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Culture

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much information that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distraction." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
Neil Postman Amusing Ourselves to Death (pg. vii-viii)

Our goal is certainly to see the Great Commission fulfilled, and to see all the world worshipping God the Father through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. And of course, wanting this for the world means that we want it for Moscow too. We are Christians, after all. We believe the Christian faith is true and right and lovely. So of course we want it for others. But are we going to get there by Passing a Law? Making a Rule? No, that is how secularists want to change things - better living though Making Other People Do Things. They not only love the Politics of Coercion, they cannot understand anyone who does not think the same way they do. But this particular inability to understand the Christian mindset is precisely why Sauron fell. He simply could not understand how anyone could have the ring of power, and then just throw it away. Think of the good that could have been done with that ring! We could have had building projects! Taxes! Prisons! Muzzles! Whips and chains! Spacious re-education camps for the intolerant! Free burlap NPR bags for everyone left! So then, once again, we are not pursuing any agenda through political means. So how do we want to get there then? Just remember our three L's:
1. Liturgy
2. Lovemaking
3. Laughter
To this, our adversaries reply with their one L, a swollen L with a thyroid problem: Laws.
Doug Wilson

We won’t bore you with the fourteen entries under culture in the Dictionary of Philosophy or the countless books by orthodox, neo-orthodox, modernist, pagan, and other scholars on the subject of culture. We’ll simply cut to the chase by quoting the best and most concise definition of culture that we know of, which was given by Henry Van Til (nephew of Dr. Cornelius Van Til): Culture is religion externalized and made explicit. To this insightful definition must be added one of the dictionary’s senses of the word culture: the ideas, customs, skills, arts, etc. of a people that are transferred, communicated, or passed along as in or to succeeding generations…and (let me add) in the public square. Culture, as we understand it, is not simply a matter of personal preferences, or likes and dislikes, but it is a matter of public preferences. The shared space is where we find culture, not in the private and personal space (although it extends there). How things are viewed that occur in the private space is a matter of culture. If you know what somebody does at home and you disapprove of it, that’s an expression of cultural disapproval, but your opinion is not an expression of culture itself. In fact, in such a case, culture influenced you and informed your disapproval. Culture, then, is the publicly explicit expression of a people’s shared religion.
Steve Schlissel from Christian Culture in a Multicultural Age

"I have no confidence in Christian Culture. I have confidence in Christ reigning through the gospel." - Rick Phillips

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