Brent has a Ph.D. in American culture, specializing in film studies, from the University of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses in the history of American cinema. In the following essay, she discusses the relationship between art and religion in Lippmann's work.

In a chapter of Walter Lippmann's A Preface to Morals entitled "Lost Provinces," Lippmann discusses three areas of human society that are "lost provinces" of religious authority: business, the family, and art. Of the three, Lippmann reserves his most extensive discussion for the history of artistic creation in relation to the history of religion. He argues that while art was for centuries almost entirely dictated by religious doctrine, in the modern age art has lost its moorings to religion and now drifts in the realm of philosophical uncertainty and chaos. Although Lippmann's discussion of art represents a small section of A...