preserving beauty and drawing out the highest achievements capable by humans. The arts can help preserve and renew cultures, and this is a good thing in itself.”
― Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

“It can be difficult for contemporary commentators to appreciate the place that hymns occupied in the lives of typical Edwardians. They were not indicators of doom and gloom but of hope and joy. They were also a register of commonly held assumptions about the most important issues in life. The difference between the early twentieth century and the early twenty-first century can be illustrated by Elizabeth Nye’s reminiscence: “On Sunday the 14th it became very cold. We couldn’t stay out on deck so we all came together in the dining room for a hymn sing.” It’s hard to imagine passengers on a twenty-first-century cruise liner opting for such an alternative.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“When survivors specifically mentioned that hymns were played, the consensus was that it was toward the end. It would make sense that the band members played the popular tunes as the lifeboats were loaded and the more reflective pieces once they only had themselves and their destinies to contemplate.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“His moral character and his personal assurance that death was not the end must have stirred his bandsmen, all of whom had at least grown up in the church. The choice of “Nearer, My God, to Thee” was almost certainly due to Hartley’s familiarity with the hymn and love for its message, something he had already confirmed to friends. Would the band have behaved in the same way under a dissolute and immoral leader or would someone not raised on the music of the church have chosen a hymn to restore calm amidst tragedy?”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“become a convenient European location for”
― Steve Turner, Beatles '66: The Revolutionary Year

“A Bíblia não nos diz como produzir programas de de rádio ou editar jornais, mas tem muito a dizer sobre prioridades. (p. 89)”
― Steve Turner, Engolidos pela Cultura Pop: arte, media e consumo: uma abordagem cristã

“The full implications of the new hiring arrangements instituted by the Blacks were now being felt. No longer employees of the shipping line, the musicians were not covered by insurance taken out for employees, nor were they covered by the Workmen’s Compensation Act (1906), which generally gave a worker “a right against his employer to a certain compensation on the mere occurrence of an accident where the common law gives the right only for negligence of the employer.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“During the next two years, the immensity of the Titanic tragedy would be pored over in many books, magazines, and newspaper specials, but in the summer of 1914 came the start of the First World War and deaths on a previously unimaginable scale. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, more than twenty thousand British troops were killed—the equivalent of thirteen Titanic disasters. By the end of the conflict, almost six million soldiers fighting against Germany had lost their lives. The war helped push the Titanic to the back of people’s minds as words such as tragedy and disaster took on new and deeper meanings. 15”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“Any honest reflection on life will deal with imperfection. The difference in a Christian artist’s work should be that the depraved will seem depraved, and the ugly will seem ugly. Christians should be distinguished from those who suggest that depravity is normal or that evil is good.”
― Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

“Ice fields were an ever-present threat to transatlantic ships at this time of year and after only two days at sea the Titanic had begun to receive warnings from eastbound ships. On April 14 alone, it had heard from the Caronia, Noordam, Baltic, Amerika, Californian, and Mesaba. One message wasn’t passed to the bridge, one was passed on but ended up in J. Bruce Ismay’s pocket, and yet another was ignored as the Titanic’s wireless operators struggled with the volume of messages needing to be sent on behalf of passengers. When the iceberg that would do the damage was first spotted, it was only around five hundred yards away. The engines were consequently cut and the ship turned toward port by the helmsman, but there wasn’t enough time to sufficiently navigate so large a vessel and therefore, although the bow avoided the ice, the starboard side rubbed along it in what at the time seemed like a glancing blow.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic

“The collision with the Hawke affected the Titanic. Not only was a diversion of effort required, but the only speedy way of repairing the damaged propeller was to replace it with one destined for the Titanic. It forced White Star to shift the date of the Titanic’s maiden voyage—as announced in September 1911—from March 20, 1912, to April 10, 1912. If the Hawke and the Olympic had never met, then neither would the iceberg and the Titanic.”
― Steve Turner, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic